Hospitality Entrepreneurship of John Willard Marriott - Essay Example

Running Head: John Willard Marriott Hospitality Entrepreneurship Academia Academia Research John Willard Marriott was initially a small business entrepreneur, like every entrepreneur, he recognized the opportunity and exploited that opportunity by taking few risks and established a small root beer stand in Washington in 1927, he is recognized as a small business owner who initiated few big ideas to be a biggest name in hospitality entrepreneurship, he first started a motel by the name of Marriott in 1957 however he previously had developed a chain of Marriott restaurants in United States, also he had done several businesses in the same field between 20s and 50s. The company took the name Marriott Inc. in 1967, it was this time when he started getting at the peak of his career. Behind every Entrepreneur there is some need and motivation that drives him to excel in that particular field, same was the case with Marriott, it has also been noted that many of the entrepreneurs have very different backgrounds, Marriott was one of them as he got the responsibility of life at a very early age, this naturally developed a need of achievement in him which he fulfilled later on. The qualities and attributes are usually same in every entrepreneurial act as long as the focus is on the basics, however it differs when you proceed further into the operations, like the basics in every service based or small business entrepreneurship would be more or less same. The characteristics of Marriott were that he was having willingness to take risks and a desire to make his dreams come true, he possessed self-confidence and met the challenges that confront him, he believed a lot on his hard work and efforts rather than blaming his fate. Of course the rewards that he got for doing all that are quite visible. The other things that are attached with the Hospitality Entrepreneurship are Segmentation, Location (Depends on business type), Communication, Advertising and Sales Promotion, Finance Management and above all the Human resource employed. The segmentation is necessary in Hospitality, as you cannot expect every one to get to your restaurant, hotel, or motel. The focus is usually on tourists and people who have a charm for the entertainment in life bearing some expenses. If you are having a hospitality entrepreneurship the three things you have to worry about are Location, Location and Location, as you should facilitate the target audience with the facility of identifying you easily. The communication is another aspect of hospitality business, as the customers cannot expect you to do some other work than their work. The sales promotion is necessary in order to attract the old customers and also for the purpose of getting them back. You also need to take care about the finance, every thing should be operated within the allocated budget otherwise things would be sooner out of your hands and finally Human resources are the key in hospitality, as the customer wants you to be very frank and well mannered at the same time. So the initial mission of Marriott was to provide people with entertainment and a unique service which today has become so common, it would not be unfair to say that Marriott is the role model in brining innovation in the hospitality industry. "To develop successful innovation, a corporation should establish a conducive organizational climate. Traditional managers tend to adhere more strictly to establish hierarchical structures, to be less risk oriented, and to emphasize short terms results, all of which inhibit the creativity, flexibility, and risk required for new ventures. Organizations desiring an intrapreneurial climate need to encourage new ideas and experimental efforts, eliminating opportunity parameters, make resources available, promote a teamwork approach and voluntary intrapreneurship, and enlist top management's support." (Hisrich, M. Peters, D. Shepherd 54) The management of the external resources has turned these days extremely important, if this section would be overlooked in a particular project than there are several negative outcomes such as the people related to your field would look for their benefits, they would save extra costs and make their own gains, they would provide relatively cheap and poor quality material for the work you have given them and they would fill their pockets from the remaining money which they got from the company to finish the job at a good standard, so these might be the outcomes of the poor relationship management with the people working for you. Political Factors The political factors affecting Marriott are not only related to the company but also the customers, the government makes such policies that can affect the related industries as well such as food industry, without knowing that it could also be questioning the country's own economy, Marriott has somewhat been affected by such policies in the past, however due to modernization, the company has made fairly lucrative business in different areas of U.S., big disturbances in the sales were also seen at the 9/11 event, at that point it was disturbance in every part of every country which also include the areas where Marriott has operations, the number of customers were decreased as few incidents also took place in the Marriott outside the U.S. such as a bomb blast at Marriott in Pakistan and thus the competitors had fair chance to capture the full market. These conditions were not same at the time Marriott was established though the Government only had put restrictions in quality of food and services, as they had to