Assignment: South West Airlines
Instructions:
The objective of the integrated semester is to help you extend your knowledge of how the finance, operations, management, and marketing disciplines work and how they integrate their functioning in the real world of business. This assignment is an assessment of how well you understand this integration. It is worth 10% of your course grade. YOUR ASSIGNMENT IS TO ANSWER ALL OF THE QUESTIONS, IN A SINGLE DOCUMENT:
• The assignment should be prepared as a Word document, 12 -14 pages in length (approx. 3 pages for each discipline's questions). • The document should be double spaced, using Ariel font #12. • Label each section (e.g., FINANCE) to indicate which discipline's questions you are answering. • Add any Appendices at the end of the Word document. • Upload the entire Word file through the link on Canvas to each of your Integrated Semester courses by the due date. Note: Your reference sources, in addition to the base case and question sets, should be online sites and articles, Bloomberg terminals, your Integrated Semester textbooks and PowerPoint slides. Also note, Turnitin, a software tool that improves writing and prevents plagiarism, will be used to assess your sourcing of information. Do your own work
FINANCE ASSIGNMENT
The objective of the integrated semester is to help you extend your knowledge of how the finance, operations, management, and marketing disciplines work and how they integrate their functioning in the real world of business. This assignment is an assessment of how well you understand this integration. It is worth 10% of your course grade. Use either the Bloomberg terminals located at the Feliciano School of Business or other reputable sources such as finance.yahoo.com, morningstar.com or Wall Street Journal etc. for the financial data you use in your answers. You need to provide the references regarding the financial data you use to support your answers at the end of the finance portion of the term paper. Questions:
1. Starting service to a new market, such as Havana, Cuba, is a major capital budgeting project for Southwest Airlines (ticker symbol: LUV). A project of this scale requires coordinated planning across all functions of a business that you are studying in your Integrated Core classes. Choose and discuss three items on the income statement and balance sheet that you think will be impacted by this new undertaking (a total of six items). Explain why you chose those particular items, and how those items are impacted by the marketing, management and operations decisions of the company.
2. Explain how the financial decisions regarding starting service to Cuba are related to management, marketing or operations decisions that the company must make (or has made)?
3. Choose and calculate three ratios for this company for the last two years. Make sure to select ratios that you think would be impacted by starting service to a new destination, and explain your reasoning. Identify two competitors of LUV and contrast the ratios. Explain why you selected those competitors. Describe how the decisions made by management, marketing and operations functions of the company can impact, and hopefully improve, these financial ratios.
MANAGEMENT ASSIGNMENT
Southwest Airlines is known for their organizational culture. It is considered one of the key factors contributing to their success. They are ranked 8th in 2017 as "Most Admired Companies in the World" and ranked 13th "Best Employer in 2016".
1. Describe Southwest's organizational culture. How has the culture contributed to their success? Southwest is also known for its proven business strategy. They believe in a sustainable future where there is balance in their business model between shareholders, employees, customers and other stakeholders. As a result and unique in the airline industry, they have maintained 44 years of consecutive profitability. They ranked 1st in "Lowest Number of Complaints" in 2016.
2. The company developments as seen in the "Flash Forward" beginning in 2010 have been significant. Review those accomplishments. What are some of the key elements of their strategy as seen in these developments? How has the original strategy been altered to achieve those results?
3. Describe how Southwest's planning process helped establish their organizational objectives, business model, address problems, adapt to changes in the environment and remain successful.
OPERATIONS ASSIGNMENT
The objective of the integrated semester is to help you extend your knowledge of how the finance, operations, management, and marketing disciplines work and how they integrate their functioning in the real world of business. This assignment is an assessment of how well you understand this integration. It is worth 10% of your course grade. Since its birth Southwest Airlines has been a one-aircraft airline. Every plane they fly is a Boeing 737. This gave them many advantages when they were a regional airline and flew short hops mostly. Now they are not just a national carrier but have significant numbers of international flights. Other major airlines fly a wide variety of aircraft - from small 20 seater jets to wide-bodied aircraft like the Airbus 340 or the Boeing 747. This gives them a lot of flexibility - they can use small aircraft on small low-demand flights and larger aircraft on the longer more popular routes. To gain this same flexibility, Southwest is considering using smaller planes on some of its regional flights of less than 90 minute duration. As a trial, flights between two small cities in Arkansas will switch over to a small 50-seater aircraft from the usual Boeing 737. This switch is scheduled to happen in June of 2019. What does the operations function have to do between now and June to get ready for these trial flights? Focus on any 4 of the following issues. For each issue, clearly describe what roles finance, marketing and HR have to play. • Scheduling of flights • Scheduling of personnel • In-flight services • Quality of service • Gate operations • Crew scheduling • Maintenance
Format your assignment according to the following formatting requirements:
1. The answer should be typed, double spaced, using Times New Roman font (size 12), with one-inch margins on all sides.
2. The response also includes a cover page containing the title of the assignment, the student's name, the course title, and the date. The cover page is not included in the required page length.
3. Also include a reference page. The Citations and references should follow APA format. The reference page is not included in the required page length.