AirHelp insight reportTeam 7

E-concept development1 semesterProject 2

Veronica Andersen, Doug Costello, Jonas Hertz Kristina Peledaite, Christine Broun Haugaard, Hellai Ahmadi, Group 4

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Christine Broun Haugaard

Kristina Peledaite Hellai Ahmadi

Doug Costello Veronica Andersen

Jonas Hertz

Group 4

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INTRODUCTION 3Company 3Problem area 3Client goal 3Constrains 4Project Management Breakdown 4Methodology 4MACRO-MARKET 5Pestel 5Political 5Economical 5Social 5Technical 5Enviromental 6Legal 6

MICRO-MARKET 6Porters five forces 6The bargaining power of the suppliers 6The bargaining power of the customers 7The threat of substitute products 7Threats of new entrants 7Intensity of competitive rivalry 7

MARKETING STRATEGY 7Ansoff’s matrix analysis 7Market penetration 7

Market development 8Secure dominance of the growth market 8

Sub-conclusion 8Mckinsey model 8Service value chain 9Marketing 10Sales 10Production of service and implementation 10

Sub-conclusion 10Edgar H. Scheins culture model 11Artifacts 11Values 11

STP 11Segmentation 11Targeting 12Positioning 12Sub-concusion 12

SWOT 13Strenghts 13Weaknesses 13Opportunities 13Threats 13

Sub-conclusion 13CONCLUSION 14LITERATURE LIST 15

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INTRODUCTION

Overwiev of the companyThe small company AirHelp was founded only a couple a months ago where a group of entrepreneurs got the idea of exploiting the market of customers that has the right to fight compensation.

The concept takes base in the main factor that air travellers have a legal right to get economical compensation, if their plane is de-layed for a certain amount of time or directly cancelled. AirHelp’s hypothesis considers the fact that people do not know what to do and how to get the compensation1.

Even though the company has only existed for a short time, the amount of claims, which has landed on the desks of AirHelp, un-derlines the fact that there is a larger unexploited market, where the competition can get very tough very fast. This indicates that Airhelp needs to grow bigger and maintain a steady position on the market, to ensure a larger market share.

The company consists of 10 members2 and have allied themselves with a couple of external advisors, (some of them well known from the media i.e. Morten Lund), that has a greater knowledge about startup companies3. The founders and advisors mainly have edu-cational backgrounds in entrepreneurship and business strategy. The company do not have a physical service but operates only through their webpage Airhelp.eu. At the moment they operate all over EU, but due to the client presentation, use Denmark as a test market for their marketing launches.

Problem areaAs stated in the EU regulation 261/20044 the airlines must inform the passengers about their rights and the reason behind the can-cellation or delay longer than 3 hours. Airlines have to provide the

1 http://trendsonline.dk/2013/01/09/interview-med-morten-lunds-nye-startup-airhelp-org/2 http://www.airhelp.eu/team3 http://www.athenas.dk/morten-lund-foredrag-ivaerksaetter-innovation.htm4 http://www.sas.dk/upload/Denmark/Alt%20om%20rejsen/Ved%20ankomst/EU-brochure.pdf

passengers the best services, if the passengers are having trouble with their flights. It is the airlines’ duty to transport the passengers to their final destination or have to refund the tickets.

It is very important for passengers to know their rights about getting compensation5, if their flights are delayed, overbooked or can-celled, which prevent the passengers from boarding. Many airlines try to avoid giving enough information about the claim rules and the right of compensation. Passengers also find it difficult to claim and they give up quickly because they think it is difficult for them to fight against big airline companies and get the compensation they legally deserve.

Client GoalAs stated in the client pitch on 08.04.2012, AirHelp’s goal is to cre-ate a social media campaign, with the aim of raising awareness of their service, promoting their company and turning the interest into filed claims.

Now that the back of house operations can handle a large flow of traffic, the main objective of the company is PR, to bring in a large and constant flow of new claims they will turn into successful compensation pay outs6.

AirHelp aims to break into the global market and therefore need to create partnerships in order to provide their service in many dif-ferent languages and cultures.

