The competitive global marketplace has compelled companies to strategize effectively in order to be competitive and relevant. It has become imperative for businesses to ensure they align the mission, vision, and employees to the goals of the firm for long-term sustainability. This can be done by performance management, which ensures that the vision and mission statement of the company is aligned with the objectives of the company.
In this paper, we shall analyze a Middle East airline to establish the degree at which it has aligned its performance management and human resource goals and vision with that of the firm. Specifically, we shall examine the Fly Emirates, a Dubai-based Airline Company. Today, the world recognizes the role played by the Fly Emirates in enhancing internationalization in order to achieve global business objectives.
However, in order to achieve excellent performance, the company has aligned its human resource with the vision and mission in order to achieve set goals. Managers recognize that strategic planning is imperative to achieve organizational goals. Therefore, this paper shall determine the extent to which Fly Emirates business strategy and performance management have helped the company to achieve and align its human resource with the mission and vision of the company.
In the Fly Emirates, managers have been able to align the business strategy with that of the organization by continuous development of people and innovative service design. This has been supported by the strategic decisions of the company. The Fly Emirates has positioned its business strategy as an excellent airline with a high level of customer service, which has helped the company to achieve global success in the airline industry.
The company is listed as one of the best carriers which have made a strategic choice to giving customer service priority over profitability. Although the carrier has achieved success globally, its strategic management practices have played a critical role in ensuring the company achieves its set objectives. At the corporate level, the company follows a diversification strategy that has enabled the company to align its business strategy with that of its workers.
Emirates uses its service department to align organizational goals with the vision and mission statement. These include the use of the service department to hones and test changes before there are introduced. The human resource ensures they have undertaken thorough research, performance appraisal, and involve workers to ensure it has aligned them with the goals of the firm. It is the duty of human resource management to ensure that employees understand what the organization expects them to achieve (Butler, 2008, p. 173). By doing this, employees are not only motivated to work toward organizational goals, but also support management changes that are in line with organizational goals. Human resource management has also been able to achieve its objectives by establishing a well throughout business mission and vision of the company.
When the human resource department understands the role played by strategic planning, they can be able to align organizational goals with the mission and vision. Emirates has a well-established mission and vision statement, which drives the goals and strategic objectives of the firm. A proper understanding of performance management and strategic planning has also ensured the company achieves its objectives.
The human resource department assesses the mission and vision of the company to reveal the objectives and goals that can be achieved in the short and long run. However, being strategic means that managers need to use a significant part of the firm’s resources on long terms and specific objectives in order to achieve the mission and vision statement. To achieve this goal, the human resource department should establish the objective of each department and communicate the same to employees. Proper communication with workers ensures that a firm’s human resource is aligned with the vision and mission statements.
For instance, Fly Emirates intend to increase the number of passengers and tonnes of cargo transported through their network in order to increase sales. To achieve these objectives, Fly Emirates human resource department has established an open channel of communication between managers and workers to ensure the achievement of business objectives (Amankwah-Amoah, 2014, p. 326). Workers are given an opportunity to be innovative and to recommended areas of improvement to achieve business objective. Managers have taken employee recommendations seriously which has helped the company to achieve and aligned its business strategies with those of workers.
Strategic planning has been a major player in the achievement of Emirates organizational goals and objectives. When managers understand the long-term objectives of the company, they can be able to make strategic goals today that are in line with the long-term objective. This is demonstrated in the strategic decision of Fly Emirates to merge with Air France and KLM. Due to the global competitiveness of the airline industry, Emirates knew that the only way to achieve their strategic objective was to cooperate with Air France in order to remain relevant. The strategic decision of Emirates compelled Air France to discuss the establishment of Etihad Airline, which was a way of increasing cooperation between the airlines.
Management at Emirates knew the strategic position of the company in Dubai would allow the company to reposition itself as a globally recognized carrier since it links the east and the west (Santistevan & Karjalainen, 2015). The long term strategic planning of managers has enabled the airline to achieve its goals and objectives. Today, the Fly Emirate is recognized as a global carrier with excellent customer service. This shows that strategic planning is useful in aligning long terms objectives of the firm with those of the organization. Strategic planning is imperative because it has enabled Emirates to achieve its goals and to compete with it main rival Air France without losing its market share or profitability margin.
To achieve competitive advantage, Fly Emirates made its services more professional, which turned out to be different from what their competitors were offering. This strategic decision has enabled the company to create competitive advantage in the market. Today, many customers prefer Fly Emirates due to the nature of its services and the ability to offer competitive prices. Although competition is high in this industry, efficient service delivery and the ability to maintain a motivated workforce has played a significant role in ensuring the company achieves its main objectives. Managers have also been able to align the workforce with the goals of the firm thus motivating them to achieve set goal in both the short and long run.
Due to high competition in the market, Fly Emirates had to improve its service delivery to achieve it business objectives in both the short and long term. Emirates become the second airline to order the A380 Airbus, which is one of the world largest airplanes in the world (Jun, Granados & Netessine, 2013). Although the airline was experiencing stiff competition from Air France, this strategic decision has driven the carrier to achieve it business objective faster.
Management had relied on the long time objectives of the company to align business strategies with the mission and vision statement. It also involved a careful analysis of both internal and external factors in the market that would allow the carrier to achieve its goals. Therefore, a proper understanding of strategic planning and human resource management at Fly Emirates has been critical in ensuring that long terms goals of the are aligned with the human resource management (Ferreira Braga Tadeu & Tasso Moreira Silva, 2015, p. 54).
A critical analysis of management decision at Emirates has demonstrated the role played by strategic planning in aligning organizational goals with those of its workers. Moreover, it has confirmed that when human resource planning is aligned with the mission and vision statements of a company, it helps to achieve and improve the long-term sustainability. Strategic planning and efficient human resource management have created a competitive advantage for the carrier, which has enabled it to be to remain relevant in the industry.
In conclusion, Fly Emirates have been able to achieve it long term goals due to the ability of managers to align the strategic goals of the company with those of employee. Workers play a critical role in ensuring an organization achieves its objectives. By involving them in strategic decision-making, Fly Emirates has been able to align employee’s goals with the mission and vision statement. Moreover, when worker understand what the organization expects them to achieve, they can be able to work toward achieving the business objective of the company. A strategic analysis of management decisions at Emirates has increased our insight into the role played by strategic planning and performance management in aligning organizational objectives with the mission and vision of the company.
References
Amankwah-Amoah, J. (2014). Organizational Expansion to Underserved Markets: Insights from African Firms. Thunderbird International Business Review, 56(4), 317-330.
Butler, C. (2008). Planning with Blue Ocean strategy in the United Arab Emirates. Strategic Change, 17(5/6), 169-178.
Ferreira Braga Tadeu, H., & Tasso Moreira Silva, J. (2015). Management Indicators and Measurement of Innovation: Review of the Literature. Business Management Dynamics, 4(10), 52-58.
Jun, L., Granados, N., & Netessine, S. (2013). Are Consumers Strategic? Structural Estimation from the Air-Travel Industry. INSEAD Working Papers Collection, (3), 1-39.
Santistevan, D., & Karjalainen, H. (2015). The impact of culture on international management research: a comparison on Francophone and Anglophone research communities. Management International / International Management / Gestation International, 19(3)180-200.