Qantas James Strong was on the right track!!

[Sprucegoose]

So James was on the right track here.....where did Geoff go wrong???



YouTube - Qantas

 

[FuzzyAUS]

WOW.. The good old days.. When the customer was the center of it all

Love the start, love watching the big birds land,

About mid way through they talk about the new J seating in the 763's which at the time we less than 5 years old, i was on one of these last week coming home from Melbourne.

i didn't fly much on QF back then (was a bit young) as most of our flights was with Lufthansa. (that just took me back to the old international terminal at Sydney and the "rooms" that used to the be lounges back in the late 80's early 90's..)

Different era, but yes; in my opinion, James was on the right track.

 

[ozbeachbabe]

I think the statement which carries the most impact is around 6:27 into the video when James Strong says the following:

"but of all the changes the most important is the focus we're placing on investing in our people. I want to emphasise that we realise this is a two way street, Management must listen to people about the real issues in providing services then invest in resources to support our people to train, take action on problems to monitor performance and follow through on detailed issues which you identify as needing attention.

We can only succeed through our people who run the airline every day dealing with customers, maintaining the aircraft, preparing the food.

Every minute of every day our customers demand world class service, for our people to deliver this, we must not only have the right attitudes, we must also have the the right training, tools and equipment and the right environment to in which to deliver them."

Fast forward 15 years or so and the policies of the current CEO is the complete opposite. Now if only he adopted the above he might have something to be proud of.

 

[tuppaware]

What would a video like that say today ?

'Our customers like it cheap, so we treat them like ****.'

 

[medhead]

Where did geoff go wrong?

What besides trying to sell off the company and make himself $500 million.

The guy (and the board) treated the company as their own private cash cow and totally ignored the shareholders and what is best for them. If that is how the guy treated the owners of the company, what chance the customer?

 

[ozbeachbabe]

Where did geoff go wrong?

What besides try to sell off the company and make himself $500 million.

The guy (and the board) treated the company as their own private cash cow and totally ignored the shareholders and what is best for them. If that is how the guy treated the owners of the company, what chance the customer?

How was Geoff even allowed to do that when it's a giant conflict of interest. Well he does have a couple of (bonus) kids to support who live in Switzerland & cost of living is quite exxy there!

Probably the same d!ckhead who listens to beancounters. :evil:

James Strong would never assume that staff would know who he was & would always go up and introduce himself to anybody irrespective of what position they held in the company. Whereas his predecessor John Schaap would complain to management if an employee in the Qantas Club didn't recognise him. I think it got slowly worse from there.

I'm a big fan of the saying "you can tell a lot about a person by they way they treat someone they don't need".

 

[Sprucegoose]

I think the statement which carries the most impact is around 6:27 into the video when James Strong says the following:

"but of all the changes the most important is the focus we're placing on investing in our people. I want to emphasise that we realise this is a two way street, Management must listen to people about the real issues in providing services then invest in resources to support our people to train, take action on problems to monitor performance and follow through on detailed issues which you identify as needing attention.

We can only succeed through our people who run the airline every day dealing with customers, maintaining the aircraft, preparing the food.

Every minute of every day our customers demand world class service, for our people to deliver this, we must not only have the right attitudes, we must also have
the the right training, tools and equipment and the right environment to in which to deliver them."

Fast forward 15 years or so and the policies of the current CEO is the complete opposite. Now if only he adopted the above he might have something to be proud of.

Absolutely!! It's all very clear when you hear it distilled in those terms.

We are blaming other carriers and governments for our woes, not our performance and service delivery.

Look at Borders and Angus and Robertson, bought the wrong books, sells BBQ's now, business model way off centre. We will still buy books, we enjoy browsing while having a coffee, it just wont be Borders and Angus and Robertson......selling them.

QANTAS managment need to go back and look at that advice then as it is a current today as it ever will be.


Look within and back your people...they too are all passionate and proud about the airline.

 

[Moopere]

We will still buy books, we enjoy browsing while having a coffee, it just wont be Borders and Angus and Robertson......selling them.

Yes, this is very important to understand. The market itself is not shrinking. Current players who are not able to keep up with their customers expectations will simply disappear. Australians will still fly, but they won't be on QF metal is all.

Its an odd thing to see QF apparently drive towards the bottom when almost everyone else is heading upwards to capture the business/first or at least PE market.

On the other hand, we can't see whats happening at the corporate end of QF. There has been at least one statement from DJ in recent times where they allude to their 'flexibility' due to not having any historical baggage. Not sure what they are talking about exactly, but perhaps there is more union and legislative baggage for QF then we realise?

Perhaps we are witnessing a long drawn out internal shift from QF which will eventually see QF itself essentially disappear from the sky to be replaced with JQ, then JQ will do a 'reinvention' of itself, ala what DJ has planned this year, and become a full service much as QF used to be. In the process they will cut out most of the hard to shift dead wood they are suffering from?

In a nutshell. Shift the paying business to JQ, close QF, refocus JQ back into QF's old space and move out the management and other dead wood along the road - in this way you don't risk the total collapse of your business.

