Executive Summary Ryanair gives us a good overview of strategic management practices that improve the status of an organization and makes a company get more profits. From the statistics of Ryanair collected over time, one is able to see the competitive moves and business approaches that the management has taken. These systematic steps have led the company to success (Barrett 90). It took the company a lot of time to start growing. It accrued loses within the first five years after its establishment in 1985 amounting to IRE£20m. On changing the management team the company rose to the top of Europe’s airlines in the early 90’s. O’Higgins (2007) says that in 1997, Ryanair first sold its shares through the Dublin Stock exchange and afterwards with NASDAQ in the year 2002 (O’Higgins 687). It not only rose in Europe but also by the year 2006, it was leading the world’s airlines as the most profitable company. In the same year, Ryanair announced its profit to be £329m for the first half of the fiscal year 2007. Its profits rose by 1% to 26% in that half year (O’Higgins 687). This essay focuses on some aspects of strategic management that the leadership of Ryanair used to come to the top in terms of profitability. These are: managing strategic change, strategic management on human resource and cost. Ryanair Michael O’Leary has done a lot to propel Ryanair to the top in terms of profitability. This is because of how he has been strategic in his leadership, since he took over this role in this company (Barrett 90). After his promotion to be the chief executive of Ryanair, he had a very clear vision; to model the Ireland’s Ryanair after the novel Southwest Airline Business Model. He had the objective of making it to come to the top rank among all Europeans Airlines in terms of profitability. O’Leary did not take a very long time before he steered the short haul airline to the top. From the early 2000, the airline has topped not only in Europe but also globally. “Ryanair took delivery of the largest number of new aircraft in 2009, with 54 B737-800 deliveries – or an average of 4.5 per month” (“Ryanair tops 2009 aircraft deliveries” par 1). This report shows exactly how O’Leary’s is effective and how the company is doing. In this discussion we focus on four aspects of strategic management; managing strategic change, strategic approach on managing human resource, strategy on cost, and finally, an over view of how Ryanair compares with British Airways. These four aspects fall under the whole domain of strategic management. The company focuses on the scope and the direction in which it will carryout its activities over a long period of time. This enables the organization to make use of the changes in the environment, principally viewing them as opportunities. The organization or the company configures its potentials and resources to achieve this goal (Hitt, Duane and Hoskisson 3). Studying the above-mentioned four concepts will validate the fact that Ryanair has benefited from the initiative its management took in those areas of strategic management. Managing Strategic Change Change is usually a challenge. It comes because of many factors. Managers should always be on the lookout because the change may bring a negative growth