Strategic Management Of Lucky Air: SWOT Analysis And Competitive Strategies

Background of Lucky Air

Lucky Air is one of the cheapest airline companies across the globe. The company was founded in 2004 and its headquarters is situated in Kunming, Yunnan, China. Its parent company is Hainan Airlines Group. Strategic management of the Lucky Air will be discussed under this report. It is the formulation of strategies considering the policies, rules and regulations of the organization in relevance to accomplish the functionalities in an effective manner. With the help of effective strategies, organization could easily attain its desired goals and the objectives. Apart from this, strategic management also includes the procedure of allocation of the tasks to the desired candidate within the workplace with the motive to extract the best outcomes from the perceptive of growth and expansion. Under this report, strategies will be discussed in order to manage the organizational functionalities in an appropriate manner. The report will include the brief introduction of the company, description of its primary products and services, and certain crucial strategies which plays crucial role in relevance to the development of the organizational goals and the set targets. Further, the report will include the identification of the company’s internal and external environmental conditions and for the same, SWOT analysis will be conducted. Along with this, competitive analysis, competitive advantage of the organization over its competitors and the implementation of their strategies will also be covered under this report. The last phase of the report will include the recommendations for the organization to improve their strategies by adaptation of certain unique and advanced measures. 

Lucky Air is a Chinese Airline company and it is known for low cost carrier across the globe. Lucky Air operates its functionalities from Dali to Kunming and Xishuangbanna and these are the company’s initial routes. Further, organization has planned to expand its network and for the same they have approached to the other parts of China in which their presence does not exists. Parent company of the organization is Hainan Airlines Group and their primary base is Kunming Changshui International Airport. Lucky Air belongs to one of the four initial members of the U-FLY Alliance. It was established in 2004 with the motive to provide the cheapest airline services to the citizens of the country. When the company was established, at that time, China was suffering from the major issue of being the most populated country across the globe. At that period of time, purchasing power of the consumers as well as the economic conditions of the country was not good. In order to provide the cheapest airline services to the all income aged group citizens of country, Lucky Air was established as the start-up airline under the name “Shilin Airlines”. Initially, the company was suppoed to report to its current parent company i.e. to Hainan Airlines as this company invested 2.93 million yuan and provided 3 Dornier aircrafts to the Shilin Airlines to operate the functionalities. Apart from this, Shanxi Airlines invested 47.07 million yuan along with a Boeing and a de Havilland Canada Dash 8 aircraft whereas Yunnan Shilin Tourism Aviation Co. invested 1 million yuan in the operations of the company (Lucky Air, 2016).

Primary Products and Services

Further, company’s name was changed as Lucky Air on 23^rd December, 2005 and company started its initial projects between Kunming and Dali with a flight within Yunnan on 26^th February, 2006. As in March 2007, company was owned to Hainan Airlines, Yunnan Shilin Tourism Aviation and Shanxi Airlines along with approximately 263 employees. Lucky Air is one of the four founding members of U-FLY Alliance that was the first low cost carriers across the globe. U-FLY Alliance was established in January 2006 and its members are HK Express, Urumqi Air, West Air and Lucky Air. Yunnan was one of the favourite destinations from the perceptive of tourists and Lucky Air started their initial project under which they used to serve the domestic routes from its hub in Kunming to the capital of south-western China’s Yunnan province. Yunnan is also known for its beautiful and attractive locations and along with this; it is also famous for multi-ethnic culture. With the introduction of cheap airline services by Luck Air, volume of travellers gets doubled in 2007 in comparison to the one year before (Guo, 2015). 

It is the technique through which four crucial elements of an organization could be evaluated in order to accomplish a particular project. These four elements are strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats. This technique could be executed on a business enterprise, person, industry, country or for a particular product or service. This procedure involves the identification of the internal and external factors which will affect the organizational performance in negative or positive manner in relevance with the attainment of the desired goals and the objectives. With the help of this analysis, organization could be able to decode its strengths, weaknesses in comparison with the opportunities and the threats present in the external business environment in relevance with the organizational performance (Farahmand, 2011).

