Strategy: Discuss any 5 Judo Principles Airborne Used (Case Study Sample)

Strategy
Name
Institution Affiliation
STRATEGY
Question 1
In the late 20th century, there existed stiff competition in the express mail industry in the United States. Among the three key players in the industry, the Federal Express and UPS made headlines as the best express mail organizations that had built customer loyalty and had made the significant expansion. However, Airborne Express was undertaking for expansion but stayed away from the public limelight. It is important to note that Airborne Express employed various strategies that ensured its growth in 1997. Some of the strategies may fall under the classification of Judo strategies and are worth to explore. Judo strategies entail the resolution of an organization to embark on improving the skills of the workers and use the appropriate technology and a collection of techniques to compete with other firms in the industry. It is apparent that Airborne Express adopted some of the strategies to remain relevant in the competitive market of delivering parcels and other documents.
First, Airborne Express employed the "puppy dog ploy" principle to remain in the market that had attracted massive competition. As noted earlier, the company did not do many public relations for its customers to notice or to attract potential clients (Rose, 2016). Avoiding public limelight is a strategy that an organization may use to silently expand in a competitive market. According to David, & Mary (2002), such a principle enables an organization to keep a low profile and avoid confrontational competition that is present in many businesses where markets experience crowding effect due to many players. Additionally, the strategy enabled the Airborne Express to avoid attacking the other players in the industry head-on and. There were no confrontation between the company and the organizations, which invested in the industry. The article about the airborne maintains that the company rarely attracted the notice of the media and other organizations but in five years, it grew faster than its major rivals in the industry (Rose, 2016). Thus, keeping a low profile constitutes the application of the "Puppy Dog strategy," a type of the judo principles that companies use to compete silently with their rivals.
Secondly, Airborne Express used the techniques of defining the competitive space. Such definition occurred when the organization chose the types of the customers that they could serve to remain in the competitive market and grow. For instance, the company targeted the clients who could manage to ship in the large volume of items that needed urgent delivery to their destinations (Rose, 2016). Such a target meant that company had defined the competitive space in that it could not lose the customers to serve and as such remained competitive. Frequent shippers such as the Xerox remained a client of the Airborne Express ensuring that the organization remained in the business. It is noteworthy that Airborne Express remained confident of growing because it had loyal customers to do business with and as such the organization maximized on the principle of defining the competitive space. Organizations that define markets are likely to grow especially if their clients increase the production and demand more services.
The third strategy that Airborne Express Company put into use is the gripping of the opponent. However, the company did not directly grip the opponent but used other organizations to ‘rattle' UPS to act in response to the competition that Airborne Express was causing. For instance, in 1996, the company established a relationship with the Roadway Package System (RPS) where RPS had to take part in facilitating the ground transport needs of the Airborne Express customers. Such a relationship appeared to penetrate into the UPS's customer base. They relied on ground transport to reach the mail services (Harris, 1997). Notably, RPS offered low-cost services and had the capacity to track the information and lost documents. The partnership served to grip the attention of the other companies in the industry such as UPS, but they were late because RPS had the reputation as the leader in packaging and delivery of information. Therefore, Airborne Express had gripped the rivals in the business, and they had to act to remain in the competitive market as David & Mary (2002) suggest. Such gripping has fewer risks because the company uses proxies to compete with the rivals and thereby keeping safe from the confrontation.
Additionally, the fact that RPS was a business rival to the UPS meant that Airborne Express used the judo principle of seeking to ‘Leverage on the opponents' rivals to remain competitive. Such a technique involved Airborne Express empowering the RPS to ensure that it could ‘wear down' its rivals and therefore, create a lesser competitive environment. Moreover, the technique allows an organization to use the rivals of the competitor to bring in a competition that threatens the existence of the opponent and as such get a higher market share (Stokes, 2015). Thus, Airborne Express management knew that RPS was a rival to the UPS in the road transport delivery of parcels (Schulz, 1997). As a result, Airborne Express capitalized on the rivalry between the two companies to compete with UPS (Rose, 2016). Therefore, building coalitions with the competitors of the rival enable a company to improve standards by working with the partner to ensure that the rival remains disadvantaged in the competitive market.
Another judo technique that Airborne Express used is the leveraging of the opponents' assets. It is evident that company operated a portion of its delivery vans, unlike its competitors that owned all their delivery vans. Airborne Express relied on contractors who could provide delivery vans and used drop-boxes instead of vans in different incidences (Rose, 2016). Leveraging on the rival's assets entails using the knowledge about the assets of the opponent to build capacity that will help the company to avoid risks and liabilities that come with owning some assets (Mary & David, 2002). In the case of Airborne Express, for instance, the management learned that the opponents were experiencing losses and liabilities by entirely controlling and owning their delivery vans. As a result, Airborne Express established contracts with other organizations to provide the delivery services and thereby avoided the risks and liabilities through reducing expenses by about 10% (Rose, 2016). Thus, the judo strategy to leverage on the opponents' assets enabled Airborne Express to cuts costs and as a result witness tremendous growth.
Q 2
The Singapore Air has pursued different business strategies to remain reputable in the airline market. It is noteworthy that some business strategies are incompatible in that applying them simultaneously may lead to the crippling of a business venture. For instance, combining cost leadership and differentiation has not been a success to many businesses in the world. However, Singapore Air has combined the strategies and emerged victorious in the Asian airline industry. It has been the culture in the Asian organizations for the management to believe that adopting insights from two opposing strategies is likely to enrich the scope of policy formulation. It is where the managers come up with what promotes the dual strategy.
For instance, Singapore Air strives to ensure cost-effectiveness in its operation by selling its old fleet and replace it with new planes. It is evident that in 2009 the airline operated airplanes whose age was 74 months (Loizos & Jochen, 2010). The experts in the industry recommend that Airlines should operate airplanes whose maximum age is 160 months. Operating new fleet helps the Singapore Air to continue cutting costs in that it directs fewer resources towards the maintenance of the fleet. With few mechanical failures, the company is likely to build a good reputation that will enable it sustain the customer loyalty and thereby grow steadily in the competitive market since there are fewer delays. Additionally, new planes are fuel-efficient and as such operating them leads to cutting of costs at Singapore Air. Moreover, customers like new planes and thereby Singapore is likely to attract more customers hence making profits and offsetting the costs within a shorter time.
Reducing costs is one of the games that a company can play to remain competitive in the market where the ‘substitutes' maintain standardized costs (Adam, et.al., 1995). Unlike other airlines that may rely on manufacturers to build aircraft, Singapore Air prides itself for having diversified to make the A380 aircraft. Such diversification constitutes differen...