Research Paper on:
United Airlines' Value Chain

Unformatted Sample Text from the Research Paper:
US airline industry faces challenges that not all competitors have been able to navigate successfully. United Airlines has been successful thus far only in the sense that it still  exists. Much of the industry sector containing the large, established airlines currently is or has been operating from bankruptcy protection, placing greater pressure on carriers that have been successful  in operations management over the years. Airlines such as Southwest Airlines that have been profitable despite external conditions currently find it difficult to compete with those gaining so many  concessions for themselves (Gimbel, 2005) as they seek to enhance the value chain activities of their businesses. United Airlines emerged from bankruptcy in February 2006, placing it in the  company of those operating normally and without bankruptcy protection. The purpose here is to examine United Airlines value chain. The Value Chain  The value chain is the collection of types of activities that collectively form and define the organization. Porters conception of the value chain is that the firm consists of  five basic types of activities: inbound logistics; operations; outbound logistics; marketing and sales; and service (The Value Chain, n.d.). It often is the operations segment that gains the greatest  attention and of course operations is a leading factor in whether any organization achieves and retains success. Four other areas affect both operations and overall business results, however.  The five divisions can be more readily apparent for a manufacturer requiring raw materials, material input and producing a visible, tangible product, but all five divisions also exist for service  industries. A SWOT analysis can identify factors affecting the firm both internally and externally. In turn, those factors then can be linked