Free «Strategic Choice» Essay Sample

Strategic Choice

Since its inception in 1999, JetBlue has ensured that it has lived up to its vision of “bringing humanity to air travel.” To achieve this, the company has adopted the following strategic choice alternatives. 

Value discipline

The selection of the best value discipline is vital as it helps in shaping the subsequent plans and decisions that an organization makes. Pearce & Robinson (2010, p.145) argue that the choice of a value discipline defines an organization and what it does. While there are three different disciplines; customer intimacy, operation excellence and product leadership, JetBlue has embraced customer intimacy, and this choice is working wonders at this company. Through this discipline, the company has been able to provide their customers with what they want, and not what the market wants. For example, the company has introduced leather seats that have been fitted with satellite TV as well as domestic bargain flights. This has ensured that their customers experience wonderful flight experiences to all destinations. Additionally, their customers can purchase their tickets online. These actions have been introduced so as to enhance customer intimacy.

Generic strategy

A combination of Porter’s cost leadership and focus generic strategies seems to be working for JetBlue Company. The company’s application of cost leadership strategy can be seen through its smaller and more productive workforce, better use of technology, automated processes, purchase of new single model planes that have lower maintenance and training costs. The above combination indicates that JetBlue will be able to cut down on production cost in the long run, hence profitability. JetBlue has been successful with the focus generic strategy because the company is not only clear about its vision and mission, but also well-articulated and coherent strategy. Moreover, the company can now penetrate into mid-size cities by the recent acquisition of latest models of planes (EMBRAER), which are smaller that the A320. This indicates that the company is now zeroing in on customers who ply from city to city.

Grand Strategy

A grand strategy is defines as the comprehensive or essential plans that a company has put in place so that it can achieve its main objectives.  From the outlook, JetBlue seems to be an expensive airline company due to the services that it offers. In reality, this company is among the reasonably priced airline companies in the U.S. This company is renowned for showcasing its stellar services as well as the extras they offer on-board. This grand strategy is known as differentiation. The company has been able to use the resources and assets at its disposal to differentiate itself from its competitors.

Recommendation

JetBlue currently offers the most competitive per seat operating cost. However, they are still facing stiff competition from other industry players. This competition is threatening the company’s market share. To counteract this threat, the company must identify new and unexploited markets in order to sustain their expansion plans. The company should also improve their infrastructure so as to sustain the quick growth they are striving for.