British Airways Corporate Strategy

British Airways Corporate Strategy

Introduction

Strategic planning is the course of action that an organization carries out to ascertain its mission and way forward. According to Rodrigo (2012) "Strategic planning helps an organization provide a direction to implement and achieve its objectives both in the short and the long run." He however adds that it is not every plan that is chalked out by the organization that can be  termed as strategic. For that reason it is very important that the strategic intent of an organization is entrenched on the actions and policies that will have a deep effect on future positively in an organization. Quoting Schneider and De Meyer (1991) Rodrigo (2012) notes that "seeking out new markets customer attraction or the expansion of business operations are some pointers which an organization look forward to strategically."

Mintzberg and Waters (1985) (quoted in Rodrigo, 2012) assert that in order to realize a strategy the initial phase of strategy formulation should be error free, otherwise the strategy would not be executed in a befitting manner. Therefore the strategy development process should follow a pre-designed path to achieve the objective. The organization chosen to study in the light of the resource based theory and its evaluation with regards to its strategic capabilities is ‘British Airways’.

Corporate Strategy Map

Business level strategies

In order to map the business level strategies of British Airways one must first define what it means to gain a clear understanding of what exactly we are mapping. According to Albany.com Business level strategies outline actions taken to bring value to customers and gain a competitive advantage by using core competencies in specific, individual product or service markets.

The business level strategies for British Airways can be mapped by first identifying the focus of the company. The mission statement in British Airways(2007) is to become the world’s most responsible Airline. Then one would need to know how they are going to get there. The core competencies of the organization will point to the strategies they will implement to achieve their goals.

 The core competencies of British Airways is to provide premium quality service and flight to every major city in the world as illustrated below by Hayre (2014):