CASE STUDY: “Managers and Managing featuring United Airlines”

Saniya SheikHira Zaheer

Nayaab ParachaBdar Khan Lodhi

Osama Bin FarooqFahad Raja

UmerSeptember 28,2011

BBA 1- Section D- Mr.Aftab Haider

SYNOPSIS/ABSTRACT:This case study is about United Airlines, who became the worlds largest airline on July 12, 1994.It is focused on the changing management culture of the company. Several major processes are implemented to achieve the company goals and objectives. The processes are focused on the employees grooming, The company is becoming internally strong by improving their communication system among the different departments. They came to the right path by the implementation of the different processes but were not able to achieve their primary goal successfully due to lack of customer satisfaction.

OBJECTIVES: Some of the goals and objectives United Airlines created were, to become a worldwide Airline of first choice and become the worlds best employee owned company. Another objective of United Airlines was to obtain an immense amount of employee involvement for customer satisfaction.

STUDY QUESTIONS: 1) United Airlines managers use an approach called Mission

United to orient employees throughout the organization to new initiatives, goals, and competitive position. Discuss in class how managers should conduct these one-day sessions to get maximum employee buy-in and commitment.ANSWER: There are several ways in which Mission United can be conducted in the best manner. There will be many aspects which will be needed to discuss. Managers should appoint specific people related to their specific fields for discussion and speeches. After the speeches, brief presentations of each department should take place with graphs, flow charts, and other evident materials for a more visual understanding. A Q and A (Question and Answer) session should take place for any unanswered questions or concerns. Leaflets should be distributed at the door which should contain a brief overview/description of the event. Lastly, a suitable time and accessible location should be selected for the event.

2) Best of the Best programs are cross functional teams aimed at creating changes based on identified best practices. Why do you think United organized these teams cross functionally?ANSWER: Best of the Best program is a method of improvement known as “Best practice bench marking”. In this method of improvement, departments or firms mark all the good aspects of other firms and apply them on there departments, in order to improve the efficiency of their field. United Airlines, being a self employed company, organized cross functional teams so that every department gets a chance to improve themselves by adapting good qualities of the other departments in order to improve the efficiency of the entire company as a whole.

3) Employee ownership has been attempted before in the airline industry through a company called People Express. That company didn’t survive, although it was initially

successful. What are some steps United Airlines can take to improve its chances of success?

ANSWER: Some steps UAL could take to improve its chances of success are: The company should become externally strong by creating and maintaining a good relationship with the competing industries. The Airline should also be market oriented by satisfying the needs of customers.

WHAT HAPPENED? United Airlines was not internationally competitive. The primary problem was that they were not an international corporation and were not satisfied with the “old” management culture. In order to achieve their goals, they took several steps for the betterment of the company and the grooming of the employees. There are chances of management issues. In order to resolve these issues, the company changed the management company entirely by transforming UAL to be self employed. The corporation wanted to improve the communication skills of the workers and create a better leveled understanding amongst the different departments. In order to do so, UAL brought forth a program called, “Mission United”. To overcome their average customer related issues, a strategy called, “ Customer Problem Solution Teams” was developed to take customer satisfaction initiative and to solve problems within the teams rather then reference to managers. For the improvement of the quality of service through the employees, another program was developed, “ The best of the Best”. This program encouraged a friendly environment and developed better relationship between managers and employees.

SUGGESTIONS:1)United Airlines should become more customer focused

rather then focusing entirely on the betterment of the work force. Market research is highly recommended in order to achieve success in the long-run. For reorganization, support, and a learning experience, UAL should create friendly ties with leading competitors.

CONCLUSION: Although measures taken by the corporation were beneficial, they did not exceed there goals and expectations. UAL succeeded in terms of being internally strong as a team and were headed in the right direction, but externally they were weak.