Southwest Airlines Porter's 5 Forces

For any business to remain profitable and competitive, it is important for it to keep changing its business model and to continue updating its strategies (Casadesus-Masanell, R., & Ricart, J. E. 2010). These strategies will help keep the business on the right track with the changing business environment. Southwest has changed its business model and strategies over time in an effort to maintain their competitive advantage over its competitors. In today’s ever-dynamic environment, a business needs to change its model of doing business while keeping simple operational methods to ensure that the business does not collapse. Southwest is a company carrying out its business in the airline industry. It has been a profitable company for over 40 years and this has been due to its re-strategizing and its innovating to ensure the business is being ran in the right manner.
Over time, competitors in the market such as Delta Air Lines, which made an acquisition of Northwest Air Lines and in recent years United Airlines, has had to change their business models to try and keep up with the competition which is becoming more challenging due to the global acquisitions made over time by competitors (Terry, 2012)
There are also new entrants in the market. These new entrants have come to the market with lower costs and very …show more content…
By purchasing Jet Blue, Southwest was able to venture into new routes and this has made it more and more profitable. Acquisition has also allowed Southwest maintain its low ticket prices while maintaining profitability. JetBlue Airways has, in the recent past, been among the new entrants in the market and it has been growing in a very fast manner. By acquiring it, Southwest acquired one of the companies with the highest potential. Also, JetBlue has been a competitor of Southwest hence its acquisition ensured that competition for the market was reduced (Terry,