• It is one of the low-cost carriers in the Chinese airline industry. In 2011, there were 11 low cost carriers in China and amongst them; Lucky Air has built up their effective goodwill in the airline industry (Chow & Tsui, 2017).
• It operations of the company are quite strong and it is the major strength for the organization and they invest 0.15% of their net income in terms to increase the efficiency of their IT operations (Glowik & Smyczek, 2011).
• It was the first airline company which reached to the profitability just after three years from its formation which proves that company is a most effective and efficient channel in relevance with the attainment of their desired goals and the objectives.
• Lucky Air operates its functionalities from their hub in Kunming to the Yunnan which is one of the most attractive destinations in China. Rendering the cheap airline services at this route has helped the organization to enhance their efficiency along with increasing the customer satisfaction (Hartmann, 2016).
• Apart from these services, strategies adopted by the management of the organization were unique and effective enough to accomplish the tasks in an effective manner by generating positive outcomes for the organization such as investment in the IT department. Their strategies also helped them to develop positive customer relations through which organization acquired competitive advantage in the airline industry of China.

• Lucky Air’s target market is limited to an extent as it is operating at the domestic level only and along with the domestic network, they operate on limited routes.
• Organization has limited number of fleets and Boeing which decreases the company’s efficiency in the overall airline industry (Chuanchen, 2017).
• The company is engaged in providing low cost carrier services to its consumers thus; adaptation of the premium services and rendering those in the market is bit difficult which decreases the efficiency of the company in the target market.
• Lucky Air is not available on online platforms which decrease the demand of their products and services. They used to sell their tickets through agents which limits the target audience of the organization and decreases the opportunities to gain the competitive advantage.
• Lack of sufficient resources is another major weakness of the organization through the organization cannot increase its efficiency to get included in the large airline companies. Apart from this, organization is unable to provide other value added services to their consumer which leads to limited customer satisfaction (Nie & Hjálmarsdóttir, 2012). 

• Lucky Air has the opportunity to expand its business in the rest parts of the China as well as outside the China because numbers of cheap airline companies are less in the international airline industry and Lucky Air could gain competitive advantage in the same scenario (Hazledine, 2011).
• To develop the unique image in the airline industry, organization needs to develop certain crucial strategies through which organizational efficiency could be enhanced according to the market requirements; this will help the organization to gain the competitive advantage.
• Organization is required to tie up with big airline companies for setting up their effective image in the airline industry in the target markets. This will increase the efficiency of the organization as well as the chances to expand the business will also get increased (Helms & Nixon, 2010).
• Organization has effective image in the domestic airline industry and to maintain the same image in the outside regions where organization’s presence does not exists, adaptation of the adequate strategies are required through which desired goals and the objectives could easily be attained.
• Organization could also adopt the strategy under which unique services will be provided to the consumers in comparison to its competitors’. Apart from this, it is also essential for the organization to adopt product differentiation strategy along with effective pricing strategies for developing their unique image in the target market along with their strong brand image as the low-cost carrier (Sevkli, Oztekin, Uysal, Torlak, Turkyilmaz & Delen, 2012).

• The primary and major threat for Lucky Air could be rapid increase in the fuel charges because it affects the profitability of the organization. Apart from this, Lucky Air is already known as the low cost carrier hence, managing with the increased prices of the fuels and with the final fare prices, organization may suffer from losses.
• Involvement of the big airline companies in the low cost carriers is another major factor for the organization because it will reduce the efficiency of the organization along with decrease in the revenues (Homsombat, Lei & Fu, 2014).
• In 2007, 11 low cost carrier airline companies exists in the Chinese market only and 3 three were waiting for the approval, thus, in these scenarios, gaining competitive advantage will be difficult as well as it will affect the profitability of all the companies engaged in the same type of industry.
• Promotional strategies used by the organization to expand its business may also get failed because existing big companies will adopt and implement more aggressive strategies in order to maintain their position in the competitive business environment (Camilleri, 2018).
• Lucky Air has limited online presence in comparison with the other airline companies of the same level. This has decreased the value of the organization along with this; it has also leaded the organization towards losing the competitive advantage. Thus, organization is required to adopt some unique strategies through which online presence of the organization be increased with the increase in the value of the organization in the target market as well as to increase the awareness amongst the target audience.

