Executive Summary
This assignment requires a writer to write a report of any organisation which is involved in
transportation and communication industry. The aim and purpose of this report is to examine the
strategic management process to one of the industries. The strategic management process will be
more emphasise in this report where its importance in the organisation play an important factor
in order for the organisation to grow and expand. Malaysia Airlines (MAS) have been chosen as
an organisation for this report. Malaysia Airlines is a commercial air travel organisation where
they provide transportation service throughout the world, specifically 850 destinations in 150
countries. The organisation company profile will explain more about the history of the
organisation itself which are the founder of the organisation, the year it start its services,
location, service range, revenue and turnover report. After that, a strategic analysis of the
Malaysia Airlines will be explained more which includes general environment, internal
environment and competitive environment. In general environment, the weakness of the
organisation needs to analyse before the problems and weaknesses itself will take toll towards
the organisation. The tool which is going to be used to overcome the weaknesses are pest
analysis and swot analysis which consecutively serve its purposes to analyse internal and
external factors. In internal environment, a situation that can impact Malaysia Airlines business
will be evaluated. It is divided into two categories, value chain analysis and resource based view.
Value chain analysis will be used to add value to the organisation itself while resource based
view will be use to explain how the resources of the organisation can be use to become an
advantage, competitively. After done doing that, strategic formulation is needed for Malaysia
Airlines. A proper plan and strategy are needed to achieve the organisation main objectives.
Business level strategy and corporate level strategy will be use to explain the competitive
advantage and how corporate parent helps its subsidiary company to grow and expand.
International strategy is also in included in the strategic formulation in order for Malaysia
Airlines to develop its level of competencies and future potential in international arena.
Implementation of that international strategy will take to action after evaluation and analysis. In
the implementation strategy, a leader with a broad scope of vision and mission is needed in order
for the action plan to become reality. With a great leadership skill, the employees will be inspired
to work more efficient to achieve the objective that had been set. All the explanation above are
supported with proper references using journals, books, internet, articles and updated data from
Malaysia Airlines from its company report. Lastly, a conclusion will be made to conclude all of
the information from the report.
TABLE OF CONTENT
Executive summary.........................................................................................................................i
1.0 Introduction..............................................................................................................................1
1.1 Company Profile.......................................................................................................................1
2.0 Strategic Analysis.....................................................................................................................2
2.1 General Environment................................................................................................................2
2.1.1 Scenario Planning...................................................................................................................2
2.1.2 Pest Analysis........................................................................................................................3-4
2.1.3 Swot Analysis........................................................................................................................5
2.2 Competitive Environment.........................................................................................................6
2.2.1 Porters Five Forces.............................................................................................................6-7
2.2.2 Strategic Groups....................................................................................................................7
2.3 Internal Environment................................................................................................................7
2.3.1 Value Chain Analysis.............................................................................................................8
2.3.2 Resource Based View............................................................................................................8
3.0 Strategy Formulation................................................................................................................9
3.1 Business Level Strategy............................................................................................................9
3.1.1 Industry Life Cycle................................................................................................................9
3.1.2 Differentiation...................................................................................................................9-10
3.2 Corporate Level Strategy.........................................................................................................10
3.2.1 Growth Strategies.................................................................................................................10
3.2.2 Corporate Parenting..............................................................................................................11
3.2.3 Strategy Evaluation...............................................................................................................11
3.3 International Strategy...............................................................................................................12
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1.0 Introduction
Malaysian Airline System Berhad is the primary airline of Malaysia. Malaysia Airlines (MAS)
operates flights from Kuala Lumpur International Airport mainly and with a secondary hub
at Kota Kinabalu and Kuching. From the report, the strategic management of Malaysia Airlines
is analysed. The report is produced for Mr Mathew Teale. Most of the resources in this report are
based on report and journal. Besides, articles and newspapers are also being used as the
secondary resources. Gather from latest data, Malaysia Airlines has revenue worth as much as
RM13 billion. In stategy management, there are Strategy Analysis, Strategy Formulation and
Strategy Implementation which are the process to overcome that external factor which consist of
objective to fulfil(Hambrick, 2007). Under the effect of globalization, the world has changed in
every sector and those changes had influenced most of the corporation activities with obstacles to
execute their strategy. A company's finances will be affected if their management fails to
formulate and implement the most efficient and suitable strategy. Strategy analysis, strategy
formulation and strategy implementation are the fundamentals to solve negative factors
regardless what is the problems.
