Qantas reaches out to mid-sized business

Australian airline giant Qantas is reaching out to thousands of Australian mid-sized businesses to shape an ambitious new initiative which will offer help, advice and networking opportunities to improve the sector’s bottom line.

A development of its highly successful Qantas Business Rewards programme, the ambitious new scheme will allow Qantas to learn from, as well as help, its mid-sized business customers and may launch as early as next year.

While smaller firms may sometimes doubt the motives behind apparent corporate largesse, Qantas knows that helping its domestic business customers modernise their processes, increase their profit margins and expand their offerings will not only reinforce customer loyalty but ensure those firms survive and prosper in today’s turbulent business times.

Learning from Qantas’ transition

Qantas itself endured a rapid and occasionally painful metamorphosis in recent years as it rationalised its services and revamped its corporate structure in the face of possible bankruptcy, despite controlling 65% of the domestic market. Uneconomic flights were cut or shared with other airlines, staff were retrenched or redeployed and a host of allied services, from catering to health, have been developed to diversify its income streams.

Qantas now plans to share the insights it gained in reinventing itself with its business customers as it builds a range of bespoke advice and management education services in partnership with them.

The recent GAP Mid-Sized Business Summit highlighted the problems which isolated mid-sized CEOs can face in deploying the management skills required to turn dreams of growth into reality. The exorbitant cost and length of traditional business courses mean that many owners and managers are deprived the skills they need to develop their firms.

The Qantas initiative may offer an attractive alternative to lengthy MBAs and expensive consultants for mid-sized executives in search of practical solutions for today or inspiration for tomorrow.

The range of offerings which may be developed include online advice, personalised consultancy and peer to peer networking, with Qantas referring businesses to sources of help or providing direct assistance themselves.

The shape these services take will be determined by the consultation process underway over the next six months and user feedback in the future, ensuring they remain relevant to changing business needs.

Chase Gunning, the Manager of Small and Medium Business programs at the airline’s Sydney headquarters, is spearheading the initiative and welcomes approaches from mid-sized firms, whether or not they ascribe to Qantas’ business loyalty scheme.

With a scope well beyond traditional marketing exercises, this offers a rare opportunity for smaller firms to not only influence the direction of one of the country’s major companies, but help build the value focussed services they need to thrive themselves.

Qantas is continually reaching out to existing members of the Qantas Business Rewards program on a range of the new ideas and business challenges and appreciates all feedback on the direction of the new venture.

Join the club

Other major corporates have also launched platforms for small and medium sized businesses recently. Optus unveiled its ‘Yes Business‘ platform in mid-November 2017 to offer owners and employees ‘information, ideas, and tools to solve problems’.

Matthew Ball, the Head of Small and Medium Business at Optus, said the platform would help business owners connect with “a like-minded and knowledgeable digital community”. The site offers articles and advice from academics and successful business owners and a community forum invites user participation and the sharing of experience.

“We’re focused on continually improving our services to customers and it’s important to us that our customers can turn to us not only for communications advice and service, but for business. Listening to our customer base, we know SMBs want an easy-to-access online community for support, know-how and expert advice,” Ball said. A recent Optus survey of 82 small businesses owners found that 61% felt isolated in their tasks, 35% had paid over the odds to an expert to solve a particular problem and 22% lacked information on strategies to pursue business success. Ball said the telco may use the “crowdrating” of articles on the site to inform development of new SMB products.

Telstra, Optus’ major rival in the telecommunications market, also announced a joint venture with National Australia Bank last year to form a digital marketplace for SMBs to swap or pay for marketing, design, technology, accounting, and other business services. The startup, called Proquo, offers an online platform for businesses to network, source services, publish briefs for the work they require, negotiate costs, handle payments, and leave reviews.