From the evaluation of above analysis, Lucky Air’s strengths and weaknesses are analysed for dealing with the external environmental factors such as threats and opportunities. Organization could easily uplift its performance and expand its business in the rest regions of the country as well as outside the country. This will require an effective business along with the strengths and the KPIs of the organization in order to attract the investors through which the desired targets could be attained. Apart from this, this analysis also provides some suggestions to the management of the organization in relevance to the adaptation of the change in their strategies, policies and the procedures. This helps the organization to develop its unique strengths which will be able to meet up with all types of scenarios. Along with this, strategies adopted by the organization should be capable enough to gain adequate competitive advantage in the target market (Clarke, 2014).

Strategies for Achieving Company Goals

Competitive analysis is the term which describes the procedures to evaluate the strengths and weaknesses of the company’s competitors and their strategies for identifying the scope to get success and growth related objectives in the particular market. This procedure also performed to analyse the effectiveness of the competitors’ strategies in order to adopt or develop unique strategies from them in terms to obtain better and quick outcomes from the competitors along with gaining adequate amount of competitive advantage in the target market. This is the most important part of a marketing plan as it helps the organization to build appropriate strategies in relevance with the market analysis and the target audience’s demand (Dombrowski, 2014).

Lucky Air is one of low cost carriers in the Chinese airline industry, thus, it is necessary for the organization to develop and adopt certain unique strategies in order to match up with the market’s requirements along with for attaining the competitive advantage in the target market. From the further analysis, it will be observed that Lucky Air does not have limited options to gain competitive advantage such as low cost carrier and high efficiency network in comparison to other airline companies. In order to gain the adequate competitive advantage in the target market, organization has made their strengths more powerful and strong in relevance to match up with the requirements of the dynamic business environment. 

Lucky Air’s primary competitors are Air China, China Eastern Airline and China Southern Airline (Fan & Lingblad, 2016). Competition amongst them is not only based on the operational costs infect the major reason of the competition amongst them is to enhance the profitability and to decrease other relevance costs which could increase the efficiency as well as to gain the competitive advantage. It has been recommended to the Lucky Air that to develop a unique and distinctive image from its competitors, they needs to adopt the strategies inspired from the strategies used by Spring Airlines (Heracleous & Wirtz, 2012). 

Apart from the above strategies used by the Lucky Air and its primary competitors to attain the competitive advantage, further elements should also be recognised while developing or adopting the unique set of strategies in order to compete with the existing and big brands of airline industries like Air China, China Eastern Airline, China Southern Airline, and the like.

The basic elements of competitive analysis include:

• Identification of the primary competitors;
• Products and services manufactured by them;
• Strategies used by them to produce the particular goods and services;
• Market share of the competitors in the target market;
• Promotional strategies used by them to enhance their products’ demand in the target market;
• Competitors’ major strengths and weaknesses; and the like (Heracleous & Wirtz, 2014).

Outcomes originated from the above elements will provide a brief and detailed overview of the frameworks used by the other companies in order to gain adequate advantage through adaptation of the effective and unique strategies through which the products and services delivered by the Lucky Air and its competitors could be segregated easily. Porter’s five forces and other competitive analysis frameworks could also be implemented in order to evaluate better and effective results for accomplishing the desired goals and the objectives and to increase the efficiency of the organization in relevance with developing positive image in the customers’ mind-sets (Heshmati & Kim, 2016).

