Originally Posted by
Uplinker
With the Easter holidays, Covid, Brexit, passport control, fuel prices, staff shortages, supply problems, the war in Ukraine etc., one might be able to work out that extra delays are very likely at the moment, but still nice to be given a heads-up.
I think I would rather be warned of potential disruption, even if the actual delays on the day could not be quantified or accurately predicted. I would probably turn up at the airport three hours early instead of 90+ mins early for example.
Regarding outsourcing, I remember Sir John Harvey-Jones in the late 70's or early 80's going around telling companies to buy components in rather than make them in-house. That works up to a point but as has been pointed out, you lose control - if a component is sub standard, you can't walk downstairs onto your factory shop floor and find out what is going on, you have to start a correspondence with the boss of the supply company, who might in turn claim that all is well, or get their legal people to go through the small print of the contract. So things can take weeks or months, rather than days to resolve. The same applies to services such as IT.
Problem is, companies lose sight of the purpose they were formed for. They start off making a high quality component or providing a high quality service, but after a number of years, they start to reduce costs to increase the bosses' pensions and bonuses, and the company changes into making money, rather than making the quality widget or quality service they started out with. Or, they rest on their laurels, without realising that newer companies are providing a much better widget or service at a lower cost.
You should in-source what is essential to your business and outsource only where it is uneconomic to do so or it’s an ancillary service. An airline is now a slick IT system that flies planes, so the first thing to have control over is that. Carrying passengers is a people business so you should employ, motivate, direct and manage your own staff. However if you screw either or both up, that’s your own fault. BA has been trashed by its own management. Sure, it has faced a massive change in the airline model to loco, but they have failed to address this. Many wrong turns, including setting up Go and then selling it. (Ex-BA staff with an MBA sponsored by BA).