 

[trippin_the_rift]

All successful boards in major corporations (Fortune 500 companies are perfect examples) have a balance of business heads and entrepreneurial experience.

When the balance is right (80% biz, 20% entrep), boards work well - customers feel valued, real innovation continues to trend upwards and goodwill is continually re-invested back into customers. The business heads can then extract a higher ARPU and enjoy a longer customer lifecycle.

Every major business school teaches this (keep in mind all good business schools use only real life examples).

James Strong was known for his balance int this area, but the QF board back in the 90's was also different to what it is now.

The balance is out of whack right now with a 95% business focus with little regard for goodwill, and that's why I've since offloaded QF stock and have bookings with other airlines for international travel.

As the patriotic baby-boomers off and wind down their business travel, it will become obvious that the new kids on the block were not 'brainwashed' in the same fashion as past generations. QF won't see a reflection in their bottom line yet because they are still cashing in on past decades of branding.

Give it another 3-5 years and we will see QF really struggle to win customers and this will be reflected on their bottom line.

Unfortunately it will take some major pain before the shareholders/non execs wake up to act on replacing the board with some balance that will secure the financial future.

 

[codash1099]

I hope it wasn't atypical, but judging by my experience in flights PER-MEL and return over the last day or two suggest to me that there are changes going on in QF.

For the first time that I can recall, though flying Y, I was greeted with a smile at the QP, at both boarding points and later when an FA made a special trip to welcome me on board.

Similar or better on the way back, especially since I scored my first ever Op-UP, and that from a Red-E special

 

[Australian]

that was painful to watch, given every bit i jumped to had phases that leaped out at me and left me to think - 'wow, that's gone!' ("... never smugness or self-satisfcation ... " , "...the service we provide consistently .... ", " ... a personal style ... " , " the way of doing business in the future: face-to-face ... " ) lol ...

 

[Sprucegoose]

Yes very salient points made...equally valid today.

 

[casanovawa]

Well '99 i would imagine was quite a different airline market, here in Oz and globally, and we were probably a slightly different country in terms of how many people could travel, who they were and what that travel experience they expected (cheap vs high quality)...

The LCC phenomenon would have been much less and the range of airlines to compete with would have been fewer and usually offering a better class of full service, so Qantas was probably quite comfortable operating and competing within that environment and all their history, brand equity and local support would have been of great benefit...

I think Dixon came in and had to compete with the onset of LCCs and also adopted a priority of getting a greater return on assets and making more profit. Didn't he at some point talk about the amount of assets that Qantas had compared to how much profit they actually returned??? (stuff we hear from the banks now) I think over the last decade Qantas would have to have been one of the most profitable airlines (shareholdres were probably happy) while BA has gone from the most popular airline in the world to one crisis after another, how many billons has the US airline industry lost and how many carriers haven't survived or have had to merge along with iconic European Airlines???

While not popular in terms of some of the changes Qantas has performed better than many of those old competitors... the fleet non renewal probably helped but financially although that can just meansshort term profits at the expense of long term pain as the fleet eventually needs block renewal, which could easily be argued as not 'smart business'...

So yes, lot of good concepts in that corp video which wouldn't neceesarily be expensive to implement but need staff good will and buy in, maybe they needed to not try and be all things to everyone, keep QF top shelf and Jetstar bargain/LCC competitive and don't mix them up and be realistic about short term profits vs making bad long term decisions (3-5 year CEO stints militate against long term planning)

Again though, the competitive environment has changed so much...

 

[Sprucegoose]

I believe it has been reported that Qantas was the second most profitable airline in the last ten years?

Others such as Emerites has access to fortunes and a very low cost of capital. Level playing field? I think not!!

 

[JohnK]

The current CEO's focus isn't on customers or customer service. A critical mistake in business.

 

[jaffa]

QF's perceived problems can be summed up in 3 words:

Consistency, Consistency and of course Consistency.

My opinion, for what its worth, is that QF when operating to policy & process is a good product.
And therein is the problem.
Qf seem unable to consistently deliver the policy and process.

Online CI, new age airport CI and Bag drop, sometimes works sometimes does not.

Online booking and ticketing sometimes works fine and sometimes does not

Onboard food, entertainment and service sometimes great sometimes dreadfull.

Working metal sometimes fine sometimes you wonder.

Luggage service sometimes excellent sometimes hopeless.

Premium services and product sometimes the best and sometimes not worth the money.

Lounges some good, others a waste of time.

Problems and complaint handling, sometimes great sometimes infuriating.

loyalty recognition, totally depends on who your dealing with.

Status entitlements sometimes delivered sometimes they couldn't care less.

I think that over the past 4 years, "consistency" has continued to deteriate.
When it works QF is a great experience.
Now when l fly QF, l wonder and prepare for which bit is going to go wrong.

My experience of the past 4 years in particular is 1 out of 3 flight experiences turns out fine.
Prior to this for me was 3 out of 4.