...Introduction Southwest Airlines has built quite a reputation over the years regarding providing low-cost flight prices as compared to most United States Airlines. Founded in 1967, Southwest has continually proved to be a force to reckon within the airline industry. Of late, Southwest Airlines has been running controversial television advertisements that criticize rival airlines for charging services that were inclusive of the plane ticket before. To some extent, the advert exaggerates what happens in other airlines by depicting them as overzealous in their pricing. Southwest Airlines come out as brave to venture out of its traditional advertising and adopting an attack type of advertising campaign that seeks to discredit the validity of its rival. Southwest Airlines offers more relaxed or rather flexible ticket prices as compared to rival airlines making it more appealing to a large number of fliers in the United States. Below are a few questions that best help explain Southwest Airlines price-value equation (Kotler, & Armstrong, 2014). Content Airline customers stand to benefit in several ways from buying airline tickets. One of this ways is that Southwest does not charge any fees for luggage as compared to other airlines that do. Given this unique offer, most people prefer flying with them. In return enabling the customers save up to $50.Customers, also stand to benefit from buying airline tickets through affordable priority access. Through this service, fliers...
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...Practice final exam/guide PART A: Multiple choice and short answer questions 1) The branch of economics that examines the functioning of individual industries and the behavior of individual decision-making units is a. behavioural economics. b. microeconomics. c. macroeconomics. d. normative economics. 2) You own a DVD of the film 'A Beautiful Mind'. The opportunity cost of watching the DVD the second time a. is zero as you already own the DVD. b. is one-half the cost of the DVD, since this is the second time you have watched it. c. the amount of money you could get from selling the DVD after watching it the first time. d. is the value of the best alternative use of the time you spend watching the DVD on this 3) A new fast-food restaurant offered a free meal (valued at $5) a week for a year to its first 100 customers. Ramona camped out for 48 hours before the opening to be one of the first 100 customers. The cost of the free meal a week for a year for Ramona was: a. zero. b. $260. c. The value of whatever she would have done with those 48 hours. d. The cost is impossible to determine. 4) If the supply curve for a product shifts to the right, which of the following could have caused this shift? a. A rise in wage costs. b. A rise in price of the product. c. An expectation that price will rise in the future. d. An improvement in productivity. 5) The price...
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...UB School of management | Singapore Airlines | Audit of Corporate Social Responsibility | | Team Greatbatch | 12/6/2012 | Maria Kristic Chaitanya Pavuluri Srutakirti Das Anthony Ilaqcua Mark Rutecki Contents Introduction 2 Environment 3 Engine Efficiency and Alternative Fuels 3 Operations and Infrastructure 5 Evaluating Environmental Initiatives 6 Harapan Rainforest Initiative 7 Social Activities: Philanthropic 8 Social Activities: Strategic……………………………………………………………………………………………………………………9 Evaluation…………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………..9 Economic Sustainability 10 Conclusion 11 Works Cited 12 Appendix 12 Introduction Over its 100 year history, the airline industry has been one of the most dynamic and fastest growing industries in the world. More people than ever are flying as air travel has become more accessible and is one of the safest ways to travel. Since 2002 there has been a 61% increase in safety with just 1 accident for every 2.7 million flights. In 2011 alone, 2.8 billion people flew 3.1 trillion miles on routes out of 3,800 commercial airports. 48 million tons of cargo, worth 5.3 trillion was shipped by air, accounting for approximately one-third of world trade. The industry supports 57 million jobs and 2.2 trillion in economic activity (SIA Safety, Security & Environment Dept., 2012). However, the industry is also one of the most regulated, with many governments being owner/operators...
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...Airways Core Competencies in Airline Industry | December 252012 | The idea of "core competences" is one of the most important business ideas currently shaping our world. This is one of the key ideas that lies behind the current wave of outsourcing, as businesses concentrate their efforts on things they do well and outsource as much as they can of everything else. Eva Airways core competencies covers excellent flight safety record, advanced flight equipment to enhance flight safety, fleet complete, network-intensive services, caring and meticulous service that includes their current and future customer service programs, human capital investment for providing excellent customer service, and professional management. With these excellent customer-oriented services, Eva Air proves that they are already world-class air carrier and robustly have an edge to compete in international market with the low-cost airline carrier, prestige airline carrier, and even the government-controlled carrier. We also believed that Eva Air’s customer-oriented services (core competencies) could sustain the growing or future demands in airline industry and can survive the toughness of the competition. The Case Study of Eva Airways Core Competencies in Airline Industry I. INTRODUCTION The airline industry exists in an intensely competitive market. Over the years, air travel has become so commonplace that it would be hard to imagine life without it. The airline industry, therefore, certainly has progressed...
