Example of strategic observations: field assignment business plan

Now that you have been exposed to the basic elements of Business Unit Strategy, the Internal and External environments, it is time to learn from observation.

Each student: Please spend at least 3 hours observing the dynamics of this company (or a competitor’s) business environment. Ideally, return to the business location at least twice, on different days – to gain a richer experience. You may also choose to interview an employee or manager at the business. Note: This can be a business where you are currently employed.      Your answers can be as lengthy as needed, but should be based on your field observations / interviews – and not merely on online research.     While the text-boxes below display a limited length, the entire answer will be recorded. Please remember to copy/paste your answers into a word document for your own records. You may wish to print them out and bring them to class.
Note: While this assignment will contribute toward your group project grade, each student in the group must complete their own field assignment.

What I want to observe is China Airlines as a customer service agent, just answer the question in red.

External Environment.
Please explain your observations of the following PESTEL factors.
Socio-Cultural: When I started observing the crews and the customers for China Airlines, I heard many customers state that the airline would be worked by nothing other than Chinese or Asian employees. They did not believe that they would still see people of other ethnicities working for the airlines, because they thought that China Airlines did not have to follow the same standards, just because the word “ China” was in the name. The socio-cultural factors of China air are very mixed.
Political: When it comes to the political aspects, I saw that the biggest political issue is that there are people from all over the world relying on China Airlines. Also, there are issues with needing to know what the regulations are with each country that they fly into.

Technological:

Technological factors include that the company is reliant on technology for every aspect of the flight from the time of the ticket purchase to the time that the person walks out of the arrival airport. Any issues could lead to total chaos within the company.
Legal: Legal factors involve having to follow any legal guidelines no matter the destination that they are at. This also includes their hiring policies for any country that they have locations at.
Economic: The economic factors of China Airlines include the fact that there was a recent occurrence with the one-third of the shares being sold to private investors. Beyond that the issue of many people currently struggling with the economic downfall, this leads to the problem that many people cannot afford to travel internationally. This causes the profit margin for the company to drop.
Ecological: Ecological factors are not as much of an issue with the company, because the only aspects that involve the ecology aspects are the use of the fuel and the exhaust.

Internal Environment

Please list the tangible resources that you observed at this business location
Their annual report shows that there is very high cost to operate the business, which with the depleted profit margin, there are higher chances that the company could end up seeing more outflow of cash versus the inflow.

Please list the intangible resources that you observed at this business location

The intangible resources would include the technological systems and upgrades or additions of new planes to be able to build a stronger future for the company.
Describe at most two core-competencies that you observe in this business. Explain your reasoning.
One of the biggest core-competencies of China Airlines is the availability. While there are other companies that fly into China, this one has the most available locations to get the flights. Also, because the company is so large, they are also needing to have a very strong communication network.
Based on your analysis of the PESTEL and Internal Environments at this business – what opportunities do you perceive that will help grow or strengthen your focal Company?
One opportunity to be able to help grow the China Airlines is to be able to cater more to the business class, because the economy is suffering right now making it hard for people to be able to take pleasure trips to China, but it is still vital for globalized companies to be able to do this.

Are there any specific competitive advantages that will make your focal Company successful?

The biggest is that there are competitive advantage is the fact the company is readily available in more locations than other China destined airlines. It allows the largest amount of customers to fly to and from. This makes more businesses want to use their services.