Learn From the Best frame work

space and even though they are five star( Kingfisher) and three star( Jet Airways), they are lagging in the international segment. There are huge gaps in terms of the service offered by these carriers and the internationally renowned carriers( read Singapore Airlines). Hence to bridge these gaps I created a small framework with is very specific for the airline sector. This framework however can be generalized and used in other industries too. The framework is given in Figure1.

Figure 1: Learn From the Best Frame work

 
 

Every airline has a supply side which represents the internal functioning of the organization. The main focus here is to identify ways to improve the efficiency and strengthen the companies' competitiveness. And a demand side which focus on how to attract customers and what creates value for them and how to retain the customers, these are further sub classified into the major categories which needs to be focussed. These subcategories can be tweaked according the sector. I identified the following as the important categories that needs to be focussed on the demand side

• Attracting customers – How does an airline acquire a customer?
  
• Airport service – what is the service that is offered in the airport
  
• Lounge – Service offered in the lounge
  
• Onboard product – What are facilities that are available onboard
  
• Cabin Staff Service – How is the cabin service
  

On the Supply side the main focus was on the major elements that constitute for majority cost,

• ATF – How companies find ways to reduce the cost of ATF( approximately 40% of the cost is contributed by ATF for Indian carriers)
  
• Airport Charges – How companies try to reduce the airport charges( approx 10%)
  
• Maintenance – How to reduce maintenance cost and improve the aircraft life (approx 10%)
  
• Staff – How to control the staff cost and to increase their efficiency (approx 10%)
  

The next step is to execute this frame work on a company from which we want to learn and on the target company( where we want to implement the ideas). By doing so one can identify the gaps between the two companies. This exercise need not be restricted to just between two companies, this can be done between

• Two companies in the same industry
  
• Same industry across geographic location – This helps one to fill the gaps that are found in one geographical location, which is already filled in another.
  
• Between a company and a Industry – This is help one to identify the gaps between the company and the industry. The company can learn from it or the other way.
  

My focus was to identify the gaps that are found in the Indian aviation sector(Premium segment). Hence i took Singapore airline as the carrier from which we are going to learn and i carried out this exercise and obtained Figure2 ,

Figure 2: Singapore Airlines

I did the same for Indian premium services which is given in Figure3,

Figure 3: Indian Premium service

After doing this, some of the gaps that I found are

• Attracting customers
  
  • Advertisement is lagging
    
  • Community service is a form of advertisement which can be tapped
    
• Airport Service
  
  • Infrastructure is the bottle neck
    
• Lounge
  
  • There is a huge gap! Even Kingfisher is lagging here(with a a rating of just 3/5!)
    
• Onboard Activity
  
  • Nothing innovative is happening – Emphasis must be to give unique and customized experience
    
• ATF
  
  • Hedging of ATF prices went grossly wrong for the companies as the fuels prices dropped with the fall in the International economy
    

This framework is still in the nascent stage and needs to enhanced further so that it is focussed still not too specific. By creating similar framework for difference industries, one can easily learn from the best companies and can be replicated the same to different companies. Also this framework is designed in a generic manner so that it can be implemented in different industries. I haven't tried to use this framework across industries, I think with a little tweaking one can use the same to learn from across sectors.