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CASE REPORT 2
MANAGEMENT CONCEPTS
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TABLE OF CONTENTS
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1.0 Introduction.3
2.0 Issue Identification.4
3.0 Critical Discussion4
3.1 Scenario Planning.5
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3.2 MBO.6
4.0 Recommendation.6
5.0 Conclusion.7
6.0 Reference List.8
7.0 Appendix.9
7.1 Appendix: SWOT Analysis..9
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1.0 Introduction"
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Flight Centre is an Australian travel agency that has been successful since its
foundation in 1981 due to its successfully oriented culture. This organisation
is considered as a leader in travel agencies because of its unique working
environment. It uses managerial structure to achieve its goals. Although
Flight Centre has achieved success due to its working environment, it is
evident that there are some problems with the management. The major
issues are the lack of scenario planning and management by objective in
their working structure. As the global environment is changing day by day, so
Flight Centre needs to change its strategy with the changing environment.
Scenario planning is an open system that focuses on short and long term
benefits and difficulties, and management by objective helps managers to
interact with all staff and come up with suitable solutions for any issues
that arise. These planning strategies are used by companies to overcome
their problems interim of any long and short term goals achievement. This
case report examines the role of scenario planning and management by
objective to resolve the issue of Flight Centre and recommends the steps
that the company can take in order to implement scenario planning and
management by objective.

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2.0 Issue Identification"

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Uncertainty in the environment has a negative impact on an organisation,
which can lead to problem arising in an organisation. Thus the organisation
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should plan something to overcome problems with this changing

environment. Fluctuations in the economy, political changes e.g. terrorism,
climate changes and other factors can affect Flight Centre as it is a travel
agency that has connection throughout the world, so it needs to be aware of
all these changing environments and amend its strategies according to the
changing global circumstances. As for instance, the incident of September
11, 2001 had a big impact all around the world which changed many things
including peoples views about travel. Due to the changing customer
expectations, Flight Centre should be aware that present customers in the
new generation will expect different destinations than those of the old
generation. Some customers are attracted towards eco environment so the
Flight Centre should have a deep knowledge of customer expectations to
remain viable in this competitive market. This shows that, along with
changes in the environment, Flight Centre should also amend its
organisational structure to avoid any issues and can remain in the market
successfully and can meet customer expectations. Management of the
organisation also has to keep pace with the fast growing market, as more
people are exposed to tourism with the help of the media and the internet
resulting in more and more people travelling with each passing day.

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3.0 Critical Discussion

To remain in competitive market Flight Centre should use such strategies

that they can remain current with the changing environment and meet
customer expectations. Planning plays a vital role in an organisations
management structure to keep pace with current situation and achieve
organisational goals. The two planning strategies that will be discussed in
this report are scenario planning and management by objectives.

3.1 Scenario Planning

Scenario planning is also known as long term contingency planning. Scenario

planning is not forecasting about the future but it is consideration of
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uncertainties of the future and the managers create certain strategies to

overcome any upcoming uncertainties. Scenario planning has many benefits
as it can help the organisation to improve their time management. (Remirez
and selin, 2014, p.56) argued that Scenario planning can serve as a time
reckoning system where sense is made forward and backward, drawing in
both retrospective and prospective sense making iteratively. It is evident
from the above reference that the scenario planning in accordance with
other benefits also helps organisation to save time as it helps to deal with
the past as well as future scenarios. (Maggs,& Chelin, 2013, p.66) Scenario
planning attempts to compensate for both under-prediction and over
prediction of change, two common errors in decision making. It allowed for
both, chart a middle course between these two potential extremes and
expand the range of possibilities that could be envisaged, while also
preventing from drifting into the realms of fantasy. This shows that the
scenario planning helps to consider the future scenes which might happen
and helps the organisation to create a suitable strategy for the future
scenarios so that they can get over it by that time. Kahane(2012, p.20)
suggested that Through working together in the scenario team, they
enlarge their empathy for and trust in other actors in the team and across
the system, and their ability and willingness to work together. This
strengthening of cross-system relationships is often the most important and
enduring output of such projects. The reference from Kahane is an
example that how actors can work in a team using scenario planning. So the
reference from above makes it evident that by using scenario planning one
can work in a team to overcome the management issues.