Problem formulation• Identify how to raise awareness about compensation rules and

turn this into claims• Identify how to promote AirHelp as a trustworthy and compe-

tent company• Identify the target group of AirHelp and through which chan-

nels to communicate to them

5 http://www.airpassengerrights.co.uk/6 AirHelp client brief

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• Identify the threats and competition that directly affects the business area of AirHelp

ConstraintsThe representent from AirHelp presented a framework that is ex-pected to work with through this assignment as constraints.• The budget is 0 DKK. • Only social media can be used to reach the customers.

Project Management BreakdownAs a starting point the group discussed the individual needs and ambitions, which gave an overview of a possible workflow. After-wards the individual skills and forces were presented to each other to make sure that the tasks were delegated in the most efficient way. A group leader was assigned to take action if the group were unable to agree in discussions.

A group contract was created to ensure a clear agreement among the group members, which could be referred to if some-body feels inequality in workload or agreements.A project breakdown was created in terms of headlines of what the project should undergo, during the insight phase.After an introduction to several useful managements tools by Happiprojects.dk, a customized Information Radiator were set up, to keep a clear overview of which tasks were worked with by each group member.

A daily morning group meeting were established to make sure that everybody were on the right track and questions and uncertain-ties were discussed. In that way everybody knew how the different areas covered. The decision-making was a democratic process in which everybody had the chance to express his or her own opin-ion. At the end of each day the group made a quick status meet-ing of their current tasks and to which extend homework would be done. The group felt an importance of working physically nearby each other at least a couple of hours every day, to spar and im-prove the overview of the project.

As communication tool a Facebook group were created in con-text of sharing links and an easy way of communication. To share large documents a Dropbox folder was shared. Meanwhile, the insight report was written in Google docs, which ensured that ev-erybody were able to keep track of the report at the same time.

Perspective of the project management breakdownDuring the weeks, a positive sense of structure was found due to the management tools that were used. The dangers of delegating the tasks, though, were a missing flow of words and losing focus in the analysis. Therefore it was crucial to keep updating within the group to make sure the project followed the red line, along with one member of the group to spend time editing the report to en-sure it kept the same overall voice and was punctuated properly. The group successfully used a democratic method and the func-tion of the group leader was in the insight phase not necessary.

MethodologyTo perform the research phase, several models and theories has been discussed and used during the report. To gain a deeper understanding of the macro environment a PESTLE analysis were used, in which to understand what outstanding forces influence AirHelp.

To gain a deeper insight of the company itself and the surrounding market, micro environment analysis in the form of Porters Five Forc-es clarified the competitors and the rivalry on the market. The re-sult was analysed in the Ansoff matrix which lead on to Mckinsey’s growth model. This gave an impression of the current competitive strategy and suggested growth strategy.

The Service Value Chain clarified which activities could be im-proved to get added value within the company. Edgar Schein’s Culture model unraveled AirHelp’s company values and com-munication, which gave a direction of which angle the problem solving could take.

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The STP model has been used to get an overview of the potential customers of AirHelp and to clarify the right target group. The last part of this report is a summary of the research, presented in a SWOT analysis to identify strengths, weaknesses, threats and op-portunities.

MACRO- MARKET

PESTLETo understand how the macro environment a PESTLE analysis clari-fies which external factors influence AirHelp.

PoliticalAirHelp is influenced by international European rules and regula-tions, made by the EU commission. The commission have in the last couple of years made several changes in the regulations regard-ing air travel, this has created a standardized set of rules that ap-plies to all countries within the EU7.

These decisions have been made to tackle the many different po-litical agendas and rule sets between countries that allow airlines to circumvent compensation payouts. AirHelps service relies on these regulations and have created a business model that goes hand in hand with a social concept, creating a consumer-orien-tated service that helps people claim what they’re entitled to.

There are plans to debate and potentially alter the current rules, changing how many hours of delay determine a compensation payout (from the current 3 hours to 5 hours)8. These adjustments would narrow the customer market for Airhelp, however it will be easier to enforce the claims9.

EconomicalAirHelp is depending on both the individual customer and the

7 http://www.dr.dk/Nyheder/Udland/2013/03/13/0313081536.htm8 http://www.dr.dk/Nyheder/Indland/2013/03/12/112652.htm9 http://www.dr.dk/Nyheder/Indland/2013/03/12/095018.htm

economical situation of airlines. Airhelp is currently not funded by the government or private investors and is therefore very reliant to their customers. The global financial crisis had and still have a great impact in the air traffic business. The crisis has led to a period of fewer customers, because of the economy on a personal level has reduced. Therefore people tend to travel less in general (no matter if the passenger is private or business), which means fewer potential customers for AirHelp.

