Company Overview

Introduction:

The significance of market evaluation is observed to increase in a significant manner in recent years. The success of the companies in conducting sustainable business and achieving the desired growth in the market, is observed to be largely dependent on their ability in evaluating the opportunities and the threats of the market (Khan and Quaddus 2015). The paper is focused in evaluating the business environment for an airline company named as Ryan Air. The paper delivers a brief report on the internal and external business environment of the company with the application of the tools such as the SWOT, PESTEL and Porter’s Five Forces. In addition to this, the paper identifies the challenges that the company facing in conducting their business sustainably and with a precise understanding of the same, the paper delivers an important set of suggestions for overcoming the barriers.

Ryanair is recognized as one of the largest airlines of Ireland operating in the global airlines market. The company was established in the year 1984 and started its operations in the month of July, 1985 (Ryanair.com. 2019). The Dublin based company is currently managed by its parent company named as Ryanair Holdings Plc (Investor.ryanair.com. 2019). The current managerial team which includes Peter Bellew, the Chief Operational Officer of the company, Michael O’ Leary, the Chief Executive Officer of the company along with the non- executive chairman of the company, David Bonderman, is observed to be significantly efficient in improving the financial sustainability of the company which is evident with the generation of €7.151 billion as revenue in the year 2018 and an operating income of €1.667 billion in the same year (Ryanair.com. 2019).  The company is seen to operate in 225 number of destinations and one of the main reason of the significant functionality of the organization is seen to be the excellence of their 17500 number of employees (Ryanair.com. 2019).     

Political:

United Kingdom is observed to consist Northern Ireland, England, Wales and Scotland which provides a sufficiently large space and customers for the operations of the company. Along with that, the parliamentary democracy in the nation, plays a significant role in providing the political stability in the nation.

Economic:

An estimated GDP (PPP) of $3.131 trillion in the year 2019 along with a per capita value of the same of $46,827 are significant in stating the economic strength of the nation (Tradingeconomics.com. 2019). Hence, the attractiveness of the mentioned economy for the company is pretty prominent.

SWOT Analysis

Social:

With a Gini Co- efficient of 33.1, the nation is observed to be placed at an intermediate position in the aspect of wealth distribution amongst the citizens which signifies the high probability of sales of the company (Ons.gov.uk. 2019).

Technological:

With a score of 0.922 in the aspect of the Human Development Index, the country portrays high rate of literacy and ability to accept the technological advancement which influences the company in incorporating the technology in their products and services (Hdr.undp.org. 2019).

Environmental:

The high score of the nation in the HDI aspect is significant in staining the environmental consciousness of the people of the nation and that forces the organization in avoiding any sort of business activities that cause harm to the environmental balance of the UK.  

Legal:

The organization is liable to manage the impact of the EASA legislations in a professional manner (Easa.europa.eu 2019). In addition to this, the company has the necessity to comply with the labour and employment legislations managing the effects of discrimination, termination of employment, data protection and privacy along with the industrial relations.

Competitive Rivalry:

With a precise consideration towards the European aviation industry, it is understandable that the Ryanair is getting tough competition from the part of the organizations such as the International Airlines Group, EasyJet Airlines Company and Aer Lingus (Iairgroup.com. 2019).

Threat of Substitution:

Considering the business actions of the above mentioned organizations, it is visible that the companies are able to apply the low pricing strategy in their business in an efficient manner and at the same time, the companies are able to put strong emphasis on increasing their quality of the services.

Bargaining Power of the Buyers:

With a precise consideration towards the ability the companies in delivering the desired quality and applying the low pricing along with the high number of organizations with such capability, it is evident that the bargaining power of the customers of the mentioned industry is pretty high.

Bargaining Power of the Suppliers:

Considering the efficient business actions of the supplier organizations such as A. Darbo AG, ABC International, ABM UK, Adaptive, Blue Magic srl, Bucher Group, DESKO GmbH, ECR Retail Systems, Egret Aviation and Embross (Airline-suppliers.com 2019), it is understandable that the bargaining power of the supplier organizations of Ryanair is low.

Threat of new entries:

The increasing fuel charges, difficulty in the licensing process along with the notably high infrastructural cost are significant factors that places the organization towards facing a low threat of new entries.

PESTEL Analysis

Challenges:

The company’s growth is observed to be largely limited due to certain challenges which include the inappropriate human resource management inside the organization, the lack of efficient marketing and promotional activities along with the incorporation of the modern infrastructure in their business activities (Independent.ie. 2019). Apart from this, the company is seen to be affected by the significant rise in the fuel charges. 

