JetBlue Mission and Vision

A company's mission statement should reflect its "unique purpose and reason for being" (Zain Books, 2014) Now, realistically, companies exist to earn their shareholders a return, and the mission of the company is therefore to increase shareholder wealth (Friedman, 1970). But this is not something that can be sold to the other stakeholders of a business, especially not the employees. They need to feel that they are contributing to something greater than themselves, as part of their motivation. JetBlue is an airline, and the work it does is to fly people around the country. The best understanding of the company's mission is:

JetBlue has a mission to transform air travel for Americans, bringing dignity back to American skies.

Consider the nine characteristics of a good mission statement. The above statement is broad is scope, encompassing the sum total of the company's business. It does not generate a range of feasible alternatives -- but mission statements should not do this. They are about expressing what the company's reason for being is, not hypothesizing on a number of potential reasons for being. A mission statement is said to not need to be specific. This is certainly not that. The mission statement is actually fairly easy to reconcile among the different stakeholders. It addresses the needs of the customers, and what the employees need to do in order to contribute to meeting those needs. Moreover, this mission statement, if effectively executed, will deliver good for the shareholders as well, as a company that can achieve this should have a competitive advantage over its rivals.

A good mission statement should also motivate its readers to action. In this case, the restoration of dignity should be a call to deliver a superior customer experience, because this is an area where JetBlue can genuinely make a difference in the course of its daily activities. Success is conveyed here because the company aims to transform the industry, something that by most definitions would be considered successful. The mission statement should also be useful for generating strategies or choosing between strategic alternatives -- the guidance here is that the alternatives should be those that help bring dignity back to the skies and that will contribute to a positive transformation of the industry (Zain Books, 2014).

There are also the components of a mission statement to consider: customers, products, technology, markets, concern for survival, philosophy, self-concept, public image and employees (Zain Books, 2014). The above statement meets these criteria as well. First, the company by definition and by implication in the mission statement is an airline, and its customers are fliers, who are a fairly diverse group as well. Moreover, the "American skies" makes the market clear that this an American company. Philosophy and concern for survival are both addressed in the transformation clause, as any company that transforms its industry will survive, and transformation and dignity are both powerful philosophical concepts, not just empty buzzwords. Employees are guided, in particular by the dignity aspect, since this is a service business, and the public image is also guided by this as well -- the mission statement coaches the public on how the public should perceive JetBlue.

A vision statement should look a little bit different. For example, the mission statement talks about transformation, but the vision statement should provide some clarity as to what that means. For example, consider the following prospective vision statement for JetBlue:

We envision a world where air travel is not frustrating. Where planes land on time, where passengers disembark with a smile, and where JetBlue is the leading airline in the United States.

The vision should provide elements to which the people within the company can aspire, and present some sort of vision of how the company will have a positive impact on society as a whole (Kotter, 2013). This vision statement does those things. For example, it presents a vision to which airline passengers can immediately identify and relate -- and they can relate their most recent experiences with other carriers to what JetBlue would like to see. JetBlue employees can also look at this vision and understand immediately what it is that their management wants from there -- there is not a whole lot of ambiguity here, even when it lacks detailed specificity. The leading airline part is especially visionary because JetBlue is actually fairly small, but growing quickly. The airline is sending a message to all stakeholders that it is thinking big, and that it feels that it has a pathway by which it can achieve...

For example, it needs to examine its position in the industry, and set out some long-term objectives with respect to market share, with respect to what it wants its route network to look like and what it wants out of its international presence. Hazel et al. (2014) note that JetBlue is basically a middle-level performer in its industry, on most metrics. JetBlue cannot take the top spot in the industry, even over the long-term, without remedying this and actually outperforming its competition. So JetBlue needs to look at how it can get to 15% share, how it can improve its customer service scores (it should develop its own internal metrics and measures for this) and how it can improve the other industry standard metrics.
JetBlue should also focus on envisioning its routes. Does it need to expand westward? Across the Atlantic? Southward? Management should have time frame for answering such questions, and start focusing expansion in its chosen direction. JetBlue may need to consider a merger or acquisition if it wants to move westward (i.e. Alaskan) or it might want to secure orders for larger planes if it wants to fly to Europe. It has already expanded into Caribbean destinations, but perhaps there are other opportunities for the company in Latin America. The long-term objectives of the company should reflect this.

Industry Analysis

The airline industry is a mature industry, in which companies are engaging in successive rounds of consolidation to shed excess capacity (Trefis, 2014). The industry has been profitable for the past four years because of this consolidation. The U.S. airline industry is highly competitive, and it has historically been difficult to earn a profit. The service is perishable -- unsold seats on a flight represent lost potential revenue that can never be recovered. As such, it is imperative that companies structure their schedules in way that maximizes the load factor, and that they also maximize revenue per passenger mile. There is almost nothing to distinguish the flying experience, so service is a potential differentiator and the only other one is price. JetBlue competes on both, and this is a challenging position to be in the market, but necessary in order to fill the aircraft. JetBlue's challenge at this point, given that it is smaller than many competitors and does not offer the same strength of route network, is to differentiate on some other basis, and service seems the most plausible so that is the factor on which the strategy should be built in order for the company to be successful.

JetBlue is a moderate player in the industry. The larger players compete on their route networks, but are equally concerned as JetBlue regarding overcapacity and the ability to fill their aircraft. This means that competition in the industry is intense, and price wars are common. Most companies pretend to compete on the basis of service but the reality is that service is not very well differentiated. To do that successfully will require some creativity on the part of JetBlue in understanding what customers genuinely value out of an airline.

Strategies

JetBlue has differentiated itself to this point with a customer service focus -- the dignity thing. But as the company has grown it has found it increasingly difficult to truly differentiate. Yet, this strategy should have legs, especially in an environment when discounters want to charge people for carry-on and where major carriers continue to merge and cut back on capacity. This differentiation strategy is essential for JetBlue to compete against the larger carriers with the bigger route networks.

Competing on a combination of price and service is challenging. It requires exception recruiting, retention and training. In a service industry, the availability to maintain superior service standards while growing is a key success factor, and can be a source of sustainable competitive advantage, if it is supported by a culture that emphasizes the service proposition. Chatman and Jehn (1994) have examined the relationship between culture and industry characteristics -- it may be that having a truly differentiated culture is difficult in the airline industry, though Southwest seems to have maybe done that. If it is possible, JetBlue should pursue this, and use HR as the basis, along with visionary leadership that inspires each worker to pursue high service standards well in excess of industry norms. Thus, it will require individual front line strategies for attracting and identifying the most service minded people, and ensuring…