The airlines’ own economy has a smaller impact on AirHelp in the way that the financial crisis influence the stockholders willingness to invest in the individual airline.10 Therefore the airlines has to tighten their belts and is more reluctant to pay compensation, for causes that they do not reckon, even though they are obliged to, due to the laws and regulations by the EU commission11.

SocialSince 2009 every person whose flight has been delayed for more than 3 hours or has been overbooked or cancelled, has the right to receive compensation.12

According to AirHelp about 20 million passengers a year are af-fected by cancellations or delays, but less than 0.5% of passengers seek compensation. The majority of the general population do not know their rights. As a result airline companies attempt to hide or ignore this law. They then bury the claim process in paperwork to avoid expensive payouts.

In this way they make the passengers uncertain about their rights to complain. According to AirHelp most passengers do not have the time or motivation to deal with the paperwork and dismissive airlines.

TechnologyThe programming ability to process information and assesses it’s

10 http://www.business.dk/transport/fly-chef-finanskrisen-goer-det-svaert11 http://www.dr.dk/Nyheder/Indland/2013/03/12/095018.htm 12 AirHelp fact sheet figure 8

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eligibility to receive a claim is a fundamental asset to AirHelps company. The automated service “synchronizes the passenger’s itinerary with air data, weather data and airport data to uncover the compensation eligibility”13. This allows a much shorter process-ing time and a highly automated workflow. Claims are thoroughly checked, to make sure they fit the very complex criteria of the EU regulation. If a claim gets accepted, it can be ranked in a propri-etary algorithm that evaluates the likelihood of success to make the claims that go through the airline watertight, creating a much higher success rate.

However this service still depends on the human interface of data entry. Potential clients must email their travel and personal details, which then must be put into the processing system.

LegalThe company foundation is built on an EU regulation from February 2004 that makes the airlines obliged to pay out compensations in case of long delays, cancellations or due to overbooking of flights within the EU. The cash compensation ranges from 250 to 600 Euro depending on the length of the flight. This is a result of court deci-sion from 200914. The fact that airlines actively try to avoid paying compensation to their customers, creates a market for AirHelp.

If a “consumer” wants to claim compensation, the airlines will make it as difficult as possible. If there is a valid case for the cus-tomer, that has been dismissed by the airlines, they have every right to take the case to court. Companies like AirHelp, form part-nerships with lawyers to tackle cases such as these, therefore eas-ing the process for the customer15 and increasing the success rate.

EnvironmentalWe could, for the sake of argument, suggest that the ever increas-ing taxation on air travel; because of environmental issues such as CO2 emissions and decreasing supplies of fossil fuels, directly

13 AirHelp fact sheet14 http://www.passagerrettigheder.dk/15 http://www.dr.dk/DR1/kontant/2013/02/12154102.htm

correlates to a decrease in consumers traveling by plane. Which directly effects AirHelp number of claims. However, This is a stretch and a very broad topic that would need large amounts of data to support this assumption. Therefore for this assignment we assume as a small startup company, currently environmental issues do not directly affect the market or business in question.

MICRO-MARKETIn this section the focus narrows down to the surrounding market.

Porters Five ForcesThe Porter Five Forces is a model used to clarify the market and competition in relation to AirHelp. The rivalry among the com-petitors are based on four surrounding forces that influence the company; Threats of new entrants, The bargaining power of the customers, The bargaining power of the suppliers and The threat of substitute products.

The bargaining power of the suppliersAirHelp is dependent on cooperation with legally trained person-nel to control any legal procedure, and contact to people within IT for preparation and maintenance of the technical part of their business, both the existing website and the future development of an application for smartphones.

At the moment the company have enough of these resources in house, but as they hopefully will grow and get a bigger market share they will need to either employ intern or extern labour to the processing part of their business.

Porters Five Forces model

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One of their future plans is to expand their business to new markets in Europe. To do this successfully, they are depending on partners speaking the language spoken in a specific market and knowl-edge about the market in general.

Overall AirHelp do not possess a lot of bargaining power over their future suppliers as their business model depends on a lot of exter-nal personnel.