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3.2 Management By Objective

Management by objective is a planning technique in which the managers

interact with the staff for the planning and current issues. The staff in
accordance with managers sit and discuss about the current issues and give
a strategy to resolve that issue. Duffy (1989, p.163) suggested that MBO
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uses either a bottom-up or bilateral information flow, and encourages

feedback as well as co-determination of objectives, goals, schedules,
measurement variables, and control means by all affected management
levels. By above reference it is evident that this planning strategy involves
the staff from all effective levels to discuss all the scenarios and deal with
issues. To support the above argument (Ford, McLaughlin,& Nixdorf, 1980, p.
88) claimed that it can be defined as a planning strategy that involves the
employee from all levels to interact with the managers for goal setting,
participation and feedback. So this supports the fact that for an
organisation to be successful it is vital to engage the customers from all
levels to interact with each other and work on the common organisational
goal. (Kyriakopoulas, 2012, p.1773) claimed that the MBO theory is
successfully in the market for over five years with positive impact. This
shows the importance of MBO in the business market that it has been used
in the market for many years with positive outcomes.

4.0 Recommendations

As in the past many disturbing events had occurred which had a negative
impact on the business market. Due to these uncertainties the companies
have faced many problems and in future some other problems might occur
so for Flight Centre in order to avoid any of these kind of situation it should
use scenario planning and management by objectives. By using these
strategies they can still remain successful in the market. As for scenario
planning it is of many uses it can help Flight Centre to have a broad view of
all kind of scenarios that can occur and how it can overcome those kind of
situations. In addition, scenario planning can also help Flight Centre to
improve their time management. By taking view of the past problems and
considering future problems they can also create strategies to overcome
these kind of troubles. Flight Centre also enables people to work in a group
so this can enhance their ability to cooperate and coordinate with each
other. In addition, Flight centre should use MBO as by above it is evident
that it has been floating in market since five decades which proves that it
has been successful ands used by many organisations. by using management
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by objective the managers of Flight Centre can interact with their

employees os all levels and can work together on common goals and they
can identify several issues which they can resolve more easily. If Flight
Centre uses these recommendations as by the references it will help it to
stay successful in the competitive market.

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5.0 Conclusion

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In adopting managerial structure flight centre has gained many benefits but
with benefits it has also faced some issues. In the theory discussed above it
shows that the Flight Centre was successful but with the changing
environment it needs amend its strategies and should use scenario planning
and management by objective to remain successful in the market. These
recommendations will help Flight Centres to create strategies that are
useful for organisation to a void any issues and achieve their goals.

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6.0 REFERENCE LIST
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Ramrez, R., & Selin, C. (2014). Plausibility and probability in scenario

planning. Foresight : The Journal of Futures Studies, Strategic Thinking
and Policy, 16(1), 54-74. doi:http://
dx.doi.org.libraryproxy.griffith.edu.au/10.1108/FS-08-2012-0061
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Maggs, P., & Chelin, J. (2013). Scenario planning for an uncertain future?
Library Management, 34(8), 664-676. doi:http://
dx.doi.org.libraryproxy.griffith.edu.au/10.1108/LM-02-2013-0017
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Kahane, A. (2012). Transformative scenario planning: Changing the future
by exploring alternatives. Strategy & Leadership, 40(5), 19-23.
doi:http://dx.doi.org.libraryproxy.griffith.edu.au/
10.1108/10878571211257140
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Duffy, M. F. (1989). ZBB, MBO, PPB AND THEIR EFFECTIVENESS WITHIN
THE PLANNING/MARKETING PROCESS. Strategic Management Journal
(1986-1998), 10(2), 163. Retrieved from http://
search.proquest.com.libraryproxy.griffith.edu.au/docview/231116967?
accountid=14543
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Ford, R. C., McLaughlin, F. S., & Nixdorf, J. (1980). TEN QUESTIONS
ABOUT MBO. California Management Review (Pre-1986), 23(000002), 88.
Retrieved from http://search.proquest.com.libraryproxy.griffith.edu.au/
docview/206310265?accountid=14543
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Kyriakopoulos, G. (2012). Half a century of management by objectives
(MBO): A review. African Journal of Business Management, 6(5),
1772-1786. doi:http://dx.doi.org.libraryproxy.griffith.edu.au/10.5897/
AJBM10.1585
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7.0 appendix

7.1 SWOT Analysis

Strengths

Diverse working culture

Successful background

Weaknesses

Competition in market

Old management strategies

Depends on Australian market

Opportunities

Can become global leader

e-booking as it is easy for customers

customers trust because of brand name

Threats

Competitors can overcome its position

AUD is fluctuating

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