Introduction

Competitive advantage can be explained as a superiority or supremacy over competitors that assists an organization to provide goods and services that are more attractive to the consumers. It assists a company to attain better margins than that of rivals in the market. With respect to Qatar airways, it must be noted that the organisation has attained a competitive advantage by offering extraordinary services to its consumers (Bosch & Man 2013). However, even though the prices of the airlines are on a higher side, the supreme services of the company have allowed it to maintain a powerful customer base.

Qatar Airways vs. Air Asia

Furthermore, Qatar Airways also possesses an innovative fleet of new planes and airports that are appealing to many people. Nevertheless, the geography of airports also plays a key role in enhancing the competitive advantage because a passenger can utilize such middle-eastern airline for long routes with only altering the plane once. On the other hand, Air Asia also has a powerful consumer base that is built from its less cost strategy. The airlines also launched a publicity anthem “now everyone can fly” during its launch. This allowed the airline to attract various customers (Bosch & Man 2013). Moreover, as per the generic strategy of Porter, an organization can attain competitive advantage by three generic measures like focus, cost leadership and differentiation. In relation to this, it can be explained that Qatar has always been focusing on the aspect of product differentiation while Air Asia has been more of a cost differentiation organization.

With respect to competencies and resources of an organization, value must be created for the people on a whole. The analysis of value chain is a type of strategic measure that monitors the valuable affairs of a company. From the value chain analysis of Qatar and Air Asia, it can be witnessed that Air Asia has been a low-cost airline and therefore, they often strategize to buy oil when the prices are low. On the other hand, Qatar Airways have often established competitive advantage by establishing interconnections with their respective long-term suppliers. This concept is more commonly known as inbound logistics. Further, in relation to outbound logistics, it can be seen that Air Asia has endeavoured to assist all its consumers through the facilitation of online medium (Hobica 2016). In other words, consumers can book their tickets and boarding passes from their respective computers. Further, such consumers can also keep a track of the flight schedule on the company’s website. In contrast to this, Qatar has established its competitive advantage by providing enhanced customer services in most of its airports.

Furthermore, with respect to operations, Air Asia has developed several measures to decrease its operation expenses while Qatar has implemented various tools that can allow it to maximize operational effectiveness. Additionally, in relation to marketing and sales, Air Asia has always pursued a focused strategy of marketing so that it can target its consumers who require less costly tickets (Air Asia 2016). Besides, Qatar has also developed its competitive advantage by creating communication channels with their customers through various means and establishing premier club cards especially for the loyal ones.

Air Asia provides low-cost travelling to consumers but these are limited in nature but Qatar provides excellent services to all consumers. Furthermore, the infrastructure of Air Asia has been very powerful that has allowed it to diversify in various countries. On the other hand, Qatar also has a world class infrastructure with premium airports. In relation to human resource management, Air Asia procures various skilled and expert professionals from various segments while Qatar primarily focuses on quality and customer satisfaction on a whole. Air Asia also has integrated technologies that allows it to reduce cost of travelling while Qatar focuses on innovation so that customer experience can be maximized. Air Asia also has effective procurement strategies while Qatar benefits through economies of scale and its huge size.

Additionally, to ascertain whether an organization is attaining competitive advantage, VRIO framework can be analysed (Value, Rarity, Imitability, and Organization). Such framework means whether an organization can exploit opportunities with its resources or whether it is difficult to copy the services offered or whether organizational structure can attain value from resources, etc. Air Asia has adopted various measures to ensure it can create value and therefore, it has mitigated over-the-counter strategies and other additional services like free food, beverage, booking systems, restricted attendant services, etc. It has also restricted flight frequency and concentrated more on particular destinations so that revenue can be enhanced. In contrast, Qatar has created value by offering extraordinary consumer services and luxurious services. In terms of rarity, Air Asia has changed its business model to offer travelling at low costs while the geographical location of Qatar offers long haul travelling betwixt Asia and Europe with least switching.

In terms of imitability, Air Asia’s traits are fast turnaround and path reliability in the sense that its effectiveness and work culture are tough to be imitated. However, overall customer satisfaction is the primary competitive advantage of Qatar that are also hard to be imitated because of immense capital requirements. The work culture of both organizations is effective and accommodates productivity on a whole. Hence, through the usage of a balanced scorecard approach, the efficacy of all the strategies adopted by both the organizations has been deeply discussed so that the outcomes can be attained. Besides, the VRIO framework has also assisted in explaining the illustration of business strategies betwixt both the organizations.

Conclusion

Considering the aforesaid discussion, the business strategy of Air Asia and Qatar Airways has been deeply evaluated. Both the organizations have concentrated at varied market shares. On one hand, Air Asia has adopted the blue market measure that allowed it to tap the new markets of long haul and less cost travelling on a whole. Further, in order to attain the same, several strategic measures were adopted by the organization like eradication of over-the-counter systems and promoting online booking. The present measures of the company are assessed from the VRIO framework and its competencies and resources that are prevailing within the framework of value chain. In contrast to this, Qatar Airways has been able to create a market of exemplary and luxurious services that cannot be imitated by any other rivals. The geographical locations of the organization also grant it a competitive advantage of creating shortest routes of travel betwixt destinations in USA and Asia. With due possession of such advantages, the organization has created a market share in global markets as well such as Asia and Europe. Overall, it can be assessed that the organization is implementing a red ocean measure wherein it can compete with other players by providing extraordinary services and premium travelling.

References

Air Asia. (2016). With AirAsia, now everyone can fly direct to Luang Prabang. Retrieved from https://www.airasia.com/in/en/press-releases/with-airasia-now-everyone-can-fly-direct-to-luangprabang.page

Bosch, F.A.J. and Man, A.P. (2013). Perspectives on Strategy: Contributions of Michael E. Porter. Springer Science & Business Media

Hobica, G. (2016). What makes those Middle East airlines so special? USA Today. Retrieved from https://www.usatoday.com/story/travel/columnist/hobica/2015/09/29/etihad-emirates-qatarairlines-gulf-carriers/72986680/