The bargaining power of the customersThe customers of AirHelp have a high level of bargaining pow-er, as there are many companies with similar competencies and services on the market. Customers are offered a service from the company against a payment of 25 % of the potential compensa-tion from the airlines. If AirHelp lose the claim they will not charge the customers anything. This particular business model applies to most competitors in the market, including their self-proclaimed big competitor Refund.me16.

On the other hand, individual customers find it difficult to take on airlines alone as their willingness to pay out compensation without any pressure from companies like AirHelp is not existing. At the same time the opportunity to receive compensation is based on an EU regulation, which means that the customer needs to have some legal knowledge in order to obtain a clear understand-ing and be ready for a possible lawsuit. This situation means that customers have less bargaining power to AirHelp and the whole situation surrounding the cash out of a potential compensation.

The threat of substitute productsA substitute product could be, if AirHelp customers would fill in their documents by themselves. Therefore, if EU decides to make a reg-ulation with less requirements it would be a threat for AirHelp. Threats of new entrantsConsidering that there are low entry barriers to start this business

16 http://www.refund.me/en/about-us.php

and also it does not require a specialist’s knowledge, there is a potential threat from new entrants.

Intensity of competitive rivalryIn analysis of the competitive market it should be defined how other companies are working and what could be done better to differentiate from them. AirHelp’s major competitor Refund.me uses the same pricing strategy as them, To attempt to undercut this price would be unrealistic as any lower would make the busi-ness unprofitable.

Therefore the differentiation must come from the advertising and presentation of the company. Currently, Refund.me uses stronger communication channels, such as links with airports in EU. As well as using not only online communication, but also traditional invest-ments in advertising17.

Ansoff’s Matrix AnalysisThe Ansoff Growth matrix is a marketing tool that helps a business determine its product and market growth strategy. Ansoff’s prod-uct/market growth matrix suggests that a business’ attempts to grow depend on whether it markets new or existing products in new or existing markets.

AirHelp presents a diffi-cult case in classifying its service into one of these box’s. Therefore we may analyse it in relation to two of these segments.Market penetrationAirHelp has a core product, It doesn’t diversify, it provides a ser-

17 https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=572230669462176&set=a.465262696825641.107100.408314462520465&type=1&theate

Ansoff’s Matrix model

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vice in an existing growth market with existing and established competitors. Therefore to increase its market share they must focus on a combi-nation of competitive pricing strategies, advertising, sales promo-tion and perhaps more resources dedicated to personal selling

Secure dominance of the growth marketDriving out competitors; this would require a much more aggres-sive promotional campaign, supported by a pricing strategy de-signed to make the market unattractive for competitors. Increase usage by existing customers – for example by introducing loyalty scheme.

A market penetration marketing strategy is very much about “busi-ness as usual”. The business is focusing on markets and products it knows well. It is likely to have good information on competitors and on customer needs. It is unlikely, therefore, that this strategy will require much investment in new market research18.

Sub-ConclusionIn the case of AirHelp the company has a need to penetrate its test market in Denmark, They need to assess how to communi-cate, what to communicate and the tone of presenting these things to make it accessible to the main stream audience as there is no specific target group in which to focus their efforts. Every one regardless of age, gender or social status is equally affected by flight delays and cancellations. Therefore everyone could poten-tially be a client of theirs. Developing this marketing strategy into being accessible to the mainstream is how they will ultimately succeed as an entrepreneurial concept.

Market developmentMarket development is a growth strategy where the business seeks to sell its existing products into new markets.There are many possi-ble ways of approaching this strategy, including:

18 http://www.tutor2u.net/business/strategy/ansoff_matrix.htm

• New geographical markets; for example exporting the product to a new country

• New product dimensions such as packaging or accessibility• New distribution• Different pricing policies to attract different customers or cre-

ate new market segments

Market development is a more risky strategy than market penetra-tion because of the targeting of new and unknown markets.

