Virgin Atlantic is the Britain’s second largest airline company established in 1984.

It is one of the
major forces in international airline business, so it is the world’s leading airline serving most of the
major cities of the world. Virgin Atlantic gained its popularity as it won the top business, consumer
and trade awards from around the world.

Management is act of getting people together to accomplish designed goals and objectives. It
compromises of planning, organising, staffing, leading and controlling on organisation. The term
strategic management compasses an array of different functions undertaken to accomplish a task
successfully. In the simplest way the management is all about “doing things right”. However, it is the
way and the process of how one achieves ones target or goals and it is in this respect that
management is considered an art and science as well.

“Strategic management is an on-going process that evaluates and controls the business and the
industries in which the company is involved; assesses its competitors and sets goals and strategies to
meet all existing and potential competitors; and then reassesses each strategy annually or quarterly
[i.e. regularly] to determine how it has been implemented and whether it has succeeded or needs
replacement by a new strategy to meet changed circumstances, new technology, new competitors, a
new economic environment., or a new social, financial, or political environment.” (Lamb, 1984)

Leadership is the organising of group of people to achieve a common goal. Leaders take their
followers towards the place where they ought to be not where they want to go. A good leader should
have following qualities in him.

 Bold in challenging situation

 Ambiguous situation handler
 Good commanding skills
 Fore sighted/future viewing
 Influential
 Creative
 Better communication skills
 Set examples.
 Trouble shooter

The Virgin Atlantic could face a lot of challenges so as to be competitive due to quickening pace of
change, increasing uncertainty, growing ambiguity, and complexity. The organisation must widen the
scope of leadership responsibility for strategic leadership and engage additional people in the process
of leadership. Setting strategy means to create a plan to achieve the objectives and goals. None,
including the Virgin Atlantic, can achieve its objectives and goals if they don’t agree with the strategy.
This is one of the major responsibilities of a leader. When a leader changes, the strategy also
changes accordingly.

There are three types of management approach.

Scientific management approach

 Accurate and reliable information about employees output

 Mathematical calculations
 Less discrimination
  Performance are crystal clear

Disadvantages

 Employees stressed
 Job insecurity
 No human factor (treated like machine)
 Monopoly of managers
 Outputs are not quality
 Reduced customer satisfaction
 Increase probability of accident at work
 Disliking of junior staffs
 Lack of motivation/job satisfaction/commitment
 Employee’s high turnover

Human Factor

 Motivation for employees

 Treat individual/better understanding
 Self of importance and belonging
 Affiliation
 Attached to the organisation

Disadvantage

Hard to measure performance

Individual become passive

Matching machine with human

Less productivity/less responsibility

Poor performance

Less efficiency

Less profit

Contingency approach:

a.To build relationship between human being like production (machine)

Time and motion study; standardisation; error elimination; piece rate incentives (outputs)

b. motivation – inner state of mind act as catalyst to thrive towards somebody personal or professional
goals

morale – esteem/ self-respect

performance

c. applying more than two approaches in an organisation is called contingency approach. There is no
set approach of management; it depends on various factors like situation/environment.
http://www.preventia.co.uk/resources/case_studies/Virgin-Atlantic-Case-Study.pdf (accessed on
19/04/2011)

 Lamb, Robert, Boyden Competitive strategic management, Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall, 1984