With a precise consideration towards the above mentioned challenges, it becomes important for the company to effectively manage their human resources where they must provide a better contract for their pilots and the cabin crews with a precise focus on the industry standard regulations.

In addition to this, the company requires to increase the number of fuel suppliers for managing the rise of the fuel charges and the monopoly in a professional manner. Apart from this, the company has the necessity to improve their presence in various social media and online platforms to effectively communicate and promote their business activities amongst the probable and existing customers.  In addition to this, the company is in need to invest in acquiring modern infrastructure equipped aircrafts which have the capability to provide better facilities to the customers for retaining them efficiently.

Conclusion:

On an ending note, it is understandable that Ryanair is one of the successful organizations working in European region and that is visible with the financial statistics of the company. Having said that, the organization is facing the impact of certain challenges such as inefficient human resource management, inappropriate marketing and promotional activities along with the lack of modern infrastructure and the company will be able to achieve the desired growth with the efficient management of the above mentioned challenges.

The self -reflection is one of the significant techniques for the learning about any activities or the incidents. The self -reflection provides an effective and easy way of learning for the individuals where the individuals have the scope to inherit the information or learning in a cost efficient manner (Bennett-Levy and Lee 2014). In addition to this, the self -reflection of an incident from the part of an individual, provides the scope to others in gaining the relevant information and insights about the incidents in a time efficient manner. Apart from this, the self- reflection provides the scope to the individuals in gathering important information regarding their professional and personal development as well. The paper is focused in analysing my learning from the weekly sessions and with efficient understanding of the developmental needs, the paper provides an action plan that addresses the needs in a professional manner.

Porter’s Five Forces Analysis

Considering the Kolb’s experiential learning style theory in mind, it will be correct to say that the beginning unit provided me significant learning regarding techniques the business communication and the importance of the communication in the efficient management of the business (Schenck and Cruickshank 2015). With a precise look back at the reflection or the observation stage of the cycle, it is evident that the necessity achieving the skills such as teamwork, problem solving, time management and communication are notably high for my success in operating in the modern business world in a professional manner (Manolis et al. 2013). The session helped me in gaining the significance of the skills in my employability and in increasing the effectiveness of my work. From the session, I understood that it is important for me to invest more time in studying the relevant literature and books for increasing my ability in managing the application of the above mentioned skills. Having sad that, I understood that the formation of the conflict is a major concerns for the professionals in managing their operations in a successful manner and on the other hand, to improve my problem solving skill, I have the necessity to take part in the brainstorming activities. Hence the main objective for me is to promote the constructive conflict and reduce the impact of the destructive conflict as much as possible.

From the discussion of the beginning session, it is evident that I have the necessity to improve the ability of mine in applying the problem solving skills. Hence, this is expected to be considered as one of the major developmental needs of mine.            

From the second weekly session, I was able to understand the significance of the team performances in the organizational context. I understood that all the major companies working in the modern world of business, are largely focused in managing the work pressure with efficient distribution of the task where they are expected to manage various roles and responsibilities. From the session, I understood that the managers have the responsibility of building and managing the teams for the much required achievement of the collective success. Under such situation, the efficient management of the destructive impact of the conflict is observed to be one of the prime responsibility for the managers. Gilhooly, Ball and Macchi (2015), claimed that the continuous urge of the companies in improving the innovativeness for the development of the bestseller products and services, is notably linked with the capability of the managers in promoting the creative thinking. Having said that, I am significantly limited in managing the stages of the team development and that is a major concern for me going forward in efficiently operating in the role of managers. Hence, the developmental need for me in the section will be to inherit the relevant information of the team development from the Belbin or Tuckman model of team development.  

Challenges and Suggestions

From the 3^rd weekly session, I understood that the sustainability of the companies operating in the modern world of business are largely dependent on the efficient evaluation of the business environment that surrounds the company. The previous sessions enabled me to gather information on the business environment of the companies with the application of the PESTEL analysis. In addition to this, I understood that the evaluation of company’s internal capabilities can be achieved with the application of the SWOT analysis. During the session, I was informed about the reflective style of writing. From the session, I understood that the importance of reflecting writing in presenting my own views and ideas. From the experience of the weekly session, I understood that we have the necessity to present our opinions in a format which largely focuses on first person. Though I have the ability to provide my own views in the form of reflective writing, however, my capability in presenting my views in form of reflective writing is observed to be largely limited when it comes to apply the reflective models of writing such as the Kolb’s reflective model or the Gibbs’ reflective cycle. Hence, the incorporation of the above mentioned models in my ability of reflective writing is one of the prime developmental needs.       

