Case : Our client, a major Indian Airlines Group, is in serious trouble. It has ceased its operations since the past two months. You have been brought in to revive their fortunes. What do you do?
@visionary2014 Hi, I stayed at this hotel called 'Walnut budget hotel', it was good, cost me some 2300 for 2 nights when i booked it from clear trip. It is 5km from ISB, takes 15 minutes to reach ISB via a rickshaw. The hotel food & staff is good, they voluntarily helped me negotiate with the rickshaw guy so that he doesnt overcharge me. Nice rooms also.
There will be multiple reasons for a company running into losses
1. Wrongly assigned department heads
2. Excessive expenditure in certain departments
3. Innovation lag
4. Consumer woes
5. Evaluate marketing strategy
6. Analyse competition in all dimensions possible
1. Restructuring each depart from with a top-down approach is quite essential when a company fails miserably. The power of a company and the way it runs lies essentially in the way each department is headed as all major decisions are taken by the high level employees. It is essential to analyse if the competency of high level employee of each department is properly suited to the department's chores and restructure if needed.
2. The company should restructure its financial allocation to each department depending on the need. There is a good scope that the financial leak might be happening from few particular departments with excessive expenditure.
3. With the rapid advancement in various dimensions the company needs to analyse if they are equipped with the right tools. A small example in countries like India is a simple service like cash on delivery. Almost 70% of Indians don't have any means to transact online and it isn't an easy task for someone to visit a local agent to get their flight tickets booked. Last year few major airlines tied up with GharPay, a COD service for various ticket providers. This simple step provided the ease of online shopping to everyone without any online payment option. Create a mobile friendly version of their website like cleartrip does etc etc etc..
4. One major reason for failure of a company, let it be an airlines company or any other is not listening to their consumer problems. Indian airlines need to setup a better system to reach out to their customers, get customers feedback and solve them successfully. One way modern companies are doing it is by leveraging the potential of social networks that is accessible to most social network users instantly. Another simplistic way to get feedback from customers is to provide feedback forms in each seat-pocket that customers can fill up at their will.
5. Nothing much to elaborate here.
6. There are certain fool-proof points that differentiates a successful company and a unsuccessful company. Indian Airlines should analyse each and every aspect of their competitors like marketing strategy, ticketing structure, distribution channels, employee ratio in each department etc. Comparing each aspect to aspects in their company will help them identify the prime factors that can be changed for betterment of the company.
In short it all adds up to identifying the leaks and plugging the leaks.
@visionary2014 I would recommend walnut hotel as well. I have a few friends of mine who stayed there and were quite satisfied with the whole experience.
@saicharantejThere will be multiple reasons for a company running into losses1. Wrongly assigned department heads2. Excessive expenditure in certain departments3. Innovation lag4. Consumer woes5. Evaluate marketing strategy6. Analyse competition in all dimensions possible1. Restructuring each depart from with a top-down approach is quite essential when a company fails miserably. The power of a company and the way it runs lies essentially in the way each department is headed as all major decisions are taken by the high level employees. It is essential to analyse if the competency of high level employee of each department is properly suited to the department's chores and restructure if needed.2. The company should restructure its financial allocation to each department depending on the need. There is a good scope that the financial leak might be happening from few particular departments with excessive expenditure. 3. With the rapid advancement in various dimensions the company needs to analyse if they are equipped with the right tools. A small example in countries like India is a simple service like cash on delivery. Almost 70% of Indians don't have any means to transact online and it isn't an easy task for someone to visit a local agent to get their flight tickets booked. Last year few major airlines tied up with GharPay, a COD service for various ticket providers. This simple step provided the ease of online shopping to everyone without any online payment option. Create a mobile friendly version of their website like cleartrip does etc etc etc..4. One major reason for failure of a company, let it be an airlines company or any other is not listening to their consumer problems. Indian airlines need to setup a better system to reach out to their customers, get customers feedback and solve them successfully. One way modern companies are doing it is by leveraging the potential of social networks that is accessible to most social network users instantly. Another simplistic way to get feedback from customers is to provide feedback forms in each seat-pocket that customers can fill up at their will.5. Nothing much to elaborate here.6. There are certain fool-proof points that differentiates a successful company and a unsuccessful company. Indian Airlines should analyse each and every aspect of their competitors like marketing strategy, ticketing structure, distribution channels, employee ratio in each department etc. Comparing each aspect to aspects in their company will help them identify the prime factors that can be changed for betterment of the company.In short it all adds up to identifying the leaks and plugging the leaks.
@raghupro Wow..That is a fabulous breakdown of your analysis!! One thing I'd like to add is, as our reputation has taken a blow, we also need to revamp our brand image. Some ways to restructure our marketing tactics - cases in point : Satyam, Kingfisher...It is not easy to shrug off some impressions 😃 Thanks again for your response!!
@raghupro Wow..That is a fabulous breakdown of your analysis!! One thing I'd like to add is, as our reputation has taken a blow, we also need to revamp our brand image. Some ways to restructure our marketing tactics - cases in point : Satyam, Kingfisher...It is not easy to shrug off some impressions Thanks again for your response!!
Thanks mate. I completely agree with you, I was recently talking about rebranding strategy with my friend in a causal conversation.
There is one bus operator, Sree Kaleshwari Travels, in AP. They are the first bus operators in AP who started using Volvo busses and they have a huge fleet of busses right now that are all Volvo single axis, Volvo multi-axis, Isuzu busses and mercedes busses. They were doing really well till recently when one of their busses met with a severe accident while travelling from Hyderabad to Shiridi and most of the passengers died in the accident.
Since then they seem to have taken a hit badly and their revenues literally plunged down. I was talking to my friend about why Sree Kaleshwari isn't trying to rebrand their company coz they already have all the infrastructure needed.
@ raghupro and @ tripamb.Thanks for the tip. I was thinking of the Walnut budget hotel too. Is anyone willing for a mock Skype any of these days or a mock int in Hyderabad on Friday. My interview is on the 12th.
PM me your email ID and phone number, we might be able to help you out in Hyderabad. We just completed a mock interview session last Sunday and we will be having the next one tomorrow at 2:00 PM. We will see if we can plan for one on Friday as well.
I would agree with the leaks. In this case, Kingfisher had huge ad marketing campaigns, provided an excellent airline service (well at least initially), but fared badly on operational costs and financial structuring.
Very often companies make the mistake that they can blast the opposition out of contention through its marketing. Kingfisher in this case failed to consider operational realities: pricing, etc. Failed to consider the financial impact of its fleet purchases and less optimaly flight revenues.
Well my interview went fine. The problem is that the interviewers remain so poker faced that you can't guage whether it is negative or positive. And as usual after interview you do feel that I could have done this better or answered something differently.
So do not lose your head, its gonna be chilled out.. my suggestion is just take your time before you rush into answering the questions.
Thanks man!! I finished my interview on 6th of Jan13 and felt that was able to hit the ball out of the park.. Was worried that the only blemish in my profile was a low Gmat score and average engg aggregate.. this info you gave is making me absolutely confident now.. Cheers!!