British Airways

MANAGEMENT
CULTURE
STRATEGY

Main Problems: different culture, inflexible, preoccupied, hierarchical management, lack of

communication skill between departments, managers highly specialized

Organizational structure  slimmer and flatter (in contrast of “forced management

system”

 Culture  cultural education training

 Customer Experience was very bad

Change Management:
 Reducing staff (decreasing workforces systematically)
 Cut in production cost: reduction in the number of routes, college of air training is
closed, catering construction were transferred to outside contractors, property
interests were divested.

significant gap between what was delivered by BA staff what the consumer actually
required. Another management plan was the transformation of the system from staff-
oriented to customer oriented through the formation of ‘customer is king’ environment
within the company. 

Putting people first:  a program of courses was employed throughout the whole
organization. This program was aimed at improving self image, to achieve the greatest
possible standards of customer care and to change attitude towards the external and
internal customers.

Winning for customer program: focused on listening to customer’s views and making
changes in the company accordingly. 

Managing people first program: this program was focused on increasing trust among
employees, emphasizing the importance of leadership and feedback.

External audit: frontline employees were awarded with the required authority and also the
information to deal with the customers. The process was started by eliminating layers of the
management structure and emphasize from divisional was changed to a functional
structure.

Audit  training program

The heavy support from the top management (Marshall attended a number of staff and
management programs and spent 20% of his time in this activity) and the continued training
softened the harsh impact of cultural and organizational change.

These changes emerged to work for the company in the form of delivering excellent
service and quality to the customers and developing relationships with them and in the
long run the company appeared to be the largest airline for UK. 

Success of the Change Management

The changes which were implemented by British Airways helped it to become more
customer oriented by delivering excellent services and quality to the customers. Also,
these changes helped the company to improve their relationship with the employees as
well as the relationship of the employees with the customers.

1989 the award of “World’s Best Airline” which is a prestigious business traveler
award.