Ryanair: Company Profile And Research Processes

Description of the Ryanair and its business model

The company that has been selected for this assignment is Ryanair. The current branding strategy implemented by Ryanair will be showcased more in this study. Ryanair is a budget airline which took birth in Ireland having its headquarters in Dublin. It was founded in the year 1984 and actually started operating during 1985. Initially it operated from bases of Dublin and London stansed. It makes journey to almost 192 destinations all over the world while having its fleet size of 384. There are almost 370 Boeing 737-800 airplanes while a specific 737-700 airplane is many implemented as charter plane. Further Ryanair is much known for its successful business strategy as it has been observed to expand consistently. This consistent expansion can be the outcome pertaining to the deregulation concerning European aviation industry during 1997. Another unique selling proposition of the company is its business model that concentrates on the low pricing strategy of its airfares. Moreover the company noticeably has been serving almost 34 nations within the European continent, Africa as well as Middle East. Further the revenue it has earned as estimated during 2016 is £ 6.536 billion while having its operating income as £1.663 billion as recorded during 2016. There are around 11,500 employees that are related with the business association (Mayer, 2007).

Ryanair calls itself as the European’s favourite airline. There are 1800 airplanes that fly on a regularly basis from its 86 bases which links almost 200 destinations corresponding to 33 nations concerning a flight that is above 360 Boeing 737 aircraft. Right now its traffic rate is around 119m p.a. which is expected to expand to 200m p.a. within 2024. Further the safety record of the company dates back to 30 years before. Ryanair has been founded by Ryan family while possessing only £1 as its share capital. While it started it comprise only 25 working professionals. The first route during 1985 consisted of a Bandeirante airplane which was a 15 sitter only. Nonetheless the company conducted regular flights from Werford to destination London Gatwick. However, it is fun to know that the cabin crew who served the first airplane was not more than 5 feet 2 inches due to the availability of a small and very less spacious cabin within the airplane (Patterson, 2012).  After that during 1986, Ryanair gets the permission of the regulatory authorities thereby criticizing and challenging the British Airways as well as Aer Lingus due to the excessive fare duopoly concerning the Dublin London route. Thus it made the company to come up with 2 turbo prop BAE 748 airplane which comprised 46 people seating arrangement. As a result, it was noted that both the other airplane companies minimized their high prices. Likewise the company has been seen to implement different sorts of strategies over the years to compete with its competitors and retain its competitive advantage in the market. However, this task will mainly discuss elaborately the background and profile of Ryanair thereby describing and analysing 3 research methods that might be applied by the company to comprehend its brand perception in the digital world (Micheletti, 2009).

Importance of research processes in understanding consumer needs

There are diverse research processes implemented by different organizations to understand the requirements of their targeted consumers. Some significant research processes can be advertising as well as promotion research, studies relating customer satisfaction as well as research on customer decision making. It is a perception nurtured not only Ryanair but also other companies that it is the consumers that decide the fate of the company. Therefore accumulating variable information pertaining to the tastes, references, choices and others of the targeted consumers through research is one criterion that requires to be fulfilled by the companies so that they are able to set their goals and objectives. Further data and information corresponding to the advertising effectiveness might be evaluated through ascertaining and assessing the responses of the consumers towards the marketing campaign and promotional strategies. Moreover, the sales data can also be analysed to evaluate the prior as well as future promotional strategies. Customer satisfaction research implies the study of the consumers’ preferences regarding the products through designing of questionnaires set for the consumers asking about the experiences and feelings of the passengers. Further the decision making process of the consumers can also be determined through formation of surveys, questionnaires, market research and others (Hennink et al., 2010).

 However, now coming to the criteria of how to conduct a market research upon the consumers, it is crucial for Ryanair to conceive a problem which is regarded as the first and crucial step of all. However, the problem conceived must be comprehensible to the decision makers and the management team. The problem then has to be metamorphosed to a research problem which becomes easy to respond through the research approaches. For instance, if the sales are not developing of a specific company, through the incorporation of research steps, the expectations as well as the experiences of the consumers might be rated while segregating the broad base of the consumers to different sub-heads such as potential consumers, first flyers, and repeat purchasers and so on. Then in the next step, strategy of inquiry is considered. Through the effective incorporation of the scientific method of investigation, the existing information is looked upon as the beginning point thereby gradually proceeding towards the investigation. Nurturing a hypothesis appears significant after conceiving the problem and thus predictions are done on the basis of hypothesis set, assessing a test concerning hypothesis is attained and ultimately the outcome is derived (Malighetti et al., 2009).

