Singapore Airlines Essay Example for Free

Singapore Airlines Essay Over the past four decades, it has earned a stellar reputation in the ï ¬ ercely competitive commercial aviation business by providing customers with high-quality service and dominating the business-travel segments.  World’s Best Airline award from Condà © Nast  Traveler 21 out of the 22 times it has been  awarded and Skytrax’s Airline of the Year  award three times over the past decade. What’s not so well known is that despite the  quality of its services, SIA is also one of the industry’s most cost-effective operators. From 2001 to 2009, its costs per available seat kilometer (ASK) were just 4.58 cents. According to a 2007 International Air Transport Association  study, costs for full-service European airlines  were 8 to 16 cents, for U.S. airlines 7 to 8 cents,  and for Asian airlines 5 to 7 cents. In fact, SIA  had lower costs than most European and  American budget carriers, which ranged from  4 to 8 cents and 5 to 6 cents respectively. It’s intriguing that SIA has combined the  supposedly incompatible strategies of differ-  harvard business review †¢ july–august 2010  entiation—which it pursues through service  excellence and continuous innovation—and  cost leadership. Few enterprises have executed a dual strategy proï ¬ tably; indeed, management experts such as Michael Porter argue that it’s impossible to do so for a sustained period since dual strategies entail contradictory investments and organizational processes. Yet pursuing dual strategies is becoming an imperative. The demand for valuefor-money products and services has shot up since the recent recession, particularly in developed countries, so even producers of premium offerings have to ï ¬ gure out how to grab opportunities in the middle and the low end  of the market. Moreover, multinational corporations face competition from rivals— many of them from emerging markets—that  use new technologies and business models to  provide good-enough offerings at attractive  prices. Incumbents can ï ¬ ght back by cutting  prices or further differentiating products and  services, but it’s often a losing battle.