Bringing Life Back to Continental Airlines, Case Study Example

Introduction

The field of airline industries continues to rise in terms of popularity especially in line with the current condition of the tourism industries. Relatively though, the organizations competing for the development of the industry face different aspects of challenges especially in relation to their performance from the point of the beginning of industry towards its current condition. Continental Airlines is one among the many competing entities in the field of the past and current systems of airline industries. Rotating operations and the different changes that the industry undergoes through the years subject organizations into the need of completing particular adjustments that would allow them to conditionally present the best of their assets and use their capacity to go more than what the other organizations are imposing in their operations. With the twists and turns of the industry through the years, how Continental Airlines survived the waves of change shall be presented in the business analysis that is to be presented herein.

Business Case Specifics

Continental airlines, like other organizations in the industry, try its best to become one of the top competitors to be able to make a distinctive impact on the market they are aiming to target. During the 1970s, Continental airlines hoped to gain much benefit from the deregulation of the airline industry. This imposed that airlines could already establish a sense of control on the fare rate that they are going to present their services with. This allowed them to manage their services on their own through creating their own sets of market offers. Creating a service fashioned to the demands of the target market that they are aiming to serve, this era in the airline industry served as an era of freedom, a liberty that allowed the companies to establish a name and reputation that the market would best be able to manifest their excellence in relation to the function of the industry.

The entrance of Bethune in the airline as the CEO created so much in relation to how the organization operates in the industry. In relation to how the business handles comprehensive competition, it has been shown that Bethune observed a wrong-direction of attention that the administrators put their eyes into. Instead of utilizing the organization as a whole, the focus of the administrators on simply getting the right amount of profit within a specific defined date or span of time made it harder for them to utilize the real assets that they have especially in relation to the people or the man power that they have under their command (Kleiman, 2011, 41).

The internal relations of the organization towards their own employees seem to have diminished in value because of the direction of attention that the administrators use in relation to the decisions they make in connection with the creation of the new services they want to offer the market with. In 1994, the organization was ranked last among eight prominent airlines in the United States. The measurement of the ranking was based on how the airlines performed during the past four years and how they are being specifically recognized by the market. The feedback from the market mattered so much especially in consideration with the reputation that the business has put up as a recognizable result of the efforts they put forth for the sake of the company’s reestablished name in the industry.

As a result to this diminishing level of recognizable reputation in the industry, the company’s workers felt less important in the process of gaining prestige among other organizations that they are competing with. Notably, this incident has lowered down the employees’ morale in relation to how they are being viewed by others in the field. Some employees even say that when they are asked where they work, they simply say that they work at an airline [they do not particularly want to say what airline they work for as they think that the name Continental Airlines simply bring about a notion of low-level service and low-quality client-assistance on the part of the staff]. The emergence of this culture in the business created so much issue especially in line with the development of the services that they offer their clients with. The less motivated the staff became, the lower the quality of the service became. This in turn manifested a sense of business-drop on the part of the organization hence placing them at the end rank of the measurement that the industry experts used to define the function and the reputation of each business entity that is trying to win the competition they were enjoined in.

Being a man of work and a trained individual from his younger years, Gordon Bethune knew that something needed to be done especially in relation to how the people worked for the organization. Going from the inner sector of the business to affect their external performance was the primary approach to adjustment that Bethune wanted to adapt in relation to the situation that the business is facing. Taking from the condition of leadership that Bob Six imposed in the business during its ‘hay days’, Bethune adapted the process of reestablishing a motivational pattern that could be used to improve staff performance based on team-defined operations. Making the people realize that they are one and are united in completing the most important aspects of success for their organization is one of the most important keys to finding the solution to the problem that the business faces at the time. The first issues to consider are related to human-connected matters that involved behavioral conditions of realizing the problems that the business had to survive in the face of tough competition in the industry.

Making “reliability as a reality” was a common motto that Bethune believed in and has imposed on the people of Continental. Through the principles of this line, he made it sure that the people understand that they are to work hand in hand to make the organization a reliable source of service in the commercial aviation industry. Working together was a culture that he established in consideration with the desire to make the people understand the role that they have in connection to the success that the business wants to incur. Helping the people understand that the success of the organization would reflect as their own personal achievement made it easier for Bethune to help each individual work towards one goal.  This further created a sense of unity in the business, which was lost due to the blaming-game that happened in the past as the organization plummets to its lowest level of performance.

Conclusion

Regaining the attention of the people working within the organization’s operations towards success is an important key to regaining place in the field of competition. This aspect of success goes specifically real especially for organizations enjoined in a tough performing industry such as that of the commercial aviation. Establishing a name in the service industry that is connected with transport options that could serve the demands of the market is a hard aspect of the business, nevertheless, utilizing the right assets to solve the problems would create a more workable environment for the staff making up the organization. Leadership is an important aspect to note in relation to cases connected to becoming competitive in industries such as that of the commercial aviation operations (Gomez-Mejia, et al, 2008, 20).

Bethune’s understanding of the problem and making the issues as the opportunities for organizational growth teaches a worthy source of definition on how business organizations should be fashioned towards success through improving people-performance.  Proper motivation for the people working in the business was presented to be the best approach to solving the problem hence creating more doors for improvement that the organization could take into consideration towards its future course of development.

References:

Gomez-Mejia, Luis R.; David B. Balkin and Robert L. Cardy (2008). Management: People, Performance, Change, 3rd edition. New York, New York USA: McGraw-Hill. pp. 20.

Kleiman, Lawrence S. (2011). “Management and Executive Development.” Reference for Business: Encyclopedia of Business.