Introduction
Delta Airlines is one of the most important and prosperous airlines in the airline industry. As a typical user and a corporate strategist, I offer my presentation on how the company may use its strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats to gain a competitive advantage and set plans on the future methods to use in its advertisement campaigns. The presentation also reviews the corporate social responsibilities and ethical issues in the company.
SWOT Analysis of Delta Airlines
Delta Airlines enjoys a great customer base due to its large-sized fleets that serve many people in a day. The airlines’ 750 fleet of jets and helicopters allows it to serve many countries and customers in a day (Delta, 2021). The management must acknowledge Delta Airlines’ strength in owning many planes to seek more entry into countries they do not serve.
The company’s weakness depends on the North American market to run its primary operations. Delta Airlines is a comprehensive business and should not rely on one market to make its main profits. Instead, the organization should use its strengths of owning a large fleet to traverse through the various segments of the market to widen the customer base.
Delta Airlines accommodate modern means of advertisement channels to reach its target audience. Using social media platforms is the best method to run advertisements at this time in history. Many targeted audiences focus their attention on social media platforms and receive influence and inspiration through the platforms. Airlines should encourage social media campaigns to create awareness among new customers and remind others of their services.
The greatest threats for the organization lie in the competition sector from other existing and upcoming firms. Competition is part of business and creates an avenue for delivering quality services at considerable prices. Thus, the firm should also focus on methods of dealing with the high competition. Competition creates an imbalance in regular business programming. It creates discomfort, but the firm should not relax, see other rising firms grow, and outdo it passionately running the airline business. Competition should only affect the industry by pushing it to deliver the best quality services.
SWOT Analysis Strategy
High efficiency and low costs will help the company acquire more fleets and promote the brand. Delta Airline saves on fees by purchasing second-hand airplanes, gaining more than competing firms. Low prices and high efficiency will also aid the business in connecting with the most crucial market segment through the use of marketing media that most of the target customers identify with, like social media advertising.
Conversely, to maximize the strengths and opportunities, the firm should maintain high skilled labor and dedicated employees. It can preserve employees by motivating them to work hard towards achieving highly trained marketing strategies and relationship maintenance with the millennials. Delta Airlines should encourage employee creativity and innovation to increase the company’s relatability with the millennials.
Air travel is a growing trend among millennials, and Delta Airlines should have a strategy to increase its service rendering among the entire target audience. Growth management is essential for the business since it helps identify the firm’s strengths and weaknesses and work towards combating them. As a growing company, Delta Airlines should strategize on growth management and extend its operations beyond the Northern American borders to reach a large customer base.
Since Delta Airlines has a high bargaining power as a veteran firm in the industry, it should invest in acquiring competing firms. By acquiring competing firms, the company will control the competition from existing competitors. Merges reduce the rising competition and help in focusing on the market.
Competitiveness Strategy
Cost leadership is an essential aspect of the firm’s competitiveness with others. Cost leadership minimizes non-essential budgets and focuses on the company’s fundamental goals (Hitt, 2020). The strategy also goes concurrently with the firm’s purchase of second-hand fleets minimizing the total cost spent on running the business hence boosting the profit margin.
Conversely, the differentiation strategy targets creating a unique business outlook to deal with the competition. Delta Airlines should have special packages to chatter for their customers. Additionally, the prices and services offered should also be unique from what other firms do.
Profitability Strategy
Consumer satisfaction must be the prime goal of Delta Airlines to maintain long-term relationships with the customers and maximize profitability. When more consumers are satisfied, they prefer using the same means to travel. The excellent relationship created guarantees high returns in terms of profits. Delta Airlines can meet consumer satisfaction by making traveling a remarkable experience for them from the way they treat the customers to the kind of services they offer during the journey. Consumer treatment attracts more customers and maintains old ones generating more revenue and profits.
Cost reduction is a strategy that guarantees a high profitability margin. Reduced costs translate to reduced spending, thus in the final calculation of the profits, the firm reduces the profit with low expenditures to get its net profit. Delta Airlines minimizes costs by purchasing second-hand fleets and owning an oil refinery. Hence, the company minimizes external spending and focuses on generating more income.
Communications Plan
Competition may be high, but the cost leadership strategy matters immensely when a company is growing. Delta Airlines should be keen on competing ethically through internal strategies like cost leadership. Cost leadership regulates the expenditure but still ensures stiff competition with the emerging trends in the industry.
Delta Airlines should use robust advertisement approaches to communicate effectively to its competitors. It should control primary resources that minimize costs and run regular advertisements to indicate its cost leadership and differentiation leadership efforts. Delta Airlines should plan their publicity about cost leadership and differentiation to create a competitive advantage.
The profitability strategies communication plan should comprise social media marketing to widen the customer base. The message should be about the travel service provision by Delta Airlines, and the target audience should be millennials that are interested in traveling. The campaign’s impact is measurable through the number of customers served within the advertisement timeline.
Since Delta Airlines may give offers to their loyal customers, the company should communicate effectively through their social media platforms about their plans. The communication should be through media channels that reach the most prominent target group and should be in time to prepare the audience.
Corporate Social Responsibility
Jet fuel is one of the carbon emitters in the airline industry, and airlines have to work towards solving the problem. Delta Airlines has been keen on protecting the environment from such methods of pollution and should continue with similar activities to secure the domain from hazardous effects (Varma, 2021). Delta Airlines must control carbon emissions into the surroundings through regular airplane checking.
Another corporate social responsibility that Delta Airline practices are improving labor policies and accommodating its employees in the decision-making process. Environmental and labor policies protection are ethical behaviors that create an excellent public image for the business and position it in a good market segment.
References
Delta Air Lines Inc SWOT Analysis. 2021. Delta Air Lines, Inc. SWOT Analysis, 1–7. Web.
Michael A. Hitt. 2020. Strategic Management: Concepts and Cases: Competitiveness and Globalization 13th ed. Cengage Learning.
Tulika M.Varma. 2021. Responsible leadership and reputation management during a crisis: The cases of Delta and United Airlines. Journal of Business Ethics, 173(1), 29-45. Web.