Company Profile
Malaysia Airlines was founded in 1937 through an idea by the Alfred Holt's Ocean Steamship
Company in liverpool work together with the Imperial Airways in from Britain and Straits
Steamship Company in Singapore.
Limited(MAL) on the same year. As usual, this airline faced different types of industrial
challenges throughout these seven decades. Therefore, the company had improved and
repackaged their image and services. Malaysia Airlines started their flight services originated in
Subang Airport and later relocate to Kuala Lumpur International Airport (KLIA). Malaysia
Airlines serve different class of customers in society pyramid. Therfore, Malaysia Airlines
provide different class of seatings which are first class, business class, and economic class.
According to Malaysia Airlines Annual Report on 2012, incredible loss of RM481,457,000 was
hit after the loss on 2011 which was two billion. This shows the incapabilities of management in
Malaysia Airlines to manage the company. Therefore, the management needs to be rearranged
and restructured. Besides, Malaysia Airlines are facing more competitors in the industry such as
Airasia. To overcome this challenge, Malaysia Airlines tried to upkeep with their competitors by
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providing high quality of services in order to win customer's faith and loyalty so that they could
have stable coming back customers. Their strategy was a success and this can be seen when
several awards are awarded by Skytrax UK and World Travel Awards. The awards are the Asias
Leading Airline(2011), Asias Leading Business Class Airline (2010) and Five Star Airline
(2012). Malaysia Airlines built up their image as the top airline in Malaysia by winning those
award.
way to stop this situation continue to grow, Malaysia Airline should really consider and think
deeply of their scenario planning. Besides, the ultimate growth of Airline industry shows
influence to Malaysia Airline scenario planning. Therefore, Malaysia Airline should make use of
PEST and SWOT analysis to identify deeply their market environment.
Airlines biggest expenses will be the crews wages and fuel expenses. As global fuel price is
increasing, it influenced Malaysia Airlines operating cost for sure which will directly result the
loss in their profit. Besides, unstable fuel price that influenced economy will affect their shares
price in stock exchange too. (sharif, Ranjbar and Arumugam , 2011). Furthermore, Malaysia
Airlines had increased their flight ticket fares as a way to cover up the administration and
operating cost. As the increment of ticket fares occurred, local citizens with lower or medium
income holders to lessen their frequency to travel on flight. Besides, one of the undeniable
factors is inflation which causes the value of money to be lowered extra money from the wages
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unable to do much extra occasion planning. Prior to the Asian Financial Crisis in 1997, Malaysia
Airlines suffered in the massive losses of RM260million. As a way to overcome the crisis, the
airlines cut a lot of routes which are unprofitable such as Brussels, Darwin, Honolulu, Madrid,
Munich and Vancouver. Besides, approximately a decade later in 2011, frightening loss of
RM2.52billion was achieved by Malaysia Airlines and breaks its historical record. This
incident had push the management to terminate the flight to Surabaya, Karachi, Dubai,
Johannesburg in January of the same year. The action was unable to calm the managements who
later ceased the routes to Cape Town, Buenos Aires and Rome in February 2011.
For social factor, we know that there are different types of people with different preference in
this country, so with different culture and thinking in society, not everyone would like to use
flight as their transportation option. This is due to the fear factor that stuck in their heart to feel
insecure with the flight transportation. Therefore, safety is always one of the main feature to be
concerned and make sure the society feel safe with their services. Safety instructions are being
briefed before the flight depart every time and this can prevent chaos to occur if there is any
accident occurs. Besides, insurance is also one of the option for customer to purchase in their
flight ticket. This can relieve the insecurity of passengers when they choose to use Malaysia
Airlines.