• Privileged assets• Growth skills

Assuming the business concept takes off in Denmark, the com-pany aims at releasing this service as a global concept. Once they have established the tone of voice that is accessible to their customers this must analysed to assess if it translates to a global audience and they can keep one clear campaign throughout the world, or if it must then be specifically tailored to each country for the best results. Mckinsey ModelThe McKinsey model argues that businesses should develop their growth strategies based on 19:

• Operational skills• Special relationships

Growth can be achieved by looking at business op-portunities along several dimensions, summarised in the diagram below: • Operational skills are the “core competenc-

es” that a business has which can provide the

19 http://www.tutor2u.net/business/strategy/mckinsey_pyramid.htm

McKinsey model

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foundation for a growth strategy. For AirHelp, their core com-petences are the legal, technological and communicative aid in claiming compensation from airlines.

• Privileged assets are those assets held by the business that are hard to replicate by competitors. For example, in AirHelp, they have the technology that automates their service. It would require a huge amount of time and investment for a new com-pany in the market to create the same. Although competitors also have it, they should capitalise on the fact that not many do. There is a large market available and they have the tech-nology to exploit it.

• Growth skills are the skills that businesses need, if they are to successfully “manage” a growth strategy. These include the skills of new product development, or negotiating and integrat-ing acquisitions. The founding members of AirHelp are “idea guys”, entrepreneur’s with the PR connections and marketing skills to make the company a success.

• Special relationships are those that can open up new options. For example, the business has no legal department. Some of these rightful claims are dismissed by Airlines and therefore must go to court to fight for them, this will happen in many dif-ferent countries of the EU depending on the airline. Therefore AirHelp have to create a special relationship with a network of lawyers spread around Europe, with the competencies and expertise to fight these cases. It is impractical for an in-house lawyer to fly around Europe to fight these cases simultaneously. Therefore if AirHelp is successful in creating this relationship with a lawyer firm it will cut costs and make the process of growing in global markets easier than for the competition.

There is the possibility of forming a working relationship with a Dan-ish travel agency, such as www.Spies.dk. This would be a mutually beneficial link, as it provides Spies with an extra service, or after service to their clients for no cost. They currently can provide no insurance in relation to flight delays or cancellation. However they

could present to their clients that if there is such a case, Airhelp can provide a no risk service with the expertise to fight for a com-pensation pay-out.

To AirHelp this not only increases the awareness of their service, but also opens a communication channel to their target group, through the use of Spies social media platform which currently has 76,000 likes on facebook. If Spies were to post on their facebook wall that any of their customers that have experienced delays or cancellations, within the last 3 years, could be entitled to compen-sation. All they have to do is send their flight information to Airhelp, with zero risk, If they don’t win they don’t pay. This would create a huge amount of new business for AirHelp, Whilst providing Spies with an extra, after service to their customers.

Service Value ChainTo get an overview of the added value of the company, the infrastructure is analysed through a Value Chain. The value chain considers all the phases and activities the company’s product goes through, and clarifies the margin between product costs and the total product value to the customer.By analysing the value chain it is easier to identify and capitalise on a company’s com-petitive advantages. However, the original value chain is focusing on product manufactur-ing companies, which does not describe a service company well, such as AirHelp. A de-velopment of the model takes the form of a Ser-vice Value Chain that, to a certain extend, looks like the original, but have some modifications that meets a service company‘s structure and needs (Rolighed and others page 49).

Service value chain model

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The upstream activities mainly consist of the product develop-ment, in which the concept behind the service is formed. These activities also consider future product development, such as a smartphone application, as mentioned in the client pitch. The downstream activities consist of marketing, sales and production of services and implementation.

MarketingThe marketing activities include, in the case of AirHelp, promotion of their company values through several platforms, there between social media, television and newspapers. This is presented through the company advisors Morten Lund that has a greater knowledge and network within the field of entrepre-neurship . 20 The marketing activities are crucial to AirHelp since the competi-tion on the market is strong. SalesThe sales activities usually consist of customer contact and cus-tomer relationship management, in which AirHelp’s case is cut to a minimum. Practically all communication takes place online 21. This can be a conscious choice, if AirHelp considers this as a part of their service to be less visible. Production of service and implementationTo explain the ‘production’ of service and implementation phase, the Value Shop model can clarify the different steps within, with a chain that goes in circles.

1) Problem identificationAirHelp is a web-based company that helps people contain their rightful compensation if an airline violates the EU law regarding delays and cancellations within EU. Through their website the cus-tomers can contact the team via email, and the general informa-tion and notes are available.

