There is a dominant change in Airlnaka in the air travel industry where as consumers are important into value chain. Lump sum of revenues flows from the air industry making it as the key generator of revenues for travel operators in short period but estimating the profits are battle soar in the outlying future.
But the air travel business operators along with rest of members of ‘value-chain’ necessitate appropriate branding approaches along with social networking and mass customization to its customers; else profits from air travel services.
COMPANY OVERVIEW
Srilankan airlines are an SRILANKA based airlines. It was launched in the year of 1979. It provides airlines services to national and international. Its main hub is placed at Bandaranaike International Airport in Colombo, given that expedient acquaintances to its international route chain of 49 intentions in 31 countries in Europe, South Asia, Southeast Asia, Middle East, Far East, Australia and North America.
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The present chairman Mr Nishantha Wickremasinghe and 5 boards of directors doing business operations. It operates 13 aircrafts together with wide-bodied A330 and A340 aircraft and mid range of A320’s. Its head office located in Bandaranaike International Airport, Katunayake, SriLanka. Having around 4,900 employees approximately working in srilanka and global wide, its include subsidiary of SriLankan Catering (Pvt) Ltd. Its flight kitchen production capacity has over of 25,000 meals per a single day, 24hours and 365 days a year of operations. It had getting so many awards, recently “Airline of the year 2008 and 2009 SriLanka presidential Travel & tourism”.
www.srilankan.aero
SriLankan airlines providing booking online, check in facilities and ticketing through website www.srilankan.aero. It is also proving cargo services to its customers, using Colombo as an hub to linked the rapid growing economies of the middle, south Asia with Europe, the far east and southeast Asia. Srilankan cargo covering a wide network of 25 countries of 38 destinations in the Indian sub continent, Europe, Far East, South East Asia and Middle East. It provides handed for all 25 airlines which operating through Colombo, moves 155000 metric tonnes of cargo per year.
Srilankan Holidays: Srilankan holidays, it is the holiday division of the airline, which encourages travel from and to Srilanka and also all directions throughout entire network of airlines. Its partners having several top hotels, tour machinists and other sightseeing related associations to help the travellers a extensive selection of time off opportunities with an all-encompassing concept, which consists of customized packages. Srilankan holidays endorses travel for musical concerts, shopping festivals, sporting events and former activities, and it has premeditated agreements with a no of regional sightseeing bodies to encourage tourism from and to a specific destinations. It won a esteemed title called ” Best Outbound Tour operator” at the awards of presidential for tourism and travel in the years of 2008 and in 2009.
Srilankan Engineering: Srilankan Engineering, one of fast flattering a provider of selection in Repair, maintenance, Overhaul activities performed in region, and with its excellent facilities, Airbus aircraft having strong expertise and knowledgeable engineering personnel. It possesses the esteemed “EASA 145 certification for aircraft maintenance” from Aviation safety agency of European.
Srilankan Training: International Aviation conservatory of Srilankan caters to airports, manpower requests of airlines, travel agents, and former airline industry organizations. Srilankan airline academy was certified with “IATA” abbreviation “The International Airline Training Association”, Edexcel international, City and Guilds, ACCA(The association of Certified Chartered Accountants), Asian institute of technology, United kingdom institutes like chartered institute of marketing & chartered institute of management, srilankan travel agents association, Inbound Tour operators of srilankan association. It won the prominent title called “Best Tourism Education & Training Effort” Tourism and travel in the year of 2008 from the president. Currently it is making a complete air travel simulator centre at International airport of Bandaranaike with partnership of the Netherlands SIM industries BV. Srilankan Aviation training Academy is authorized to the “EASA 147 standard”, provides wide-range training for engineering staff and pilots, and recognized by The Maldives, Pakistan aviation authorities and Srilanka.
Srilankan Cares: It is the division of Srilankan airline development community, Srilankan cares energetically participates in charity and fund raising activities, and Srilankan Cares mainly focus on children empowerment. It has conceded out main development projects in 3 local schools in dissimilar parts of the nation, providing infrastructure and buildings such as libraries, computer labs and classrooms.
http://www.srilankan.lk/about-srilanka/srilankan-today/sriLankan-airlines.html
OVER VIEW OF THE WEBSITE
C:UserssrinivasDesktopairline pic.PNG
BRANDING
American Marketing Association describe a brand as a “sign, term, name, design or symbol, or an combination of them, intended to recognize the services or goods of single seller or set of sellers and to make a distinction between them from competitors”. Thus a brand is a product or service that put together some dimensions that differentiate it in a meticulous way from the rest of the services or products making to satisfy the similar need. These variations may be rational, tangible or functional, product performance related to the brand. Also they may be emotional, symbolic or impalpable represent what related to the brand.
Branding is the important and precious asset of every firm. Important intangible and tangible factors of a brand as follows.
