Virgin – the global entrepreneur

Discuss how does Virgin Atlantic adds value as a corporate parent. What else should it do to add
value?

The following factors add value to Virgin Atlantic:

Communications: the role of the marketing communications department is to keep business and
leisure travelers informed through press and TV advertising, mailings and a variety of offers and
promotions. Running special promotions - like fare discounts on particular fares - increases the
popularity of seats on each route all year round.

Creative Services: the in house design team produces everything from sales literature, trade
material, newsletters and posters to photography and video production. The design crew also
manages the development and use of Virgin Atlantic's corporate identity.

Charity: in conjunction with the Virgin Healthcare Foundation, Virgin Atlantic's onboard charity,
Change for Children, supports four charities a year as well as special appeals to support national
fundraising days or natural disaster relief. Virgin Atlantic does not seek publicity for support of
charitable activities.

Events: the Events team manages a wide variety of exciting activities to promote Virgin Atlantic
and its routes. The team looks after new product launches for corporate and trade clients, as well
as training and social events for travel agents, exhibitions, road shows and press launches.

Partner Liaison: the Partner Liaison team is the core of the flying club, linking the Loyalty
department, the flying club partners and the flying club members, and negotiating contracts with
potential partners to provide a huge selection of mileage earning opportunities and rewards to
spend those miles on.

Research: Virgin Atlantic commissions quarterly customer satisfaction studies that are conducted
by the prominent market research organization NOP. The surveys monitor everything from the
punctuality of the flight departures to the length of check in queues and the quality of the in
flight entertainment and service. Results of the surveys are fed back to managers globally,
providing the airline with the valuable opportunity to review and improve its services wherever it
can.

Database Marketing: working closely with the flying club team, the Database Marketing team
manages and maintains the extensive customer database. This database holds a wide range of
information including details provided by customers who register their interest in Virgin Atlantic
when visiting its' web site.

Mission:
They say that safety, security and consistent delivery of the basics are the foundation of
everything they do. The success of their three year strategy requires them to build on these
foundations by focusing on the business and leisure markets and driving efficiency and
effectiveness. Their mission is: ‘To grow a profitable airline, where people love to fly and where
people love to work’.

Developments:

Virgins on board entertainment offered up to twenty audio and sixteen video channels, including
a shopping and a game channel. There was also a presence of a beauty therapist to give smooth
massages and health care. Next to a beauty therapist there was also the presence of a tailor. The
beautician offers massages and manicures, on some flights to Hong Kong Virgin Transatlantic
Airways; the tailor faxes passenger’s measurements so that suits can be ready on arrival. Virgin
Airways is also the only airline to offer automatic defibrillators on board. There is a three-person
special facilities unit that was set up in 1991 to deal with medical requests.

Another service innovation was motorcycle rides to Heathrow for upper class passengers.
Nothing was too crazy for Richard Branson. He made sure that his crazy but successful thoughts
made a big difference between the competitions.

Furthermore they also had a special department that took care for the needs of passengers who
had special travel needs. They have a range of services to make their journey as comfortable as
possible; these needs varied from special meals to providing special mobility aids at the airport.

Virgin tried to understand passengers’ needs and go beyond their expectations. While it
described itself as a niche airline for those seeking value-for-money travel, its standards and
reputation could appeal to a very wide arrange of customers. It was the best of both worlds- a
great service with a cheap price ticket on its neck.

Trends:
Because of all these developments, they always made sure that the latest trends were on board.
Because of this they even got prices for the best in-flight food, best entertainment, best magazine
etc. They put video screens in the head seats of all the airplanes, soon followed all the other
companies. Because of their awareness of all the things happening outside the aviation, they
made sure that they had the best of the best on board.
The Key Success Factors of Virgin Atlantic Airways that continues to add value are:

Strong Brand name: Virgin has a strong brand name. Since the beginning of Virgin, it stood for a
new breeze of fresh air, a company that understands the customer. This helps Virgin to reach
customers for their Airline Company

High Skilled Workforce: Richard Branson has a high skilled group of people working for him.
He took the best of the best so the customer gets spoiled and it makes them feel comfortable. Its
maybe not the first thing you think about, but a motivated group of workers will make that extra
dot of effort to make the customers feel great and let it make a flight to never forget.

Superior Quality of Products and Entertainment: Because of the financial status of Richard
Branson he could put a lot of money in things like food and entertainment. This made the flights
much more pleasant for the customers. Everyone knows that food on an airplane sucks, but he
put extra funds in food and now it has been rewarded many consecutive years of the best on-
board food as well as for the entertainment.

Value for your money: Virgin tried to make flying affordable for every layer of the society.
Selling tickets at low prices with the best service made it worldwide known that Virgin is the
best airline to fly with. Selling tickets for low prices made a lot of profit and made sure that
Virgin has a faithful group of customers.

Differentiation: Virgin is experienced in different distributions and is co-existence in the region

of 2 seaports and an international airport with direct possibility of export, making Virgins profit
go up tremendously. Virgin also has an expanded IT sector. All these things make Virgin
Atlantic a huge success.