• Threat of new entrants: This is the first element of competitive analysis and Porter’s five forces. Lucky Air is the leading airline low cost carriers in China engaged in rendering cheap airline services to its consumers. Performance of the Lucky Air could get affected with the new entrants in the industry as low cost carrier. As in 2007, 11 companies were engaged in the low cost carriers while two were waiting for the approval from the government. Thus, with the increase in the number of the companies in the low cost carriers, Lucky Air’s performance will get affected (Joo & Fowler, 2014).
• Threat of substitutes: This factor’s impact is weak because the fare prices of the Lucky Air services are as low as the other modes of the transport. Other modes of transport include rail, road and water and the fare prices of these services are bit low in comparison with the airline services. But Lucky Air has adopted certain strategies through which they are capable enough to render the airline services at cheaper rates. This has helped the organization to gain the large customer base from its competitors and from the other modes of transport (Luo, Olechowski & Magee, 2014).
• Industry Rivalry: In the airline industry, rivalry is intense and to gain the competitive advantage in the intense rivalry market, every organization needs to adopt certain effective strategies in relevance with gaining the competitive advantage in the target market. Lucky Air is on the peak position in the low cost carrier airline industry and to maintain this position, they are required to adopt strategies such as product differentiation, cost leadership, cost focus and differentiation focus strategies in order to gain the competitive advantage as well as to maintain the same in the target market (Mhlanga & Steyn, 2017).
• Bargaining power of consumers: In Chinese market, approximately 11 low cost carriers exists and amongst them, level of rivalry is intense. Thus, bargaining power of consumers is high because they have choices in order to select the most advantageous airline services on the basis of fare prices as well as on the basis of services provided by them along with the air travelling (Jarach, 2017).
• Bargaining power of suppliers: Airline companies’ success and failure is based on the actions of suppliers. Thus, it is required for the organizations to develop and maintain effective strategies in order to develop the strong relations with the customers. Apart from this, industry from which fleets and Boeings are being transferred to the airline companies faces duopoly whereas suppliers of engines face oligopoly (Armstrong & Taylor, 2014).

