Reference no: EM13584911

Case Study: Sky-High Airlines <br/>Background <br/>Sky-High Airlines (SHA) owns a number of small airline companies, based in different <br/>countries across the globe. Sky-High Airlines was once the industry leader and has <br/>enjoyed a significant market share for several decades, but recently pressures from a <br/>rival conglomerate of airlines, focused on low-cost strategy, has forced SHA to <br/>rethink its corporate strategy of providing luxury travel at a premium price. <br/>At a recent board meeting it was announced by the CEO that Sky-High Airlines must <br/>lower its operating costs to avoid falling further behind its new competition. It has <br/>been left to the executives to figure out how costs are going to be lowered, whilst <br/>maintaining a premium quality of service to its customers. <br/>Amelia Earhart, the Chief Information Officer (CIO) of Sky-High Airlines, has for a <br/>long time been trying to unify the global approach to processes and disparate <br/>booking systems across the group. She has been given the job of reviewing the <br/>technology available and providing a cost effective solution to regain its market share. <br/>Sky-High Airlines <br/>Recently, Sky-High Airlines acquired Fresh Air (FA) to expand into a new market, <br/>South Africa. Besides expansion, one of the main reasons for attaining Fresh Air was <br/>an industry-leading booking system, based on open source technologies which many, <br/>including the CEO of SHA, believe is a source of competitive advantage. <br/>At present the booking systems of the airlines within the group are disparate as a <br/>result of historical acquisitions, which left each airline more or less as it was <br/>operationally. Aside from Fresh Air, all other airlines within the group have different <br/>bespoke booking systems. <br/>Amelia has been thinking how she can capitalise on the acquisition of Fresh Air to <br/>build a universal booking system. The biggest challenge facing Amelia is to put <br/>together a persuasive argument in order to gain the necessary support and backing <br/>required. <br/>However, Amelia is already experiencing some resistance to her fact finding from <br/>some of the global business locations within the group, with some of the IT managers <br/>who have responsibility for the current booking systems voicing concern about the <br/>move to a single booking system. Furthermore, she is aware that the board does not <br/>have a good understanding of technology and have been reluctant to invest in this <br/>area in the past. <br/>Amelia is a key sponsor for this project and feels as if she had lost the confidence of <br/>the board with regard to the implementation of new technology. She faces one final <br/>challenge: the CEO has identified IT as one of the areas in which Sky-High Airlines <br/>must cut back. As one of the founders of the company in 1978, the CEO sees IT as <br/>an unnecessary expense which is costing the business too much money and would Dr Maria Kutar Sept 2014 3 <br/>Operations and Information Management <br/>rather focus on redundancies and other traditional efficiency techniques, rather than <br/>investing in technology. <br/>Your Task <br/>You are a consultant employed by Amelia Earhart of Sky-High Airlines. Your <br/>objective is to write a report with your analysis and recommendations regarding the <br/>introduction of an integrated booking system, based on that of Fresh Air (the South <br/>African airline), into Sky-High Airlines by discussing the following: <br/>• Outlining the ways in which the new IT strategy can benefit Sky High Airlines <br/>• Identifying key challenges of Sky High Airlines transitioning to an integrated <br/>system <br/>• Providing detailed recommendations for how the strategy could be effectively <br/>implemented. <br/>You should use appropriate theories, frameworks, models, that we have covered in <br/>the module, to inform and justify your recommendations. You may include in <br/>appendices any analysis that you have conducted (e.g. BPM, SWOT etc) to support <br/>your arguments. <br/>Please structure your assignment as a report – include: <br/>Title Page, Contents, Introduction, Main Section, Conclusions, Recommendations, <br/>and References