20 http://trendsonline.dk/2013/01/09/interview-med-morten-lunds-nye-startup-airhelp-org/21 http://www.airhelp.eu/contact

2) Problem solvingAirHelp takes care of all the paperwork that is required, and holds the airline responsible toward their customers. If the airline does not recognize the conditions, AirHelp makes sure the claims are brought before a judge22.

3) ChoiceIn this certain case the choice phase states the fact that the cus-tomer actually files in the claim to AirHelp.

4) ExecutionThe actual proceeding of the problem solving begins. This phase also concerns payments, that in AirHelp’s case are worth mention-ing only will happen if they win the case.

5) Inspection and evaluationThis phase should consider AirHelp making a follow-up with the customer to get to know whether the customer is satisfied with the progress and outcome. To this point AirHelp does not provide this extend of service. Sub- ConclusionThe analysis of the Service Value Chain gives an overview of where AirHelp can add value in their up- and downstream activ-ities to create a bigger added value in their services. To improve the added value there is an opportunity to implement more di-rect contact between the company and the customers. When the customers find themselves in the situation of exhausting flight travel, the direct personal contact increase the service level. The same applies to the inspection and evaluation activities that are practically non existing. If the customer feels happy with the out-come, there are good possibilities for recommendations from the customers, which may lead to new customers.

22 http://www.airhelp.eu/faq

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Edgar H. Scheins culture modelEdgar Schein’s culture analysis model consists of three levels: the artifacts, values and basic underlying assumptions.23 (Kjær and others, p. 296)Our job is to create a social media campaign with the aim of raising awareness of their ser-vice and promoting the com-pany. It is therefore the visible values that must be translated into the solution.

ArtifactsThe artifacts are the elements of the company, which are visible to all. The physical expression is their logo, website, facebook page and office facilities. The information on the website is limited, short and concrete, which makes it easy and clear for the customers, but at the same time there is a lack of information relating to the company’s history and mission statement. The default language is English, but Danish is also an option.Airhelp has two digital platforms; a website and a facebook site, which is not in harmony image wise. On The website the back-ground image shows a man in a suit waiting in an airport hall, which can give an expression of a business minded company. The communication on AirHelps facebook site is focused towards a young target group. They are using a lot pictures inspired by humour site 9gag.com. It is a clear attempt to create some viral, shared images to further the awareness of AirHelp, but seems forced, unprofessional and unnecessary. According to the insights we have from AirHelps facebook site, we can see that the age of the “likers” differs a lot and it is too narrow to focus only on one segment on social media.

23 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edgar_Schein

ValuesThe company does not have any visible values. There is no mission statement or concise communication on the personality the com-pany wants to present.From the communication they present through social media. The company is shown as a “bulldog”, David vs. Goliath attempting to win over the airlines and in some cases presenting material on facebook that mocks and belittles these airlines they are contest-ing against. This is very unprofessional and sends the wrong mes-sage. An obvious value would be justice for the customers, with much more emphasis on obtaining peoples rights.

STPThe STP model structure the market in homogeneous segments from where the company can focus on a specific section of peo-ple and define a general picture of them by knowing their age, gender and interests. Thereby the company can position their marketing resources more effectively. Knowing the target group makes it easier to build a better communication and awareness to increase the market growth and attract more customers. (Anders-en and others page 239)

SegmentationAirHelp works on the B2C market, built from the fact that the com-pany currently only works directly with air travellers. The EU law operates within Europe and international airlines, who travel to and from within EU, and to make it more manageable, Denmark (due to the client brief) is used as a test market, which narrows the segmentation analysis to Danish air travellers.

Of all Danish air travellers the market can be divided into following segments, based on Trafikstyrelsen annual flight safety report:24

Frequent flyers (19%) who have flown 4 times, or more, annually for the last 3 years. The frequent flyers represents a group of higher educational background and a slightly older age span. Normal travellers (61%) who have flown 3 times annually for the last 3

24 http://www.trafikstyrelsen.dk/DA/Civil-luftfart/~/media/91ED1E4A49634E03AE0FDCC339B4E4D0.ashx

Edgar H. Scheins culture model

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years. The normal travellers represents the common Danish society with only minor fluctuations of age, gender and opinions. TargetingTo ensure that AirHelp communicates to as many people as pos-sible and still aim toward a specific homogeneous group, it would be best to tailor a segment that combines the two segments men-tioned which result in a target group considering:

• Geographic: from all over Denmark but higher representatives travelling from the Copenhagen area.

