Reference no: EM132613407

IMAT5211 E-Commerce Systems - De Montfort University

The outbreak of the COVID-19 has nearly brought most or all the world biggest airlines to their knees. British Airways (BA) like all the world-famous airlines is going through very difficult time, trying during this time of uncertainty to flight where restrictions still allow. Passengers have seen their flights cancelled but have been given options to rebook or to be reimbursed.

Indeed, most of the airports have been closed in different part of the world. The US has decided on the early days of the disease outbreak to ban all the flights from Europe in order to try to protect its population against the spread of the COVID-19, given that Europe became one of the main epicentres of the disease. The travel ban that did not include the UK in the beginning, very soon include the United Kingdom on the travel ban list adding to the ‘headache' of BA amongst other airline companies. Within Europe, the flights between the European countries and big capitals were also cancelled and so were the travels in other destinations worldwide.

British Airways is fighting for survival in these uncertainties caused by the current situation. Thousands of staff have been lay off and analysts predict that this situation will lead to a proper chaos and airline companies going bankrupt if the whole scenario carries on for more than 2 months. The situation is bringing some losses estimated to several billions on passengers' revenues in Europe and also other destinations and continents. On the other hand, people believe that the situation being at a world level, BA like other big airlines will be able to survive the crisis, if appropriate measures are taken. Nevertheless, it is predicted that tens of thousand of jobs will be lost, therefore the UK government will be forced to step in and help companies such as British Airways to save or reduce jobs losses.

You are a young graduate from De Montfort University and are part of a team of expert that has been asked to make some preliminary studies in order to understand before, during and prepare after COVID-19. The current assignment is in three main parts and you are asked to tackle all three parts of the assignment.

Part I

Using the expertise developed after your MSc that includes knowledge in E-Commerce, you are asked to conduct a SWOT analysis of the British Airways situation before the outbreak of the COVID-19 that is before March 2020. Following this research on BA, write a detail report of how the company business model was helping to attract more customers from different background around the world, getting competitive edge on rivals, making more business and being more attractive compare to other airlines. The analysis should be well detailed. You might include recommendations that would have helped the company to better handle the current COVID-19 crisis which wasn't predicted.

Part II 
Taking into account the recommendations made above, undertake a new analysis showing your insights as an expert to explain, demonstrate, and predict how BA by using the results of your analysis will recover faster when the COVID-19 is over in the next coming 3 months. That might be around June 2020 (or maybe soon later) as predicted by most analysts. Using the information gathered about the travel season, the UK governmental help, the position of the competitors after the COVID-19 crisis, etc., explain how you will base your analysis on the Porter's Competitive Forces Model or the Albert Angehrn's ICDT Model to build a strategy to support and achieve British Airways' fast recovery.

Part III

The government of the UK like most of the government around the world is planning a massive bailout to help companies facing the challenge of the COVID-19. Briefly tell us why is it important and how this support in general and particularly the financial support can help BA in recruiting young experts coming from Universities into the job market to assist these big companies to become again more competitive against other world big airlines, especially the European airlines, Americans, Chinese, etc., and be ready for this type of unpredicted crisis.

NB: Please make sure all the materials used in your assignment are properly referenced, including sound citations using the Harvard Referencing System.