You may think that incorporating large company practices
into growth of your emerging organization offering minimum viable products is
not very business-wise approach. But what if there are large, profitable
companies, active on highly competitive markets, which actually work like
start-ups?
Take a look at Southwest Airlines – low cost aviation
business player, which is an object of enormous number of best practices case
studies, incl. Jim Collins "Great by choice".
What Southwest Airlines does is that they sell they tickets directly using
Internet, cutting fees on commissions and lowering their prices and giving
priority during the boarding for those, who bought their “product” online.
I assume that as business enthusiast you understand the
concept of supply and demand ;-), so in terms of tickets pricing, Southwest
uses dynamic pricing, meaning that when demands for “products” increases they
charge more for them, and when the demand is low they sell “products” almost
for nothing . It keeps their revenue stream flowing and they offer other
revenue-generating opportunities once they catch the “product user”.
What they offer in fact a seat (with no number <!>) in
one type of plane they have, so its cleaning, maintenance, and people training
related to it is as simple as possible. Therefore thir efficiency of
operating it is much higher than of their competitors.
They avoid crowded airports, so their “distribution
channels” are smaller, cheaper and not congested ones and enabling to “release
the product” on time.
It is said that Southwest’s employees are more important for
the company than Clients, as the Clients only will come, if the team is unique and gives value to the Clients look for.
When there is a risk of flight delay everyone at Southwest from pilot, customer
serving agents to flying attendants and baggage handlers get their hands on
board to ensure the plane leaves on time.
Their flight attendants build customer relationships with telling jokes, rapping during the safety briefing, or making unforgettable experiences like in case of couple, who was flying to get married, when the lights in the cabin dimmed and whole plane sang a loud wedding toast. Relating to J. Gitomer - making them laugh makes them buying ;-)
In 2009 their received almost 100 000 resumes and
employed less than 100, what makes them more prestigious than the Ivy League. Herb Kelleher in attached video explains what they value in the people they
look for most, and whom by all means they would not employ ;-)
What they also practice besides rewarding going the extra
mile to provide great customer service is celebration of the successes. There
are 100 000 photographs in company headquarters’ in Dallas commemorating
company’s moments of joy.
Albert Schweitzer once said that “Success is not the key to happiness.
Happiness is the key to success. If you love what you are doing, you will be
successful”. Assuming that you do what you love, and it is only matter of time to
get there where you want to get, learning from Southwest - don’t forget to
collect some stories to inspire and ignite fire in others later on ;-)
Source: World Business Ideas channel at www.youtube.com