Brand image
Brand position
Brand effectiveness
Brand image can be described as a sole collection of organizations contained by targeted customer minds. It denotes the present status of brand. It is the on the whole intuition in customers mind and shaped from all causes. Customers developed diverse alliances with a particular brand. Supporting on these alliances customers formed image.
http://www.managementstudyguide.com/brand-image.htm
The definition of positioning means holding a profitable and credible position into the customer’s mind, by assuming a position comparative to the opposition or change the positioning of opposition.
Brand offers to firm legal protection for same features or characteristics of a particular product. Brand is the signal of a denied level of quality, if the buyer is satisfied then easily picks it again. Brand creating differences to similar product.
Brand loyalty in nothing but brand equity (‘Daryl Travis, Emotional Branding’). It provides unavoidability and demand secure for the company and makes obstacles to entry that create it hard for competitive companies to come into the market. Continue page-313
SriLankan A320 at Mumbai
Airlines fit out their aeroplanes with a distinctive colour design and logo, modified to create a positive and strong brand image, which customers can willingly recall. To examination the power of any airline chosen logo design, colours look heavenward the subsequently time a aircraft files overhead. (Airlines Brand Image, Christine Hucko, May-6-2007).
Every company or industry having their own brands. It is the way to identify the customers to a industry or company. Sri Lankan airlines logo called peacock, it differentiate to competitors. It is the worldwide recognized brand.
Sri Lankan airlines follows all the essentials and fundamentals using to maintain its own brand equity and good quality services to its customers with lower prices. The “front line staff from chalet to ground crew will sport a brand warmer smile and new look.” Srilankan airlines becomes the 1st airline company to support a international brand to identify by promoting its Katunayake city and shire liveried aircraft at Bandaranaike International Airport airport.
The brand of srilankan airlines make it into a dramatic ocular on the airstrip which can’t be mistreated anywhere in the Srilanka and other abroad.
Good quality services and better commitment to raise the customer contentment makes Sri Lankan airlines is one of the pinnacle brand in the Asia, and also escalating and preparatory its new services for old customers and as well as new passengers and customers to the existing and new destinations which will helps the airlines in brand attentiveness and in endorsing the brand to higher levels. Total-547
SOCIAL NETWORKING
In both personal life and professional life, generally human beings forming a group based on expertise and affinities. Most of humans belong to e-business world networks that shaped organically. Not startlingly, these networks speedily migrated to web based world.
‘Social networking comprises of a limited sets or set of the relation and actors or relations describes on them. The existence of relational in sequence is a significant and defining quality of a social network’.
Social network analysis: methods and applications, By Stanley Wasserman, Kartherine Faust
Social, in sense that social relies on people who are forming a group and the group members act together in several way. Although number of people act together simply touch with their friends or personal entertainment, but we are interested in how social networking techniques apply to Srilankan airline business dealings and communications that show the way to results.
In the present e-business world social networking had very popular. Once it is a niche action for youngsters. Now millions of users using internet and they were absorbing by social networking. Different ethnic background and people all ages, races interrelate on networks. General people log their profiles, online chatting with his friends, and upload most recent pictures.
Web sites were generally used to online social networking. These WebPages are called social sites. Many online communities of net users sharing common hobbies, politics or religion. Once access granted a person to social networking webpage, start to socialize. Socialization may consist of reading the profile user pages. Most popular social networking web sites are face book, MySpace, Twitter and Orkut. These websites users share their ideas and photos and videos share with their friends.
The basic idea of social networking explains how to build human connections with other people. Social networks are different types. Simply we will classify networks by its nature of the groups of actors and possessions of the ties between them. The form of a network as number of sets of bodies on which measures on structural variables.
(Stanley Wasserman and Katherine Faust (1994) Social network Analysis, Cambridge University Press)
Social networking websites are providing convenient way with low cost for customers to stay better connecting with the website members. These sites also helping user to control and publish content easily. Face book, MySpace websites prolong to spread out their services to be a focus for more people to sign in and continue to attract their existing users using these services additional.
http://groups.csail.mit.edu/mac/classes/6.805/student-papers/fall07-papers/social-networks.pdf
Airlines know everywhere talked about them, yet airlines are doing small to defy their finishing of conversation. Remaining part of the travel globe, though, is acceptance the internet and creating a multifaceted social network of meeting sites, blogs, links and comment areas. Large travel business departments such as “Thomson (Electronics firm), Cisco (‘Hi- tech supplier’)” and others have formed domestic corporate communities for his road combatants.
But airlines are moving very slowly into collective the social networking and they have limited themselves to direct marketing to a specific group, these groups can be identified by his memberships in former social networks as Twitter, Face book.