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...Economics Revision Chapter 1:Nature of work and leisure and trends in employment and earnings Earnings | Wages plus overtime pay, bonuses and commission | Economically inactive | Working age people who are neither in employment, nor unemployed, and so are not part of the labour force | Labour force participation rate | The proportion of working age people who are economically active | G8 | The group of major economies consisting of Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, Russia, the UK and USA | Employment rate | The proportion of working age people who are in work | Part-time workers | People working less than 30 hours a week | Temporary work | Casual work, seasonal work, working for employment agencies, fixed – period contract work | Homeworking | Working either at home or in different places away from the central office, production or distribution facilities, using the home as a base | Teleworking | Working using a telephone and a computer at home, in an internet café or a train or plane | Occupational segregation | The dominance of an occupation by one gender | Primary sector | The first stage of production, agriculture | Secondary sector | The second stage of production, processing raw materials | Tertiary sector | The third stage of production, providing services | Tax wedge | The gap between what employers pay for labour & what workers receive in disposable income | Outsourcing | Subcontracting part of the production...
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...3 Industry Analysis: The Fundamentals When a management with a reputation for brilliance tackles a business with a reputation for poor fundamental economics, it is the reputation of the business that remains intact. —Warren Buffett, Chairman, Berkshire Hathaway The reinsurance business has the defect of being too attractive-looking to new entrants for its own good and will therefore always tend to be the opposite of, say, the old business of gathering and rendering dead horses that always tended to contain few and prosperous participants. —Charles T. Munger, Chairman, Wesco Financial Corp. OUTLINE n n n n n INTRODUCTION AND OBJECTIVES FROM ENVIRONMENTAL ANALYSIS TO INDUSTRY ANALYSIS THE DETERMINANTS OF INDUSTRY PROFIT: DEMAND AND COMPETITION ANALYZING INDUSTRY ATTRACTIVENESS Porter’s Five Forces of Competition Framework Competition from Substitutes Threat of Entry Rivalry Between Established Competitors Bargaining Power of Buyers Bargaining Power of Suppliers APPLYING INDUSTRY ANALYSIS Describing Industry Structure Forecasting Industry Profitability Strategies to Alter Industry Structure 66 INTRODUCTION AND OBJECTIVES 67 n n n n DEFINING INDUSTRIES: WHERE TO DRAW THE BOUNDARIES Industries and Markets Defining Markets: Substitution in Demand and Supply FROM INDUSTRY ATTRACTIVENESS TO COMPETITIVE ADVANTAGE: IDENTIFYING KEY SUCCESS FACTORS SUMMARY NOTES INTRODUCTION AND OBJECTIVES In this chapter and the next we explore the external environment of...
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...3 Industry Analysis: The Fundamentals When a management with a reputation for brilliance tackles a business with a reputation for poor fundamental economics, it is the reputation of the business that remains intact. —Warren Buffett, Chairman, Berkshire Hathaway The reinsurance business has the defect of being too attractive-looking to new entrants for its own good and will therefore always tend to be the opposite of, say, the old business of gathering and rendering dead horses that always tended to contain few and prosperous participants. —Charles T. Munger, Chairman, Wesco Financial Corp. OUTLINE n n n n n INTRODUCTION AND OBJECTIVES FROM ENVIRONMENTAL ANALYSIS TO INDUSTRY ANALYSIS THE DETERMINANTS OF INDUSTRY PROFIT: DEMAND AND COMPETITION ANALYZING INDUSTRY ATTRACTIVENESS Porter’s Five Forces of Competition Framework Competition from Substitutes Threat of Entry Rivalry Between Established Competitors Bargaining Power of Buyers Bargaining Power of Suppliers APPLYING INDUSTRY ANALYSIS Describing Industry Structure Forecasting Industry Profitability Strategies to Alter Industry Structure 66 INTRODUCTION AND OBJECTIVES 67 n n n n DEFINING INDUSTRIES: WHERE TO DRAW THE BOUNDARIES Industries and Markets Defining Markets: Substitution in Demand and Supply FROM INDUSTRY ATTRACTIVENESS TO COMPETITIVE ADVANTAGE: IDENTIFYING KEY SUCCESS FACTORS SUMMARY NOTES INTRODUCTION AND OBJECTIVES In this chapter and the next we explore the external environment of...