• Demographic: the age span considers the 30-49 year olds, both male and female25. The focus lies on families rather than individuals. The advantage with the families is that they travel in groups, and therefore have multiple claims where a young individual only got one.

• Psychographic: the segment travels using airlines for both va-cation and/or business. The target group is very wide, which it should, due to the fact that the service that AirHelp provides a demographic- and psychographic-neutral service. It is there-fore safe to aim to people across interests and status.

Target strategyAirHelp has developed a product, or a service that specifically targets a certain audience (air travellers, whose flight has been delayed or cancelled). To ensure an efficient approach toward the target group a target strategy of concentrated marketing is necessary.

PositioningTo get an overview of where AirHelp positions themselves from the competitors on the market, a positioning chart can clarify how they differentiate their business (Andersen and others page 363). The positioning takes base from 4 factors;

25 http://www.trafikstyrelsen.dk/DA/Civil-luftfart/~/media/91ED1E4A49634E03AE0FDCC339B4E4D0.ashx

Relevance toward the customer: Airhelp offers a service that help air travellers with paperwork, which makes it relevant regarding customers right to compensa-tion

Affordable:The economic perspective of AirHelp consists of only getting eco-nomic advantage, if AirHelp wins the claim. Therefore they need a continuous large amount of customers to make a profit.

Achievable:The concept of this particular service is not new, and does not need specialized competences to start up.

Difficult to imitate:Again, since the service concept itself is not innovative and is based on a EU law, it is easy to imitate this particular service. AirHelp does not seem to differentiate themselves enough to be a market leader. Considering they are a new company and have to compete with more established companies that hold a larger market share.

The only way AirHelp seems different is the communication angle that they use. They currently seem more controversial, personal and aggressive. This leads to an emotional selling proposition (ESP) that can contradict what is expected from a company with a legal service (Andersen and others page 372). Therefore, to dif-ferentiate themselves from the competitors on the market, a new marketing strategy is needed to ensure an angle of unique selling proposition (USP). This will give AirHelp the possibility of being a market leader. Sub- ConclusionConsidering the facts, the information and data available to Air-Help they can now specifically tailor their marketing strategy to an audience that will be most likely to use their service. This can be summarised as Danish air travellers between 30 to 49 years of age, that often travel with their family, 1 to 3 times a year.

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Airhelp needs to position themselves aimed at these people, presenting their service with the USP of an easy, hassle free service that fights for the legal rights of individuals.

SWOTSWOT analysis is a method for analysing a business, its resources, and its environment. It is used as part of strategic planning and looks at:

• Internal strengths• Internal weaknesses• Opportunities in the external environment• Threats in the external environment

SWOT can help management in a business discover:• What the business does better than the competition• What competitors do better than the business• Whether the business is making the most of the opportunities

available• How a business should respond to changes in its external envi-

ronment

The result of the analysis is a matrix of positive and negative factors for management to address:26

Strengths• Economically attractive market• Flexible and cheap business model• Have the technological competences to expand the concept

to other countries.

Weaknesses Lack of knowledge about the concept of AirHelp• New on the market and still have to find a clear strategy for

their communication.

26 http://www.tutor2u.net/business/strategy/SWOT_analysis.htm

Opportunities• Partnerships with travel agencies or airlines• Network of lawyers around Europe Threats• New EU regulations that makes it easier for the passengers to

get compensated• Established competitors with sim-

ilar business model, control large market share.

The strategy should be devised around strengths and opportunities. The key words are match and con-vert to this SWOT model.

Sub-conclusionA mutually beneficial partnership with an airline or travel agency that has an established network of customers and an open com-munication platform with them creates a great opportunity to create a much larger awareness of their service. This targets the customer base they aim for, therefore allowing them to capitalise on the economically attractive market.

They have the technological competencies to fully automate their service. Once a system such as this is in place, they can process many claims in different countries, without necessarily hiring more people. There is also no need to rent offices, as the software is cloud-based, meaning they can work from anywhere. Creating a link with a network of lawyers around the EU will allow them to use their strengths in the process of claiming compensation, whilst hav-ing the capability to fight in court all around europe against right-ful claims that airlines refuse to pay. This also fits with their flexible business model as there is no need to employ their own lawyers, keeping costs low.