• Improvised Web Portals: The Company should get connected to the most reputed web portal in order to provide better and enhanced services to its customers, to provide relevant and required information to its customers within the certain period of time, etc. Web portals are websites, messages and newsletters. Furthermore, Lucky Air has adopted different and unique strategies from its competitors which are Air China, China Eastern Airline and China Southern Airline. These three companies use the advanced and improvised portal service in relevance to provide appropriate updates to its customers as well as to reach to the optimum level of customer satisfaction. This could affect the Lucky Air’s business, thus, organization needs to adopt certain strategies, tools and methods which are crucial and important from the perceptive to gain the positive outcomes (Sikora & Ferris, 2014).
• Low cost, enhanced and effective services:Lucky Air operates at small level and majorly to Yunnan as this is the most visited city in the China. To increase the demand of the organization’s services, management has chosen the route of Yunnan along with the low-cost carrier services. With the help of this service, organization is able to attain to gain the competitive advantage over its competitors but on the particular route. Hainan Airlines which is the parent company of Lucky Air has also executed various analyses in order to extract the more options for the organization to increase the efficiency of the organization. This will help the organization to gain the competitive advantage over its competitors along with the identification of advanced strategies in relevance with the dynamic market conditions. While all other companies are concentrating over leisured air travelling experience along with the other value added services (Kapferer, 2008). Apart from this, Lucky Air’s competitors have adopted unique strategies in relevance to deliver these services at the affordable rate in order to approach to the large segment of the market. Lucky Air’s services and other companies’ services differ from each other because Lucky Air renders cheap services in comparison with its competitors and this is the major reason of difference in their fare prices (Abeyratne, 2013).
• Range of services and e-commerce strategies: Lucky Air’s e-commerce strategies provide the facility to its customers in which its customers get privilege to get the refund of the tickets purchased from online platforms. On the basis of research, it has been evaluated that customers of Lucky Air gets 20% more advantage from the customers of Air China, China Eastern Airline and China Southern Airline. Lucky Air also offers various unique services to its customers through that they can access online tickets, offers on the air tickets and other information while this facility is not available for the customers of other companies. Lucky Air’s competitors have adopted certain effective strategies in which they invest a large part of the capitals or setting up the ticket booking counters in order to avoid the travel agent’s commissions (Kleymann & Seristö, 2017).Buying a ticket through offline platforms includes booking through agent or purchasing the ticket from the ticket counter and buying tickets through agents becomes an expensive activity for the buyers and it reduces the customer base for the organization. This is the major reason organizations engaged in the airline industry in China are adopting e-commerce strategies in relevance to provide the customers better and enhanced services at lower rates (Bardoel, Pettit, De Cieri  & McMillan, 2014). 
• Cost leadership: This strategy helps the companies to increase their profit margins with the help of decreasing the costs and charging the average prices from the target market. This will help the consumers to get the products and services at reduced rates along with this, it will also develop positive image of the organization in the customers’ mind-sets. This strategy also helps the organization to cover the large market share through charging lower prices as compared to the prices charged by the competitors. This does not affect the organizational profitability because costs have already been reduced without decreasing the profit margins. Lucky Air is operating on the same functionality and with the help of this strategy; organization has succeeded to enhance its efficiency in the target market along with acquiring the large part of the market with its unique strategies (Belobaba, Odoni & Barnhart, 2015).
• Product Differentiation: This strategy describes that competitor organizations need to adopt or develop certain crucial or unique features through which the organization could segregate its products and services from its competitors’. This strategy also focuses over the demand and the requirement of the target audience as it makes the products and the services as per the consumers’ expectations. This helps the organization to gain the confidence level from its customers along with gaining the competitive advantage. For implementing this strategy, organization requires to execute functionalities through which innovation, effective improvement as well as the unique features could be adopted in order to segregate the company’s products and services unique from its competitor (Lainez, González, Aguilar & Vela, 2017). This will also help the organization to increase the efficiency as well as to gain the competitive advantage. Apart from the unique features, organization could also adopt the strategies under which the products’ and services’ quality could be enhanced as compared to the competitors. Product differentiation strategy also includes the adaptation of promotional and advertisement techniques in order to enhance the demand of the organizational products and services (Bueno, Merino & Murcia, 2016).
• The Focus Strategy: This strategy describes focusing over one particular market in order to evaluate the market trends, market conditions and the customers’ requirements. This will help the organization to manufacture the products and the services on the basis of outcomes generated. Along with the development of the products and services on the basis of customers’ requirements and on the basis of market conditions, organization should also recognise the factors of costs in relevance with maintaining the prices of the products affordable for the target audience. Along with focus strategy, one of the above strategies needs to be adopted in relevance to attainment of effective results. Focus strategy is not capable enough to generate outcomes on the basis of outcomes expected from the management, thus, it is required to adopt one of the strategies from cost leadership and product differentiation in order to develop better opportunities for the organization for attaining the growth and expansion related objectives (Clarysse, Wright, Bruneel & Mahajan, 2014).      

SWOT Analysis

Prior to the selection of the most appropriate strategy amongst the above strategies in order to gain the competitive advantage amongst the target market, SWOT analysis needs to be executed. This will help the organization to analyse the strengths, weaknesses, opportunities available in the market and the threats from the external environmental factors. From the results of the analysis, organization would easily be able to get the appropriate results through which assumptions could be made in relevance with adaptation of the most appropriate generic strategy for acquiring the big market share in the target market as well as to gain the competitive advantage (Lam & Harker¸2015). 

Lucky Air is performing well as the leader of low cost carriers in the Chinese airline industry. To expand the business of the Lucky Air in the other regions of the China as well as in the international market, organization is required to develop or adopt certain advanced strategies through which the quality and effectiveness of the products and the services could be met and at affordable rates. This will help the organization to maintain their image as the low cost carrier along with this, it will also provide various other benefits such as enhancement in the revenues, increase in the demand of the organizational services, and a unique image in the competitive international airline industry will be developed. In order to expand the business of Lucky Air in the domestic market as well as in the international market, organization is required to adopt effective and advanced strategies along with the product differentiation and cost leadership strategies in relevance with standing aside from its competitors.