Qualitative research is a procedure which is utilized to seek in-depth comprehension of certain things. For example, in case of Ryanair, it might serve the purpose of delivering a deeper knowledge regarding the decision making, the preferences as well as the brand perception by its targeted consumers. The 3types of qualitative research methods that might be implemented are the online forums, web surveys or chats and case studies.

Qualitative research methods	Advantages	Disadvantages
Online Forums: Online forums are often used as surveys to generate certain results that are required. Online forums refer to a sort of a message board which uses the virtual platform where different individuals might get into different discussions regarding any products or share their feedback through posting messages. It appears rather like a discussion group. Here the individuals are dealt as participants who might share and exchange their views, feedback and opinion through open messages and reviews (Boyle & Kelly, 2010)	1. It is recommended to have an online forum of Ryanair clubbed with its website that will certainly maximise the attraction of the visitors to the website. 2. the virtual world is constantly becoming competitive and thus it is of great advantage to create, maintain and update an online forum which will not only allure the targeted group but also develop the respective website’s ranking 3. An online forum will present ideas and provide feedback and comments as well as brand perception of the products that Ryanair sells (Baden-Fuller & Morgan, 2010). 4. The company will also get a hold on its customers, their background, their spending limits and so on 5. It will also be engaging and interactive as well as helpful to other consumers who visit for the sake of gathering information or first time flyers 6. possessing an online forum indicates to delivering fresh content almost on a regular basis which is much desired by the search engine and thus the website along with the online forum takes its place in the first few searches thereby becoming more visible	1. the online forums do not give the brand perception and feedback of all the consumers 2. at times there might be certain amount of irrelevant data posted by the consumers 3. Time taken is long compared to facial conversations and thus the apt data might not be traced (Patterson, 2012)
Web Surveys: surveys which are web based and pose a set of online questionnaire to generate feedback, brand perception, deeper knowledge regarding customers and others. However, it comes in the form of either multiple choice or drop down list which allows the surveyed individual for a single time response. There can also be the usage of text boxes in the answering section (Kamarulzaman, 2007)	1. Cost is reduced 2. Time is reduced 3. cost of survey is reduced with the incorporation of the developed online data collection process	1. It does not include all the targeted consumers as everyone might not be online 2. It is problematic to make sampling of email addresses as there are no directories (Mayer, 2007)
Case study is another research method that provides a deeper investigation and knowledge regarding a particular individual, or a group or it can be a community. The information is accumulated through various devises such as interviews, observations and others	1. Case study is concentrated and thus elevates the knowledge level regarding the case 2. Makes the complicated subject simple	1. Becomes difficult to trace a specific case that might be studied concerning all the areas 2. Validating the results becomes problematic as there are different answers (Patterson, 2012)

The assignment is based on Ryanair which is showing a steady expansion over the years. The company sells low cost air tickets which certainly has grabbed the attention of several consumers. Furthermore, the company poses a stiff competition to the high priced airplane companies like British Airways. Various research processes will be explored as well as their incorporations have also been discussed which calls for nurturing a problem and then taking the required steps. Especially 3 qualitative research methods have been explored and mentioned along with their advantages and disadvantages (Malighetti et al., 2009).

However the next steps are as follows:

• To refocus on the targeted consumers thereby providing better definition for the brand and recreating the brand image
• To check whether the evolution of the consumers is keeping alignment with the upgraded technologies
• Redesigning the website might create a different look and feel altogether for the brand

References

Baden-Fuller, C., & Morgan, M. S. (2010). Business models as models. Long range planning, 43(2), 156-171.

Boyle, R., & Kelly, L. W. (2010). The celebrity entrepreneur on television: profile, politics and power. Celebrity studies, 1(3), 334-350.

Hennink, M., Hutter, I., & Bailey, A. (2010). Qualitative research methods. Sage.

Kamarulzaman, Y. (2007). Adoption of travel e-shopping in the UK.International Journal of Retail & Distribution Management, 35(9), 703-719.

Malighetti, P., Paleari, S., & Redondi, R. (2009). Pricing strategies of low-cost airlines: The Ryanair case study. Journal of Air Transport Management,15(4), 195-203

Mayer, S. (2007). Ryanair and its low cost flights in Europe.

Micheletti, M. (2009). The low-cost airline model in Europe on the example of Ryanair and the passengers’ perception.

Patterson, A. (2012). Social-networkers of the world, unite and take over: A meta-introspective perspective on the Facebook brand. Journal of Business Research, 65(4), 527-534.

Service, R. W. (2009). Book Review: Corbin, J., & Strauss, A.(2008). Basics of Qualitative Research: Techniques and Procedures for Developing Grounded Theory . Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage. Organizational Research Methods, 12(3), 614-617.