From the fourth session, I collected substantial information regarding the techniques that can be used for the evaluation of the competitiveness of the business environment. During the session, I learned about the Porter’s Five Forces tool where the learning of the session enabled me to gather knowledge regarding the indicators that portray the bargaining power of the buyers and suppliers. In addition to this, the session was significant for my understanding of the factors that contribute to the increment of the competitive rivalry and at the same time, the session was crucial for me in gathering the theoretical knowledge of the indicators that show the higher or lower threat of substitutions and new entries affecting their business. Having said that, the practical testing of the theoretical knowledge gained from the session was significant for my understanding of the lack of my communication skills. I understood that my incapability in communicating professionally with others, is a major drawback for me going forward with the practical evaluation of the gained knowledge.     

References:

Airline-suppliers.com 2019. Airline Suppliers. [online] Available at: https://www.airline-suppliers.com/suppliers/all/

Easa.europa.eu 2019. | EASA. [online] Available at: https://www.easa.europa.eu/

Hdr.undp.org. 2019. [online] Available at: https://hdr.undp.org/sites/all/themes/hdr_theme/country-notes/GBR.pdf

Iairgroup.com. 2019. Home. [online] Available at: https://www.iairgroup.com/

Independent.ie. 2019. Ryanair faces into the problems of its own phenomenal success – Independent.ie. [online] Available at: https://www.independent.ie/business/irish/ryanair-faces-into-the-problems-of-its-own-phenomenal-success-36160474.html

Investor.ryanair.com. 2019. Ryanair | Investor Relations. [online] Available at: https://investor.ryanair.com/

Khan, E.A. and Quaddus, M., 2015. Examining the influence of business environment on socio-economic performance of informal microenterprises: content analysis and partial least square approach. International Journal of Sociology and Social Policy, 35(3/4), pp.273-288.

Lim, S.H. and Hong, Y., 2014. Fuel hedging and airline operating costs. Journal of air transport management, 36, pp.33-40.

Ons.gov.uk. 2019. Household income inequality, UK – Office for National Statistics. [online] Available at: https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/personalandhouseholdfinances/incomeandwealth/bulletins/householdincomeinequalityfinancial/yearending2018

Ryanair.com. 2019. Official Ryanair website | Book direct for the lowest fares | Ryanair.com. [online] Available at: https://www.ryanair.com/gb/en/

Tradingeconomics.com. 2019. United Kingdom GDP per capita PPP | 2019 | Data | Chart | Calendar. [online] Available at: https://tradingeconomics.com/united-kingdom/gdp-per-capita-ppp

Ahmad, F., Ghani, W.A.A. and Arshad, N.H., 2013, May. Ishikawa diagram of critical factors for information technology investment success: A conceptual model. In Proceedings of The 4th International Conference on Information Systems Management and Evaluation ICIME 2013 (p. 27).

Bennett-Levy, J. and Lee, N.K., 2014. Self-practice and self-reflection in cognitive behaviour therapy training: what factors influence trainees’ engagement and experience of benefit?. Behavioural and Cognitive Psychotherapy, 42(1), pp.48-64.

Gilhooly, K.J., Ball, L.J. and Macchi, L., 2015. Insight and creative thinking processes: Routine and special.

Manolis, C., Burns, D.J., Assudani, R. and Chinta, R., 2013. Assessing experiential learning styles: A methodological reconstruction and validation of the Kolb Learning Style Inventory. Learning and individual differences, 23, pp.44-52.

Pelegrini Morita, P. and Marie Burns, C., 2014. Trust tokens in team development. Team Performance Management, 20(1/2), pp.39-64.

Pianpeng, T. and Koraneekij, P., 2016. Development of a Model of Reflection Using Video Based on Gibbs’s Cycle in Electronic Portfolio to Enhance Level of Reflective Thinking of Teacher Students. International Journal of Social Science and Humanity, 6(1), p.26.

Schenck, J. and Cruickshank, J., 2015. Evolving Kolb: Experiential education in the age of neuroscience. Journal of Experiential Education, 38(1), pp.73-95.