Management and organizations: concepts and practices

Management and Organizations

The Boeing Company

Brief History of the Organization

The Boeing Company is the largest aeroplane producer in the world and it is one of the five major aerospace firms that have influenced the course of the U.S. And global history. Its existence is due to visionary William Edward Boeing who founded the Pacific Aero Products Company in 1916. In 1917, the company was called the Boeing Airplane Company. With each year, more airplanes were being produced and the company continued to grow. Extremely need during the war, when this was over, Boeing was forced to change the nature of their activity. They generally focused on improving their techniques and they went back in business when the U.S. president changed. Since then, Boeing has been focused on mergers, acquisitions, product development, and the satisfaction of a wide array of customers.

Mission and Vision

The Boeing Mission Statement:

People working together as a global enterprise for aerospace leadership.

The Boeing Vision 2016 - called so as the year 2016 completes the first century of Boeing's existence.

Our vision is straightforward. The ultimate goal for Boeing is to achieve aerospace leadership. But bringing together all of our varied abilities, skills, backgrounds and origins to work together for a common objective extends far beyond the boundaries of our company. Achieving global diversity is a global concern.

3. CEO management style

Jim McNerney is Boeing's Chairman, President and Chief Executive Officer since the first of July 2005. Prior to this, he had been a board member for four years. His managerial strategy implies the attainment of performance, combined with economic growth and profits. A simplified sketch of the Boeing Managerial Model could be defined as follows:

Financial Objectives -> Growth + Productivity -> Financial Performance -> Stock Price + Performance to Plan -> Stakeholders

The Boeing management is committed to continuous improvement by:

Reinforcing Boeing values as one-company culture;

Focusing on business and leadership skills;

Supporting the company's objectives by education, training, mentoring and performance evaluation

Facing challenges and analyzing the feedback

4. Location

The main headquarters are in Chicago, but the company has opened facilities in several locations across the United States as well as across the globe. The headquarters were only moved to Chicago in 2001, prior to this year being located in Seattle. The company explained their decision by stating that they desired to change the company's architecture in the meaning of making it larger and stronger. They believed that this goal would be better achieved if the headquarters were not located in the vicinity of other businesses conducted by Boeing.

5. Environmental Scanning

The airplane industry is becoming increasingly competitive in its desire to attract as many customers as they possibly can. As such, companies are struggling to present customers with the highest quality products and services. The latest feature of the environment is the need to protect nature and create more environmental friendly products. Boeing subscribes to this need by constantly working on improving the quality and the efficiency of their combustibles and by decreasing their level of pollution.

6. SWOT analysis

Strengths international recognition and trusted image innovative spirit and increased efforts to improve the quality of Boeing products and services detailed customer knowledge and focus large-scale system integration lean enterprise" skilled and trained personnel the company is open to directly discuss with customers any problems or company related issues

Weakness increased costs of personnel training generate losses as employees are becoming less loyal to Boeing previous accusations of unethical conduct might have a negative impact upon Boeing previous accusations of involvement in industrial espionage reduced sales and sales revenues

Boeing uses digital enhancements to improve the quality of the plane photographs, generating a loss of credibility lack of transparency is some business operations lack of major improvements and innovations

Opportunities technological developments which allow Boeing to:

improve the quality of their products and services increase fuel efficiency better communicate with clients, business partners and stockholders increased demand for high quality and safe aircrafts

Threats increased need for fuel economy and efficiency, which generates increased costs excessive usage of hi-tech to improve the image of Boeing might do more wrong than right fierce competition on the aerospace market, especially from French Airbus increased demands from customers, business partners and shareholders lack of trust in aircrafts and air transportation following the increasing numbers of terrorist attacks

7. Comparison to Airbus

Boeing is headquartered in Chicago and Airbus is headquartered in Toulouse. Boeing was founded 54 years sooner than Airbus. It numbers over 166,000 employees, whereas Airbus only numbers 48,500. Boeing's net sales for fiscal year 2002 amounted to a total of $54 billion, Airbus' were less than half ($24 billion). The American company has a total of 14,000 aircrafts on the market; Airbus' aircrafts do not exceed 3,000. Boeing also holds other six units, whereas Airbus holds no additional units.