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...495-6270 e-mail: pghemawat@hbs.edu *Acknowledgements: Ramon Casadessus-Masanell, Bruno Cassiman, Richard Caves, Ken Corts, Tarun Khanna, Julio Rotemberg, Vicente Salas Fumas, Xavier Vives and seminar/workshop participants at Boston University, Copenhagen Business School, Harvard Business School, INSEAD, New York University and Universitat Autonoma de Barcelona provided helpful comments. So did senior executives at both Airbus (Adam Brown, John Leahy) and Boeing (Tim Meskill, Randy Baseler, and Jim Jessup), although their comments do not constitute an endorsement of the material in either the teaching case or this paper. We also gratefully acknowledge help from Ed Greenslet, Don Schenk, and The Airline Monitor in obtaining data and insights about the commercial jet aircraft industry, Mike Kane’s assistance in preparing the original teaching case, and financial support from the Division of Research at the Harvard Business School. Abstract This paper looks at competitive interactions between Airbus and Boeing in very large aircraft. It concludes that Boeing attempted to preempt Airbus in introducing a new product in this space but failed to do so because of the...
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...2001 Benjamin C. Esty Morgan 381 Harvard Business School Boston, MA 02163 Tel: (617) 495-6159 e-mail: besty@hbs.edu Pankaj Ghemawat Morgan 227 Harvard Business School Boston, MA 02163 Tel: (617) 495-6270 e-mail: pghemawat@hbs.edu Acknowledgements: We would like to thank Ed Greenslet and The Airline Monitor for providing data on and insights about the commercial jet aircraft industry, Mike Kane for assistance with the original teaching case, and the Division of Research at the Harvard Business School for supporting this research. Airbus vs. Boeing in Superjumbos: Credibility and Preemption Abstract In December 2000, Airbus formally committed to spend $12 billion to develop and launch a 555-seat superjumbo plane known as the A380. Prior to and after Airbus’ commitment, Boeing started and canceled several initiatives aimed at developing a “stretch jumbo” with capacity in between its existing jumbo (the 747) and Airbus’ planned superjumbo. This paper provides a strategic (game-theoretic) interpretation of why Airbus, rather than Boeing, committed to the superjumbo, and why Boeing’s efforts to introduce a stretch jumbo have, at least to date, been unsuccessful. Specifically, game theory suggests that the incumbent, Boeing, would earn higher operating profits if it could somehow deter the entrant, Airbus, from developing a superjumbo, but that entrydeterrence through new product introductions is incredible even if the incumbent enjoys large cost advantages in new product...
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...a downstream industry where firms compete to buy capacity in an upstream market which allocates capacity efficiently. Although downstream firms have symmetric production technologies, we show that industry structure is symmetric only if capacity is sufficiently scarce. Otherwise it is asymmetric, with one large, “fat,” capacity-hoarding firm and a fringe of smaller, “lean,” capacity-constrained firms. As demand varies, the industry switches between symmetric and asymmetric phases, generating predictions for firm size and costs across the business cycle. Surprisingly, increasing available capacity can cause a reduction in output and consumer surplus by resulting in such a switch. 1. Introduction Standard models of industrial organization treat inputs as being in perfectly elastic supply and their trade disconnected from the downstream market. However, in many real-world industries, the firms that compete downstream also face each other in the input market where supply is inelastic. For example, jewelry makers that vie for the same customers also compete for precious stones whose supply is limited; competing airlines divide a fixed number of landing slots at a given airport; software companies that produce rival operating systems draw from the same pool of skilled programmers; retailers of gas (petrol) use a common input that is in scarce supply; and so on. In this article, we investigate the interaction between efficient input markets and competitive downstream industries and find some...
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...2 Value Chain Management The theoretical background is defined around the central term value chain. Chapter 2 presents research concepts to manage the value chain structured by their area of specialization either on supply, demand or values. Secondly, within an integrated framework, the results of the specialized disciplines are combined with the objective to manage sales and supply by values and volume. Value chain management is defined and positioned with respect to other authors’ definitions. A value chain management framework is established with a strategy process on the strategic level, a planning process on the tactical level and operations processes on the operational level. These management levels are detailed and interfaces between the levels are defined. Since the considered problem is a planning problem, the framework serves for structuring planning requirements as well as the model development in the following chapters. 2.1 Value Chain Value chain as a term was created by Porter (1985), pp. 33-40. A value chain “disaggregates a firm into its strategically relevant activities in order to understand the behavior of costs and the existing and potential sources of differentiation”. Porter’s value chain consists of a “set of activities that are performed to design, produce and market, deliver and support its product”. Porter distinguishes between • primary activities: inbound logistics, operations, outbound logistics, marketing and sales, service in the core value...
