Boeing Case Study

Boeing

Boeing is known for its commercial airplanes as well as aerospace craft and military defense aircraft. Technology has and will continue to be a major aspect in Boeings management planning. Management planning is affected by legal issues, ethics, and corporate social responsibility. Three factors that influence the company's strategic, tactical, operational and contingency planning are economic conditions, innovation, and competition. Boeing has been able to maintain success for many years due to their strong ethics and ability to plan. Therefore, this paper will go more in depth on the different influences and factors involved in the management planning and success of Boeing.

First, management will analyze the situation. Management needs to examine past events, look at the current situation, and try to forecast future trends. In a situational analysis, Boeings management will also consider the competitive market. Next, management will set goals and create alternative plans that will aide in the achievement of those goals. Boeings specific goal is to become the world's largest civil aircraft maker again. Management will set goals that are relevant to Boeing's mission of being the dominant aircraft producer again. Plans may include innovative ideas and designs that enable workers to offer products that fit into the ever-changing technological and economical aspects of the business. Boeings management will more than likely make safety a main priority in their aircraft designs. Regularly evaluating the goals will help determine possible effects, disadvantages and advantages of each goal, therefore, management will have to consistently evaluate each goal that has been set and track the progress. If one goal has been to focus on the production of commercial aircraft and then suddenly hard economic times fall on societies all around the world, people may not have the resources available to travel as much as they were before the downturn. Management may need to cut production in commercial aircraft and instead focus on the production of a different aircraft that is more in demand.

Furthermore, legal issues can also impact Boeing's management planning. When management plans on a pay scale for employees, they need to consider equal pay for equal work. There should not be any discrimination involved when deciding employee salaries. In 2000, Boeing was sued over a complicated legal issue involving gender pay differential. There was enough evidence of the pay differential that Boeing had no choice but to settle to prevent being publicly humiliated (Associated Content, 2008). Boeing management has a written company policy which covers expected ethical business conduct. This code of conduct pertains to all of their employees, including subsidiaries, contingent labor, consultants, and others acting on behalf of the company (Boeing, 2010). Boeing management has set a goal to create a precedent for ethics, and also offers ethical awareness programs and educational classes. In addition, Boeing made the list of one of the largest corporate emitters of toxins in the United States. Since Boeing was on the list of emitting too many toxins, Boeing acknowledged their corporate social responsibility and set a goal to reduce emissions. Boeing is currently working toward a five year goal to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 25 percent from 2008 to 2012 (Boeing, 2009). This goal supports a cleaner environment, resulting in social responsibility most consumers are looking for.

Moreover, there are three factors that influence Boeing's strategic, tactical, operational and contingency planning. These factors include current economic conditions, innovation, and competition. Since the worldwide economic decline, commercial aircraft demand has gone down considerably. As of February 2010, Boeing executives noticed signs of economic improvement which will in turn lead to more airplane orders. For Boeings management, this positive outlook can possibly bring Boeing out of their economic slump and back to planning for an increase in production. To cut costs of production, Boeing is considering just putting a new engine in their 737 aircraft instead of building a whole new aircraft from scratch. Part of the strategy in this plan will be to improve profitability by replacing the engine with a more efficient one. This plan will set the stage for tactical planning which may include installation and testing of the new engine in the existing plane. If all the testing is successful,