Social networking for airlines, David Field, 18-06-08, www. Flightglobal.com
Srilankan Airlines has lacks of users, but every person knows only her or him meticulous contact network, not everyone. Why because it is not maintain to social network. Total-552
MASS CUSTOMISATION
‘Mass customization is a strategy that makes assessment by some form of customer to company interaction at the assembly/ fabrication phase of operation level to make customized commodities with monetary price and production cost similar to those of mass formed products’.
Journal of product innovation management, page168-185, 23(2)
Making of custom altered or personalized services or goods to meet the customer’s changing and varied needs at near to mass manufacturing prices. Authorized by technologies like internet, computerization, lean manufacturing, and product modularization, it indicates the ultimate final stage in segmentation market where each consumer can have precisely what she or he wants.
Mass customization is innovative frontier for service industries and manufacturing industries in business competition. It nucleus is a fabulous raise in prices.
Mass customization is a concept of management describes
Why product life cycles are declining
Why improvement and production cycle times must follow
Why businesses are re-engineering their progressions
Why hierarchies are transforming and flattening into networked organizations.
Mass customization combines all these into a single cogent structure of management that explains what’s going on today’s industries, whose markets large or small, global or local are pigeonholed more by commotion than by constancy.
Mass Customization, STAN DAVIS, Harvard Business school press-1999
Mass Customization Types
Mass customization having 4 faces (Article from Harvard Business Review, Gilmore, James H., II; Pine, B. Joseph January-1-1997). Those are
Collaborative customization: Individual customers discussing after, companies try to establish the precise product that serves the purchaser’s needs and then specifies & produces a product that suits a specific consumer.
Adaptive customization: A harmonized product is formed, but the product has eminence of being constructible by the end user hands. For example NIKE shoes alter the customer’s product themselves.
http://store.nike.com/gb/en_gb/?l=shop,nikeid&sitesrc=UKID_REDIR_CKIE
Transparent customization: Inimitable goods are provided for entity customers, devoid of making them attentive that the goods are custom-made.
Cosmetic customization: A harmonized physical good is being distributed to diverse customers in inimitable ways.
Srilankan airlines masscutomization comes under lower price to provide services to prefer destinations. Fares is lower it attract new passengers, price competition engages an airline generally forfeiting investment in air travel safety. Over time it causes destroys and financial loss on airlines reputation. Price competition only is not feasible long-term approach. Instead, airlines aggressive benefit lies in overhaul quality (Yeh and Chang, 2002). Superior service excellence leads to privileged passenger satisfaction, passenger demand are high, better branding, which in revolve leads to upper revenue (‘Sim et al, 2006’).
In the present day’s world economic downturn, the majority airlines are aggressive very soon to survive. They are compulsory to cut services and costs as far as possible. Airlines needs to cost cutting and make extra revenues while preserving passengers acuity of quality service. Service quality in airlines is a composite mix of indefinable (‘Mazanec, 1995’).
‘European Journal of Operational Research: Mass customization of airline services, Leon Yen, James J.h.Liou, Gwo-Hshiung Tzeng, 10.1016/j.ejor.2009.11.019’.
Airlanka following lower price strategy and provide better services by using online promotions to give a great discounts make sophisticated bookings through online and divided into ‘travel out to Colombo’,’ travel in to Colombo’. Some special offers like Hot Seats, Holiday offers, special fares to certain destinations through online booking. These offers helpful to existing customers as well as attracting to new customers by providing best fares with great discounts to certain routes.
Total-547
Conclusions:
It is concluded that above information had detailed theoretical review of E-business and its theories of Branding, Social Networking and Mass customization on Srilankan airlines website.
I believed that srilankan airlines website logo symbol name as peacock and its colour are different to easily to differentiate from the competitors. It is the worldwide recognized brand. It maintained own brand equity and good quality services to position as a 1st place in the Asian airlines industry. The front line team from chalet to ground crew will sport a brand warmer smile and new look. Good quality services and better commitment to raise the customer contentment makes Sri Lankan airlines is one of the pinnacle brands in the Asia. Srilankan airlines become the 1st airline company to support a international brand to identify by promoting its Katunayake city and shire liveried aircraft at Bandaranaike International Airport.
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Srilankan airlines not using social networking links to its website. If it is using twitter, face book or some other social networking sites to get consumers motivated to travel, to obtain them discussing about srilankan airlines, why they are interested or why hate them. Most of the airline operators are using face book, twitter, flickr. By using social networking the visitors are can search flight status and searching a flight by clicking the link and Share their views to their friends, relatives, profile visitors.
Mass customization, reducing the price to the selected flights to selected destinations and better service provide to its consumers, compare its price is cheap to other service providers. In the website it displays ‘BEST FARE GUARANTEE’. Provides online promotions to give a great discount, holiday offers, hot deals and special offers provide to attract more customers.
Recommendations:
Social networking read this link http://www.dirjournal.com/articles/airlines-social-media/
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