Expert Help needed!!

[Slick9]

Hi all,

I am working on my MBA at the University of Minnesota - I have a project for a strategic management class where I have to compare and contrast the strategies of two companies competing in the same industry, I chose Airbus v. Boeing. Can anyone give me pointers on where I can find sales and market share information for both companies going back to the inception of Airbus??

I spoke to a guy at work in our corporate aviation department today and he suggested I check "Air Transport World" and the "Air Transport Association" site. Any others??

Thanks for your help.

[jackhall]

Start at their home web site. They may have some of that history posted. Or through their web site, they may have an investors link where you can access some of their financials. I just don't know how far that would go back. Or just contact their CFO and ask for the information! That almost always works.

In the US, for US public owned companies, you can access Boeing's financials by going to www.sec.gov/edgar.shtml and review their SEC 10K filings. I just don't know a similar source for European companies. Simon? Someone?

Thanks.

[OStateFlyer]

[font size="1" color="#FF0000"]LAST EDITED ON Feb-28-02 AT 05:32PM (EDT)[/font][p]Had a typo!

Order an Annual Report from Boeing. It will have a lot of numbers to crunch and breakdown their different divisions so you can get the particular info you want. I had a somewhat similar assignment a couple of semesters ago and the statements provided a lot of info, I believe they are free as well!! I'm not sure if Airbus will have statements available, as I don't think they are publicly traded. Could be wrong. Good luck!!

Brad

http://www.okstate.edu/osu_orgs/flyingag/wings.gif

[Simon Evans]

Hmm, with hindsight the choice of Boeing v. Airbus may not prove to be the best for discerning contrasting styles... They are pretty much indistinguishable at the strategic marketing level, as best I can tell.

The only conclusion is that Boeing bought out all their competitors or their competitors abandoned the commercial airliner market. Then along comes a multi-national conglomerate which can do nothing BUT steal market share from Boeing.

Makes life much too easy with only one competitor to target. I suspect you're going to end up deep in the bowls of technical documentation before you discern the different strategic plans based upon the vagaries of life-cycle costs, offsets and high finance.

A better choice might be Bombardier v. Embraer for the regional jet market - now THAT'S a story!


Simon Evans

[Slick9]

I've been to their websites and to the SEC website. Boeing's SEC filings have Boeing's sales in revenue terms, I didn't see sales by unit or market share info. Airbus was a private consortium up until they merged with a bunch of other European companies to form EADS - European Aeronautical Defence and Space Corp. So I can't get financials for them prior to '97, however I would think sales and market share data should be available somewhere even for private corporations which is why I am going that route.

[Slick9]

[font size="1" color="#FF0000"]LAST EDITED ON Feb-28-02 AT 05:55PM (EDT)[/font][p]Actually there is a strategic difference. Airbus has lured customers based on pricing and techonogical advances (the A380 will be more fuel efficient and quiter that todays airliners). They have traditionally discounted thier aircraft as much as 40% (I might be slightly off target) in order to win sales and eat up Boeing's market share. Boeing on the other hand has used longterm relationships as a strategic move in certain parts of the world, notably the far east. They have a well established network with Japan Air Systems, (JAL parent corp.) To reinforce this relationship, the 767 and the 777 wings are built in Japan by Mitsubishi Heavy Manufacturing. The million dollar strategic question is whose next move strategy will be correct. Airbus is gambling on size with the A380. Originally, Boeing had planned a similar strategy with the 747X, they scrapped those plans and are now gambling on speed as a next move with the Sonic Cruiser which will fly at Mach .95, it was interesting to find out that they plan on building several different sizes, from the business jet to the wide body version.

[Bigshot]

I can see that the schools haven't changed their courses that much since I attended back in 1980. When I was working on my Masters in Economics, we had a Marketing Course that required a very similar analysis with airlines. If you're familar with "Value Line Reports", take a look at the two companies in those reports. They usually do a very good job in evaluating a company financially and strategically and there's all kinds of good information in them reports.