Following are some of the strategies which could be adopted to segregate its products and services from its competitors as well as to attain the desired goals and the objectives:

• Integrated marketing communication: It has been recommended to the Lucky Air that they should adopt effective strategies in order to improve the integrated marketing communication system within the organizational premises as well as with the consumers of the organization. This will help the organization to increase the demand of the company’s products and services. Management of the organization needs to adopt certain strategies in relevance with approaching to its target audience for spreading awareness amongst them with regards to the amendments in the policies, amendments in the prices of the organizational products and services, information regarding the offers, etc. Along with this technique, marketing mix communication strategies could also be adopted so that company could convey the message to its target audience in an effective manner (Lin, Li & You, 2012).
• Quality of the products and services:Organization could also adopt strategies through which the quality of the products and services could be increased along with bringing the rapid and improvised changes. Lucky Air needs to adopt the strategies under which consumers could be able to book the tickets through online platforms rather booking through agents as it will help the company to avoid the agent commission as well as better convenience will be provided to its target customers. Company’s official website should be promoted in this manner along with promoting the other services of organization in relevance with spreading the effective and useful information to its target audience. Organization could also adopt certain strategies through which innovative and attractive features could be added to the website with the aim to provide comprehensive information about the services in the effective manner to the target audience (Metzger & Parasuraman, 2017).
• Initiatives for ‘Green’ strategy: With reviewing the current state of the population across the globe, demand for the environmental friendly services is increasing rapidly. Thus, Lucky Air is supposed to adopt strategies which could help the company to make their services and the products environmental friendly. This will help the company to attain the sustainable and long terms growth in the target market. Lucky Air could also invest a certain aprt of their earnings towards adopting strategies which supports ‘greener’ revolution will bring rapid improvements in the functionalities of the organization. Apart from this, it will also develop a positive image of the organization in the customers’ mind-sets (Strand, 2014).
• Brand image: To improve the brand image in the target market along with increasing the goodwill of the organization, organization is required to adopt strategies such as products differentiation and cost leadership along with focus strategy. This will help them to bring improvements in the organizational functionalities along with improving the products and services’ quality from its competitors’. Increasing the profitability and the revenues of the organization is another crucial aspect through which competitive advantage could easily be attained. Brand image of the Lucky Air is as the low cost carriers and to increase the effectiveness of the products and the services along with improvising the quality, investment is necessary. Investing in improving the services will lead the organization to increase the fare prices. Thus, to maintain the image of the low cost carrier and to gain the large part of the customer base, it is required to adopt certain effective strategies along with improving the services’ quality for attaining the competitive advantage.
• Other value added services: Lucky Air could also adopt the strategies in relevance with improving and increasing the range of menu of the services along with the renege of other value added services. This will help the target audience to gain the better services with cheap air transportation services. Along with this, it is also essential for increasing the organizational effectiveness along with increasing the demand. Consumers of airline services also expect entertainment facilities along with healthier food, better interaction and communication facilities, reward programs for frequent and loyal clients, etc. All these services are essential part of the airline services. Lucky Air could also adopt the strategy under which personalised touch will be provided to the consumers. For instance, while booking the ticket, consumers will be asked to share the details in relevance with their preferences regarding the food, music, entertainment facilities and regarding the other value added services. While boarding the flight and while travelling, serving the consumers’ preferred services will increase the value of the organization in front of the consumers. This will also help the organization to gain the competitive advantage in the target market along with increasing the brand value (Chow, 2014).

Conclusion

From the aforesaid information, it can be concluded that the Lucky Air is one of low cost carriers across the Chines airline industry and to maintain the same image, they have adopted effective and reliable strategies in order to gain the consumers’ confidence. Under this report, SWOT analysis was conducted in order to gain the organizational present capabilities for facing the external environmental barriers and obstacles with regards to attain the goals and the objectives. Further, report concluded the competitive analysis and the strategies adopted by the Lucky Air to gain the competitive advantage in the target market. In the competitive analysis, Porter’s five forces were also implemented in order to identify the unique capabilities of the organization for attaining the competitive advantage in the target market. The last part of the report includes the recommendations in relevance with improving the organizational performance in the target market with the objective to expand the business in the domestic and international airline industry. 

Competitive Analysis

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