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...author This is an E-book. It is available in camera copy format with free download from www.patrickmcnutt.com. December 2008 ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS Thank you for reading the E-book and making a contribution to the charity as identified on my web portal. The E-book can be read independently or in conjunction with the Kaelo v2.0 software tool. Some of the arguments are filtered from McNutt (2005): Law, Economics and Antitrust and from books referenced in the E-book. There are indeed numerous references and secondary readings recommended in the E-book. These should be read as well. They will be fully referenced as we continue together to write this E-book on the web. Interesting books on related themes to read are Roberts (2004): The Modern Firm: Games, Strategies and Managers and Nalebuff and Dixit (2008): The Art of Strategy. For my MBA students you will be reading either Baye (2008): Managerial Economics and Business Stratagy or Besanko (2007): Economics of Strategy. For clients using my services, a note of thanks and for management in general who may happen upon this E-book a set of business slides are available as one set called Framework T3 and GEMS which is available from the author. They will appear also on my web page. Please email your comments to me via my web portal at www.patrickmcnutt.com and participate in the Discussion Forums available on that web page. Some of my arguments are distilled from consultancy work and supervision of MBA and PHD students. To all my former MBA...
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...Chapter 1 The Evolution of the Modern Firm Chapter Contents 1) Introduction 2) The World in 1840 • Doing Business in 1840 • Conditions of Business in 1840: Life Without a Modern Infrastructure Example 1.1: The Emergence of Chicago 3) The World in 1910 • Doing Business in 1910 Example 1.2: Responding to the Business Environment: The Case of American Whaling • Business Conditions in 1910: A "Modern" Infrastructure Example 1.3: Evolution of the Steel Industry 4) The World Today • Doing Business Today • The Infrastructure Today Example 1.4: Economic Gyrations and Traffic Gridlock in Thailand 5) Three Different Worlds: Consistent Principles, Changing Conditions, and Adaptive Strategies Example 1.5: Infrastructure and Emerging Markets: The Russian Privatization Program Example 1.6: Building National Infrastructure: The Transcontinental Railroad 6) Chapter Summary 7) Questions Chapter Summary This chapter analyses the business environment in three different time periods: 1840, 1910 and the present. It looks at the business infrastructure, market conditions, the size and scope of a firm’s activities and a firm’s response to changes. This historical perspective shows that all successful businesses have used similar principles to adapt to widely varying business conditions in order to succeed. Businesses in the period before 1840 were small and operated in localized markets...
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...Chapter 2: How Airline Markets Work...Or Do They? Regulatory Reform in the Airline Industry Severin Borenstein and Nancy L. Rose October 2008 Severin Borenstein is E.T. Grether Professor of Business Administration and Public Policy at the Haas School of Business, U.C. Berkeley (www.haas.berkeley.edu), Director of the University of California Energy Institute (www.ucei.org), and a Research Associate of the National Bureau of Economic Research (www.nber.org). Address: Haas School of Business, University of California, Berkeley, CA 94720-1900. Email: borenste@haas.berkeley.edu. Nancy Rose is Professor of Economics at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (econwww.mit.edu) and a Research Associate of the National Bureau of Economic Research. Address: MIT Department of Economics, E52-280b, 50 Memorial Drive, Cambridge MA 02142-1347. Email: nrose@mit.edu. Nancy Rose gratefully acknowledges fellowship support from the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation and MIT. We thank Andrea Martens, Jen-Jen L’ao, Yao Lu and Michael Bryant for research assistance on this project. For helpful comments and discussions, we thank Jim Dana, Joe Farrell, Michael Levine, Steven Berry, participants in the NBER conference on regulatory reform, September 2005, and seminars at University of Toronto, Northwestern University, University of Michigan, UC Berkeley, and UC Davis. This paper is forthcoming as Chapter 2 of Economic Regulation and Its Reform: What Have We Learned?, N.L....
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...Business, New York University, 44 West 4th Street, New York, NY 10012, USA b CEPR, London, UK Received 3 July 2002; accepted 13 June 2003 Abstract I examine the welfare properties of free entry under conditions of simultaneous entry. Specifically, I consider the second-best problem of in uencing the number of entrants while taking as given ÿrm behavior upon entry. I consider two alternative models of simultaneous entry: grab-the-dollar entry and war-of-attrition entry. I show that, if entry costs are low, then the results from previous models of sequential entry are fairly robust to the possibility of simultaneous entry. If however entry costs are high, then the welfare e ects of free entry depend delicately on the nature of the entry game being played. c 2003 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved. JEL classiÿcation: L1; L6; L9 Keywords: Entry; Welfare 1. Introduction Economists frequently presume that free entry is desirable from a social welfare point of view. In fact, free entry is one of the conditions underlying the First Welfare Theorem. However, it is well known that, once one of the conditions for the theorem is removed, the other conditions are no longer necessarily desirable (Lipsey and Lancaster, 1956). Speciÿcally, a number of authors have shown that, once we abandon the assumption of competitive pricing behavior, free entry may no longer be a good thing. See Williamson (1968), Spence (1976), Dixit and Stiglitz (1977), A previous version of this paper was circulated...
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