Research Paper on:
Designing a Performance Management System for Southwest Airlines

Unformatted Sample Text from the Research Paper:
Southwest Airlines has reached a point of paradox as it struggles to retain its perfect record of profitability and no employee layoffs. The company always has given close  attention to cost issues; customer satisfaction; and employees. A performance management system can provide greater control and more meaningful insight. Designing a Performance Management System  At a "recent CFO magazine Corporate Performance Management conference ... Laura Wright, senior vice president and chief financial officer of Southwest Airlines" (Cokins, 2007) explained what  had happened at Southwest. The companys rapid growth and expansion past Texas borders in the late 1990s led to "continuous cost creep" (Cokins, 2007). The finance department led  efforts to automate processes, complete with the ability to create timely reports and deliver them to the right people. The added pressures of the effects of 9/11 introduced chaos;  Wright "said that at that point, We could not fix what we could not see" (Cokins, 2007). Certainly Southwest operates in the cargo  segment of its business, but its primary business is transporting passengers. Many processes and activities contribute to the end result; any number of specific measures can be used in  a performance management system that assesses processes and efficiency enroute to arriving at the bottom line. Measuring Performance A gross measure of performance  can be found in assessment of revenue passenger miles (RPMs), a standard measurement unit in the airline industry that tracks paying passengers. Increasing RPMs can be seen as customer  approval of Southwests performance (more people are traveling Southwest); RPM also can be used to calculate operating expenses per RPM. As Southwest is the only airline to post 35