In terms of technology, Internet has lead our world to globalization and information explosion
era. Malaysia Airlines sees this as an opportunity to promote their company services to the youth
conveniently. The customers can purchase the flight tickets easily from their website rather than
drive to their branches and queue up which will be even more expensive and time consuming.
Hence, Malaysia Airlines is able to deduct and decrease overhead cost and their budget in extra
offices and infrastructure. However, not everyone are well-skilled in using the internet and some
of the rural areas in our country still lack of such services which seems common in most of the
city. Besides, credit or debit card is a necessity in order to purchase from online ticketing system
which also will be a obstacle for some of the senior citizens. Lastly, we shall concern about the
stability of Malaysia Airlines proxy server which is overloaded sometimes.
risen to 26.5%. As a result of that, Malaysia Airlines can manage to get a lot of profit in this
growing industry by exploiting the opportunities and turn it into a profit.
In threats, fuel price have been a problem for Malaysian Airlines for years. Inevitably, Malaysia
Airlines operating cost may also increase if the fuel prices increase. Not only that, international
airlines such as Cathay Pacific Airways, Singapore International Airways and Garuda Indonesia
Airways are competing with Malaysia Airlines internationally and Air Asia domestically. The
threat of new entrant also be a factor for Malaysia Airlines to deal with if financial institution
policy changes. Lower interest rate and credit loan willallownew airliners to enter the industry.
The more new airliners enter the industry; the likelihood of Malaysia Airlines to struggle in the
business will be higher. In order to cope with that, Malaysia Airlines need to be more prepared.
There are two companies that are competing against each other in the aircraft manufacturing
industry which are Boeing and Airbus. Since Malaysia Airlines are choosing Boeing as their
main aircraft, therefore, Boeing has no option to increase their aircraft prices. If Boeing increases
their aircraft price, most probably Malaysia Airlines will change their aircraft to Airbus.
Consequently, Malaysia Airlines can use its bargaining power of consumer to bargain the aircraft
price. This undoubtedly will be an advantage to Malaysia Airlines to save their buying cost that
led Boeing with no other choice to sell its aircraft to Malaysia Airlines since theyre having a
tough time in competing in the aircraft manufacturing industry.
The bargaining power of suppliers is depending on the numbers of alternatives the consumer has.
For Malaysia Airlines, it is difficult to change to another aircraft manufacturer such as Airbus
since their maintenance staff areexperienced with Boeings aircraft. By changing the aircraft
manufacturer, Malaysia Airlines need to spend a lot of money to train their maintenance staff
which and switching cost is high.Therefore, the power of suppliers cannot be a negative factor
since Malaysia Airlines only rely on one aircraft manufacturer. Plus, the power of suppliers is
insignificant where Malaysia Airlines has their own aircraft maintenance subsidiary company.
For fuel, the bargaining power of suppliers is not really high since in Malaysia there is only little
petrol organization and the price is set by the government.
3.1.2 Differentiation
Malaysia Airlines impose differentiation strategy by creating various types of seat class such as
Economic Class, Business Class and First Class. This is to ensure that all the variety of services
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that being offer are affordable for the different type of customers. It is also to increase the
advantages in competing by delivering the value added product to differentiate Malaysia Airlines
services from other airline competitors. Adding to that, by letting the customers choose what
type of services they want, the loyalty of the customer would be increased. This shows that
Malaysia Airlines are coping with price sensitivity, switching cost, higher entry barriers and
threat of substitutes, in the five forces. As a result, Malaysia Airlines has successfully competed
in the airline price wars that let the company to gain back profit in 2011.
