Assignment Brief: Compare and Contrast the Strategies of Boeing and Airbus in the Civil Aviation Industry.

1.0 Introduction

This final assignment in the Strategic Management module is going to focus on the strategic approaches taken by Boeing and Airbus. The assignment will first present a brief overview of the organisations respective histories along with an overview into both businesses’ current position in the civil aviation industry. Next there will be an examination of how the two companies are structured, along with their position in the market and how their presence affects the industry they have chosen to operate in. Attention will also be paid to both organisations’ Primary and Secondary activities, along with an examination of their respective support functions. The organisations respective strategies will then be analysed in detail through the use of a SWOT and PESTEL analysis. Other theory relating to strategy (such as the strategy lenses, the strategy clock, game theory) will also be presented as and where necessary. This assignment will then summarise all the main points of interest that have been presented during the course of this report in the form of a conclusion.

1.1 Background to companies

1.1.1 Airbus SAS

Airbus was formed in 1970 as Airbus Industrie, a consortium of France’s Aerospatilae and Deutsche Airbus (a grouping of leading German aircraft manufacturing firms) . It was then that the companies first decided to build their first twin-engine wide body airliner - the A300. The A300 made its maiden flight in 1972, but it was not until 1974 that the first production model, the A300B2 went into active service. This model was not a particular success for Airbus, with only 81 aircraft in service by 1979, at which point both the Spanish and British aerospace industries joined