Qantas hires consultants to improve on-time performance

[RooFlyer]

Qantas calls in McKinsey for operational overhaul to fix late flights (AFR, paywalled)

Qantas has called in management consultant McKinsey for a major overhaul of its operations focused on improving on-time performance.

McKinsey is the second consulting firm the airline has hired after Vanessa Hudson succeeded Alan Joyce as chief executive last year. It had engaged Boston Consulting Group in September, as first reported by The Australian Financial Review, to assist in repairing its relationship with customers.

That earlier work, known internally as Project Dawn, was to scope out the changes that the airline could make, with BCG tasked with creating strategies to remove “customer pain points” and make the company “easier to deal with”. Two sources close to the discussions about the appointment, who agreed to speak on the condition of anonymity, said both BCG and McKinsey had been asked to pitch for the latest work.

The firm, whose work at Qantas is being led by senior partner Jonathan Michael, is expected to provide advice across a wide range of the company’s divisions, including finance, operations, customer services and people.

However, those close to discussions said the engagement was not focused on cutting costs or reducing headcount, probably the opposite.

I guess this is a good thing, but the airline can't see the problems for themselves?

 

[Cruiser Elite]

Yep understandable - QF have only been in the business +100yrs so make sense to hire someone with zero industry operational experience to solve their problems - Irish Economics 101

Edit: Can someone please check and clarify today’s date for me? Today is Jan 29 and not Apr 1 right?

 

[RichardMEL]

Lol. McKinsey is a black hole for money.

The best life for consultants.. they can recommend whatever comes into their heads.. if it is a fail they walk away blaming management for the poor implementation. If it goes ok, they're geniouses. Either way.. payday lol

 

[LittleFokker]

I guess this is a good thing, but the airline can't see the problems for themselves?

Last Week Tonight had an interesting take on McKinsey.

 

[papeto]

Wow first Bain now McKinsey, hope there is still pilots flying the aircraft.

 

[justinbrett]

I guess the only thing more scandalous for hiring a consultant to address your OTP issues, is not hiring one.

 

[RooFlyer]

Lol. McKonsey is a black hole for money.

VH did promise, - what - $220 million for service improvements. McKinsey and Boston have a lot to work with.

 

[sevenfourtyseven]

Finally - they are going to fix priority boarding!

 

[dajop]

Aaah, consultant, pay mega bucks for recent graduates to listen to managers and frontline employees, who already know what is needed. Then transform it into a nice powerpoint and a scope for the $100m IT project to support the improvements.

 

[elanshin]

I believe part of the reason for consultants is to have a scapegoat. The other is ivory tower girls and boys sometimes need a different perspective. That perspective may not necessarily be the best but it'd at least be different.

 

[Jean Prouvaire]

Aaah, consultant, pay mega bucks for recent graduates to listen to managers and frontline employees, who already know what is needed.

It's the old joke: What's the definition of a consultant? Someone you hand your watch to, and they tell you the time. (Then they keep the watch.)

More seriously, in addition to serving as a scapegoat if things go wrong, and offering a different perspective, management consultants also have the ability to (or at least claim to be able to) tap into a richer knowledge base than typically exists in-house. If BCG or McKinsey or Bain or whoever have done similar work for other airlines they can use this experience to provide global benchmarks and demonstrate models for world's best practice (to pull out some well-wiorn clichés).

In fact, the knowledge base of experience needn't be limited to the airline industry. According to the AFR article the scope of the engagement covers finance, operations, customer services and people. There are undoubtedly lessons in all these functional areas from other types of businesses than can be applied to Qantas. (I suppose this falls under the heading of being able to provide different perspectives.)

Then transform it into a nice powerpoint

I often joke that consultants boil everything down to a two-by-two grid with an arrow going from the bottom left quadrant ("present situation") to the top right ("desired future state"). But the ability to distill a whole host of complex data into something so simple that even a board of directors can follow it, is actually easier said than done.

 

[Franky]

It's the old joke: What's the definition of a consultant? Someone you hand your watch to, and they tell you the time. (Then they keep the watch.)

More seriously, in addition to serving as a scapegoat if things go wrong, and offering a different perspective, management consultants also have the ability to (or at least claim to be able to) tap into a richer knowledge base than typically exists in-house. If BCG or McKinsey or Bain or whoever have done similar work for other airlines they can use this experience to provide global benchmarks and demonstrate models for world's best practice (to pull out some well-wiorn clichés).

In fact, the knowledge base of experience needn't be limited to the airline industry. According to the AFR article the scope of the engagement covers finance, operations, customer services and people. There are undoubtedly lessons in all these functional areas from other types of businesses than can be applied to Qantas. (I suppose this falls under the heading of being able to provide different perspectives.)