SWOT convert model

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The weaknesses of this company can also be simply and easi-ly converted into a strengths, by using the opportunities to raise awareness of their service through links with travel agencies. Word will spread and people will be more aware of their rights and more likely to use AirHelps service.

By establishing their company identity as a professional service, clearly aimed at fighting for the legal rights of their customers. Do-ing so in a competent and efficient way. With a clear statement of this on their communication platforms, they will create a reliable reputation. This will increase their market share.

CONCLUSIONIdentify how to raise awareness about compensation rules and turn this into claims. By partnering with a travel agency that has a large, established communication network with people within AirHelp’s target group and showing that these people have legal rights, that is risk free for them to attempt to receive compensation and that AirHelp will take all of the hassle for them. This will raise awareness of the service and create an increase in claims.

Identify how to promote AirHelp as a trustworthy and competent company. By establishing their company identity as a professional service, clearly aimed at fighting for the legal rights of their cus-tomers. Doing so in a competent and efficient way. With a clear statement of this on their communication platforms, they will cre-ate a reliable reputation. Identify the target group of AirHelp and through which channels to communicate to them

AirHelp should target frequent fliers, which the research shows are people between the ages of 40- 49, that often travel with their families and use travel agencies such as http://www.spies.dk to book their travel. By forming a partnership with a company such as Spies, they could use the established social network of 76,000 Danish people that have flown recently or will fly using the agen-cies service.

Identify the threats and competition that directly affects the busi-ness area of AirHelp. There are established competitors on the market, with a very similar business model, that control a larger market share and have more advanced technology (Easy to use smartphone app).If the EU regulations change in the future, which makes it easier and more accessible for an individual to claim compensation alone, this would make the current business model obsolete.

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LITERATURE LIST

Kjær, Henrik m. fl. – Organisation, 4. Udgave, Trojka, 2010ISBN: 978-87-92098-02-3Rolighed Andersen, Finn m. fl. – International Markedsføring, 3. Udgave 3. Oplag, Trojka, 2009 ISBN: 978-7-92098-00-9

Links to website, client handouts and articles

1 http://trendsonline.dk/2013/01/09/interview-med-morten-lunds-nye-startup-airhelp-org/2 http://www.airhelp.eu/team3 http://www.athenas.dk/morten-lund-foredrag-ivaerksaetter-in-novation.htm4 http://www.sas.dk/upload/Denmark/Alt%20om%20rejsen/Ved%20ankomst/EU-brochure.pdf5 http://www.airpassengerrights.co.uk/6 AirHelp client brief7 http://www.dr.dk/Nyheder/Udland/2013/03/13/0313081536.htm 8 http://www.dr.dk/Nyheder/Indland/2013/03/12/112652.htm9 http://www.dr.dk/Nyheder/Indland/2013/03/12/095018.htm10 http://www.business.dk/transport/fly-chef-finanskrisen-goer-det-svaert 11 AirHelp client sheet figure 812 Airhelp client sheet13 http://eur-lex.europa.eu/LexUriServ/LexUriServ.do?uri=O-J:L:2004:046:0001:0007:EN:PDF14 http://www.passagerrettigheder.dk/ 15 http://www.dr.dk/DR1/kontant/2013/02/12154102.htm 16 http://www.refund.me/en/about-us.php 17 https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=572230669462176&set=a.465262696825641.107100.408314462520465&type=1&the-ater18 http://www.tutor2u.net/business/strategy/ansoff_matrix.htm19 http://www.tutor2u.net/business/strategy/mckinsey_pyramid.htm20 http://trendsonline.dk/2013/01/09/interview-med-morten-lunds-

nye-startup-airhelp-org/ 21 http://www.airhelp.eu/contact 22 http://www.airhelp.eu/faq 23 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edgar_Schein24 http://www.trafikstyrelsen.dk/DA/Civil-luftfart/~/media/91ED1E-4A49634E03AE0FDCC339B4E4D0.ashx 25 http://www.trafikstyrelsen.dk/DA/Civil-luftfart/~/media/91ED1E-4A49634E03AE0FDCC339B4E4D0.ashx 26 http://www.tutor2u.net/business/strategy/SWOT_analysis.htm