Originally Posted by
bisonrav
Consultants in general: you bring them in when you are struggling for growth and need some outside grounding point and an alternate vision - management teams and employees at all level do get pulled into "that's the way it works here" which is a barrier to transformative change. I couldn't agree more with Orbitmic's analysis. And they come with a certain gravitas which allows internal objections to be more easily rolled over; an internal vision team with more insight and direct knowledge is always easier to isolate and ignore. There is absolutely nothing wrong with consultants PROVIDED you understand they are indeed broad brush merchants.
Dynamic pricing: this has been in the minds of BA for years, Cruz was talking about it (incidentally one of the prizes of NDC is individually dynamically adjusted fares, this isn't just about redemption bookings). I would be surprised if it was brought in any time soon, particularly as IAG are wanting to find partners to distribute Avios. A devaluation would work against that and for very little benefit: the last thing you want your partners to think is they're buying Avios that people no longer get value from. So it'll be held off as a potential barrier to the strategic objective and then ressurected when the dust has settled, and ironically is less likely with BAC than had we still got BAEC.
I don't think the idea that BA needed some alternate vision is necessarily true in this case. It's hardly as if BA would have been naive to the changes to frequent flyer programs in the US, especially given that one of their closest partners went revenue-based years ago. I would be very surprised if McKinsey opened BA's eyes to the idea of making massive changes to the frequent flyer program as opposed to simply advising BA on how to execute those changes (the extent to which they did a good job, of course, is subject to deserved scrutiny).