I often joke that consultants boil everything down to a two-by-two grid with an arrow going from the bottom left quadrant ("present situation") to the top right ("desired future state"). But the ability to distill a whole host of complex data into something so simple that even a board of directors can follow it, is actually easier said than done.

I’d like to know when they will start on the IT side of things….

 

[jb747]

It's truly hilarious. And sad. Boston are actually the cause of many of the issues in the first place. Dearest leader didn't come up with all of his horrid ideas just by himself. The staff know what is needed, the trouble is that the first thing that needs to go is a management team that have all of the attributes of an anchor.

 

[kevrosmith]

The sadest part about this is that there are probably many staff within QF crying out to be heard how to improve what they do... but as usual, management have to pay consultants to hear things they won't listen to from their own staff. And unfortunately, proabably thousands of years of experience have been lost through all their outsourcing and retrenchments over many years.

 

[kookaburra75]

It's the old joke: What's the definition of a consultant? Someone you hand your watch to, and they tell you the time. (Then they keep the watch.)

No, I never kept the watch, I sold it back to them

Having worked as a consultant for many years (and still a few to go), I see both sides of the argument. Although, I have never worked for the big end of town like Boston or McKinsey. If the brief, scope, and deliverables are done properly (meaning taking the time), your support and interaction with the company can go some way to solving the problems, and more importantly, skilling up the client's team so they can continue without you in the future.

From my cursory knowledge of the inner workings of Qantas. I would see it being a great opportunity to get the efforts and messages from the tactical and operational elements of the business, up to the senior/strategic level. I have delivered countless "Your Baby is Ugly" reports to the senior level, with varying results - I'm too old to give a sh** about their feelings. There is also the opportunity to work with the tactical/operational elements of the business, to get them to work on the solution. Quite often, they all have different ideas, which don't quite align properly, but with a bit of work you can get them to come up with a shared solution that works. The main challenge, is keeping the senior leadership out of the way.

I wish Qantas all the best, and will set up my deckchair and order the popcorn, and wait.

 

[UP4014]

Finally - they are going to fix priority boarding!

The solution to speedy boarding might come out as abolish it.

 

[UP4014]

The sadest part about this is that there are probably many staff within QF crying out to be heard how to improve what they do... but as usual, management have to pay consultants to hear things they won't listen to from their own staff. And unfortunately, proabably thousands of years of experience have been lost through all their outsourcing and retrenchments over many years.

Or, management know they won't get the changes through staff and want a third party to point it out.

Having been in a similar position in wanting to improve productivity, asking the staff to make suggestions works if you do it in the right way and in person, that is never dismiss anyone's ideas and treat them with dignity and respect when responding.

 

[Quickstatus]

Why didn't VH ask the QF employees at the coalface what their solution would be?

Ah my bad, they have been outsourced....

 

[tdimdad]

Having been in a similar position in wanting to improve productivity, asking the staff to make suggestions works if you do it in the right way and in person, that is never dismiss anyone's ideas and treat them with dignity and respect when responding.

And in the best case, give them opportunities to model and test out their ideas, and then adopt the best ones.

The unfortunate part in many organisations is the lack of flexibility and continuous improvement. I fully support process compliance and operational discipline (well, it's a part of my job ) but giving staff sandbox(es) to model better ways to do their jobs is often the easiest and lowest cost to lift up the game. The sandboxes are missing and staff lack time & permission to experiment on the side.

When it comes to the delays, QF would probably have systemic issues to resolve, perhaps the staffing levels are too lean, and also staff's ownership and commitment to the company and customers may have eroded too much for many to genuinely care. 80% of this should be easy for QF management to sort out internally, and for the trickier problems you may want external viewpoints to support your discovery of solutions.

 

[jb747]

I wish Qantas all the best, and will set up my deckchair and order the popcorn, and wait.

Or, management know they won't get the changes through staff and want a third party to point it out.

Having been in a similar position in wanting to improve productivity, asking the staff to make suggestions works if you do it in the right way and in person, that is never dismiss anyone's ideas and treat them with dignity and respect when responding.

Qantas will NEVER listen to the staff. That would be an admission that the minions know something that management don't.

An example of their version of listening. Back when they were last working on a new pilots' uniform, they asked for comments on the various proposals. They then came out with something that nobody wanted, and which was a disaster on almost all levels. But, having introduced this abomination, they then asked us for comments on the process. And I asked them why they'd bothered asking us anything in the first place, when it was obviously their plan to disregard any comments that didn't agree with their pre-ordained plan. Now I said that nicely, and they did ask, but nevertheless HR took it upon themselves to ring me to tell me my comments weren't appropriate. As you might imagine, my next comments sure weren't.