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choose Malaysia Airlines that in the end would increase their sales, profit and penetrate the
international market.
luckily Malaysia Airlines have their own resources for these three needs where they have their
own aircraft maintenance subsidiary company and support from Malaysia government.In
marketing their product, Malaysia Airlines can use its global brand name to maximize marketing
efficiency. For this reason, Malaysia Airlines should use this opportunity to expand their wing in
the international market. Nonetheless, Malaysia Airlines also need to be aware and choose the
right strategy if they want to penetrate the market.
It can be said that Malaysia Airlines leadership has weaknesses in scenario planning that causes
market share and revenue losses. For this reason, leadership of Malaysia Airlines should apply
the vision trait in order to cope with changes and for the sake of the company continuity. When
leaders are able to master the vision trait, it will be easier for them to collaborate, motivate, trust,
and interdependence amongst their staff. Plus, the coordination and path of Malaysia Airlines
will be in the same direction of achieving common objectives that may lead Malaysia Airlines to
a bigger industry.
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Malaysia Airlines is now operating in a competitive environment. So, the vision of leadership
cant be sluggish. Leader task is not just dealing with external factors but also playing an
important role on observing employees attitude. Therefore, a leader should know and oblige to
inspire and motivate employees if theyre lacking with something that will affect the vision of
the company. Giving the employees rewards are the best thing to do in making the company
vision to become a reality.
Leader needs to be proactive in handling situation. The needs of keeping the vision on the right
track and the same time monitoring its progress is necessary so that Malaysia Airlines will be
more prepare in enduring and responding towards the changes that happen. Moreover,
democratic leader is important where the leaders itself can put themselves with the employees
and communicate with the employees. Encouragement and understanding can be developing
with the employees if any conflict happen and then settle together as a team. By doing this, the
work rate and performance of Malaysia Airlines will improve and in the end will increase the
profit and maximizes the resources that they have.
Poor leadership has been one of many factors that cost their profit losses and customer loyalty.
By implying a proper marketing strategy, Malaysia Airlines will be able to challenge the local
airline industry. Adding to that, improvement in every managing structure in each state division
is a must since the capabilities and set of skills of each employee can be outdated under some
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circumstances. Thus, changes and improvements are needed in order to comply with customers
needs and achieving goals.
Malaysia Airlines are now using divisional structure to conduct their corporate parenting by
dividing resources in each division. It is essential for them in order to gain profit. Using this
structure, Malaysia Airlines are decentralizing the power of making decision to each division and
that give a clearer goal to the employees to achieve. Nevertheless, the plentiful number of
divisions will cost a lot and sharing of knowledge will be lesser. To respond to that, Malaysia
Airlines should manage all the division under one command center by using network structure
and all the information gathered need to be transmitted to headquarter.
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Malaysia Airlines as corporate parent also need to use control and reward system in order to
increase the motivation of the employees to achieve goals that being set. By means of giving
them reward based on their performance, the employees tendency of performing at their best
most likely will be high. By doing this, a more standardize employee performance can be
achieved. In addition, controlling the employees is not necessarily being strict with them but
being understanding is the greatest option to choose where employees automatically will increase
their work rate that will lead Malaysia Airlines to compete vigorously in the industry.
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Conclusion
Strategic management is very important for every organisation. Small organisation to giant
organisation requires strategic management to expand and improve their managing ability.
Adding to that, it can also help them to compete in the industry where all the strategies can be
used to cope with the industry competitiveness itself. Strategic analysis, scenario planning,
PEST and SWOT analysis, Porter five forces, strategic formulation, strategic implementation;
and other strategies are important to imply within the organization. Not just for the sake of
getting profit, but also for long term future. All of the strategies mentioned above can help
Malaysia Airlines to increase their profits and cover their losses. Not just that, the strategies also
can help dealing with the external factors such as competitors, policies, and most importantly the
internal environment itself. Efficiency, cost saving and opportunity exploitation can be achieved
if the strategies are carried out with proper planning. In conclusion, strategic management are not
just a strategy but it can make as a stepping stone to achieve success where it can be used to
analyze strengths and weaknesses that surely will put Malaysia Airlines at great advantages.
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