Introduction “Explore new ventures in the easy brand”. This is the motto of Stelios Hadjioannou, founder of easyJet airline Co Ltd and now chairman of the easyGroup holding Company. Since the foundation of Hadjioannou’s first company in 1995, easyJet, the easyGroup company has formed a few more types of business reasoning with the advanced technology that society is moving toward. Combining a handful of leadership skills along with proper tactics, Hadjioannou has succeeded in the business world and has come out as the leader of a company with unlimited potentials. Leadership skills are very important to the development of a company. These skills or qualities come from various components including education, natural ability, common sense, intelligence, passion, desire. Warren Bennis writes about leadership in 18 different books such as Organizing Genius, On Leadership, Old Dogs New Tricks, Why Leaders Can’t Lead and many other publications studied at many higher-level institutions today. Bennis is currently a distinguished professor at the University of Southern California. Bennis’ books Organizing Genius and Old Dogs New Tricks particularly important because they focus on today’s leadership and current difficulties leaders face without failing to mention the past and past experiences. “Leadership is the wise use of power. Power is the capacity to translate intention into reality and sustain it.” Warren Bennis Organizing Genius’ idea is written on how networks of gifted people have changed the world. Groups become great only when everyone in them is free to do his or her absolute best. It is about organizing gifted people in ways that allow them to achieve great things and to experience the joy and personal transformation that these accomplishments bring. Bennis offers his insight on what makes a Great Group and he writes about necessary societal and business changes. Also the book Old Dogs, New Tricks is a book that talks about leadership but has a different aspect of leadership because it mainly lists a number of tricks applied in the business world. It enforces the need for leaders to have a sense of meaning and purpose & maintain an optimistic attitude on the success of goals and sustaining the given purpose. Vision and trust are the essential elements in modern organizations. In addition it emphasizes the human need to belong to a community, team or group. Leaders need to make people feel as valued members of a great team. Finally it identifies the need to feel a sense of power, involvement, connection and alliance. II. EasyGroup and Bennis Stelios Hadjioannou founded EasyGroup holding company in 1998, three years after creating easyJet. Hadjioannou’s first company, easyJet, was created to provide customers with safe, good value, point to point air services. To effect and to offer a consistent and reliable product and fares appealing to leisure and business markets on a range of European routes. The way to achieve this is to develop the services in such a way to establish lasting relationships with our suppliers. This is a low-cost, "no frills", airline that is taking advantage of the deregulation of the European airline industry. After the incredible and rapid success of easyJet, Hadjioannou made the decision to create easyGroup. EasyGroup is a holding company to explore new ventures to extend the "easy" brand and capitalize upon the expanding use of the Internet. In almost four years this company has achieved some of these ventures with the creation of sites such us easyEverything, easyRentacar, and easyValue. Stelios Hadjioannou was born in Athens, Greece on the 14th of February 1967, the middle son of Loucas and Nedi, both of Cypriot origin. Hadjioannou was raised in Athens, where he attended Greek High School (Doucas School) and, at the same time, took two A-levels in Mathematics and Economics. In 1984 he moved to London to study at the London School of Economics, and he graduated in 1987 with a Bsc in Economics. The next year, 1988, he also graduated from the City University Business School with an Msc in Shipping Trade and Finance. After graduation he joined his father's shipping company, Troodos shipping. In January 1992 he became the founding chairman of CYMEPA, the Cyprus Marine Environment Protection Association. This is a non-profit making association of shipowners and Cyprus based business people who believe in sustainable development. Also in 1992 he founded his first venture, Stelmar Tankers, in the shipping industry. Stelmar has a fleet of 11 tankers, with a further 4 under construction. The company is listed on the New York stock exchange in March 2001 (NYSE:SJH). The proceeds of the offering will be used to acquire another 10 tankers. Hadjioannou’s “easy” brand promotion began in 1995 with easyJet. This venture is based on the common, frequent and necessary traveling of Europeans within Europe. Also the technology provided allows the customers to use the website for free and allows them to travel for low, one-way airfares thus not forcing them to travel on any specific dates. The company is based in the UK and it flies to 30 routes between 16 European destinations. EasyJet is keeping costs to a minimum by cutting out unnecessary "frills", eliminating the middleman by selling direct to passengers, and using less congested and less expensive airports. EasyJet flies one of the world's youngest fleets of Boeing 737-300, the average age of the aircraft being 5 years old. Between October 2000 and the end of 2004, 32 new next-generation 737-700s are being delivered into easyJet, taking the fleet size up to 44 aircraft. Flying with this airline is simple and hassle-free. No tickets are issued, so all you need for check-in if you are flying internationally is your passport. Also, as easyJet operates a free seating policy on board, you can choose where you sit. Customers can purchase their seats online 24 hours, 365 days a year. One CEO has said about easyJet: “It is a little like a bus that can fly. No assigned seats. Each leg of a trip is priced on the basis of demand; there are no whacked-out fare rules about Saturday night stayovers or the like.” Another one of easyGroup’s largest ventures is easyEverything. This is the world’s largest chain with the largest Internet cafes. Not so popular in the United States, Internet cafes are very successful in Europe and can be of great use 24 hours a day. EasyEverything is referred to as the brainchild of Hadjioannou since he has invented a new way to access the web but at the same time is out of your home and at a cafeteria enjoying your coffee or tea with friends. It is also very helpful for those people who are not privileged to own a computer or are on the move and need to access information such as their email. Hadjioannou, having observed how popular small cyber-cafes were in spite of the costly rate and the often "nerdy" atmosphere, decided to apply supermarket economics to what amounted to little more than a cottage industry. The result is the cheapest and best Internet access money can buy outside a home. The cafes all have literally hundreds of computer terminals and all are open 24 hours a day. State of the art technology is offered with flat screens, web cams, telephony and lightning fast connections. Keeping the cafes open 24 hours a day means that the unit cost of each terminal is reduced, further contributing to fast and cheap Internet access. This is one of easyGroup’s most profitable inventions with revenue coming in from various springs. There is the revenue from selling the Internet to the customers and not only that there is the cafe that sells coffee, soft drinks and various snacks. Also revenue is achieved from in-store printing services as well as the sale of diskettes and CD’s from which customers can down and upload data. A large amount of revenue though comes from large corporations that want to advertise in the cafes and get their name out there to the customers. Customers range from ages 16-35 and the use of cafes ranges from gaming to email and online chatting. EasyEverything targets the center of large cosmopolitan cities such as London, Amsterdam, Barcelona, Madrid, Rome, Brussels, Paris, Munich and other European cities with the only non-European city being New York. EasyEverything would like to attract all kinds of people as it promotes diversity for just $1 per hour the customer uses the computer. EasyValue is a smaller innovation of easyGroup that has not developed to its potential yet. This site helps the customer compare product prices and the best choices available. It is also property-finding site that helps the customers find the property they want little trouble or effort. The new property-finding service searches a growing range of websites to locate as many properties as it can thus giving the best chance of finding an ideal home. EasyValue offers comparisons in books, music, DVD’s, life insurance, property and other information valuable by customers. Another smaller but important originality created by easyGroup is easyRentacar. This is a very interesting venture since it is the first Internet-only rent car company. EasyRentacar is available in only four European cities so far, UK, Spain, France and the Netherlands. Its aim is to offer customers outstanding value for money. Value for money means a |