Ceo Gary Kelly and What Makes Southwest Airlines so Successful
SOUTHWEST CEO | CEO Gary Kelly and What Makes Southwest Airlines So Successful | | CEO Gary Kelly and the employees of Southwest Airlines have fun at work. His skills as an accountant gave him a chance to change how the airline handled the accounting end of business. The corporate culture and core competencies have made Southwest Airlines a front runner in the business. | | LeAnne Powell | 10/15/2011 | |
Page 1 CEO Gary Kelly and What Makes Southwest Airlines So Successful The main reasons for the success of Southwest Airlines are three fold, with CEO Gary Kelly, co-founder and board chairman Herbert D. Kelleher, and president Colleen Barrett, core competencies, and corporate culture as its base. This includes their company values; concern, respect, and caring for their employees and customers - to define it. (BCLC SOUTHWEST AIRLINES, 2006) Southwest Airlines started in 1972 with three planes and has continued to strive toward meeting the needs of their customers. Southwest Airlines has built its culture and its reputation from the inside out. It values a happy workforce, and believes that its 32,000 satisfied employees will keep customers coming back. (BCLC SOUTHWEST AIRLINES, 2006) Kelly's first task at Southwest was to bring its accounting and information management systems into the computer age. At the time, all financial and technical functions were still being been done on paper, or contracted out to companies that owned computers. The only computer at Southwest was one that Kelly's predecessor had bought with his own money — and took with him when he left.
"I sponsored the business case for the first mainframe computer we bought in 1987," Kelly recalls. "It wasn't an easy sell." (Reed, 2004) Kelleher had seen larger airlines waste, in his opinion, millions on new-fangled technology. He was skeptical that computers could benefit an airline where keeping costs low is a religion.
Page 1 CEO Gary Kelly and What Makes Southwest Airlines So Successful The main reasons for the success of Southwest Airlines are three fold, with CEO Gary Kelly, co-founder and board chairman Herbert D. Kelleher, and president Colleen Barrett, core competencies, and corporate culture as its base. This includes their company values; concern, respect, and caring for their employees and customers - to define it. (BCLC SOUTHWEST AIRLINES, 2006) Southwest Airlines started in 1972 with three planes and has continued to strive toward meeting the needs of their customers. Southwest Airlines has built its culture and its reputation from the inside out. It values a happy workforce, and believes that its 32,000 satisfied employees will keep customers coming back. (BCLC SOUTHWEST AIRLINES, 2006) Kelly's first task at Southwest was to bring its accounting and information management systems into the computer age. At the time, all financial and technical functions were still being been done on paper, or contracted out to companies that owned computers. The only computer at Southwest was one that Kelly's predecessor had bought with his own money — and took with him when he left.
"I sponsored the business case for the first mainframe computer we bought in 1987," Kelly recalls. "It wasn't an easy sell." (Reed, 2004) Kelleher had seen larger airlines waste, in his opinion, millions on new-fangled technology. He was skeptical that computers could benefit an airline where keeping costs low is a religion.