maintain a standard for getting the license. Economic Factors Marriott is following the Capitalist Economy, it means that Marriott's operations are not confined by the government of U.S. by owning its assets, the company is having its own assets, so that there is less fuss and confusion in franchising it in other countries though their operations are independent in every country, while the inflation rate and changing policies have affected the company in many ways, specially the imports have been affected after 9/11 when the products were having shortage around the globe due to serious confusion created in U.S. and products that were imported to U.S. and were used by the Hotel had to be changed, this include food stuff and few of the toiletries and many related things. At the time of settlement Marriott had a lot of pressure on them as they were newly developed and government had asked them to allocate a proper budget with not affecting any other industry being operated in U.S. this was a pressure on Marriott's entrepreneurial skill but since he was in related business from a long time, thus he managed to survive the challenges. Social Factors The Company is also being affected by social factors but they are happy to follow few rules that are making the company a good one in the eyes of customers, a good example is that when the Muslim community's demand increased for precautionary meat around the world the Marriott had to think in bringing something new in their food section which could pacify the Muslim customers and the company finally started coming up with the precautionary meat and they had some how managed to communicate the new concept to every one which is another good point in the favor of the company, this means that the company had to acquire new culture for the sake of its customers, while the increasing population is also affecting the company's forecasts, these are the challenges which company is willing to take happily. At the time of establishment Marriott had an increased responsibility as the "first impression is the last impression" had to do a lot here in getting the company's standard in the customer's perception, that is why today the company sells value not the service they are providing. "The proposition is that business culture is now the standard culture of the Western world. Within the framework of that standard culture, however, a number of alternative cultures and subcultures exist. Some of these acts to modify the behaviors that are conditioned and sanctioned by the dominant business culture. In addition, countercultures periodically seek to establish themselves outside the orbit of business culture, rejecting that culture in to and seeking to replace it with something else. Whereas coexistence with the dominant culture is accepted by members of alternative cultures and subcultures, counterculture groups seek to replace the dominant culture or to protect themselves as totally as possible from its impacts"(Decks, 213: 1993). Starting a business that involves a lot of fuss is no joke, Marriott was a complete hospitality business which involves, not only one or two factors but almost all the factors involved, the responsibility includes "customer" which means all the things related to customer's stay, so the company always had an intense focus on the management side as without a proper management it was almost impossible to bring the satisfaction to the client that he wants. Marriott himself believes that the role of management is vital in his organization and he keeps on trying his level best in order to make the employees as happier as he can. "In establishing the culture of the company, there was a lot of attention and tender loving care paid to the hourly workers. When they were sick, he went to see them. When they were in trouble, he got them out of trouble. He created a family loyalty"(Bill Marriott). Also Marriott believes, "You've got to make your employees happy. If the employees are happy, they are going to make the customers happy" (John Willard Marriott). So this all shows the importance of the management in such entrepreneurial businesses, another interesting thing is that Marriott's wife Alice was also involved in the business, she was a bookkeeper in the beer stand that he started way back in 1927, according to O'Brien who has also written Marriott's biography: "His managers never knew what time of day or night he'd show up at the kitchen door and go bird-dogging almost at a half-run through the kitchen, the pantries, the storage rooms, the refrigerators, the restaurant itself, running a finger over the shelves to check for dust, checking under tables and in cutlery drawers, checking the ranges, the storage rooms, the trays about to be served, sampling the root beer, and raising hell if everything wasn't spotless, neat, clean, bright, polished, done efficiently, done well". So in the view of all the above discussion on Marriott's relations with his work force, it is true to say, "Each organization had its own situational realities, characteristics and challenges. Business strategy and the role, strategy and process of Human resources therefore have to be customized. Enabling the organization to meet the demands on them in the wake of competitive pressure released by reforms, liberalization and globalization, five strategic decision-making categories were identified as resourcing, performance management, rewards, management development and the employee relations" (Gupta, 97: 1998). The outcome of any poor relationships and communication with the staff members and workers is that they start looking to take advantage for their business rather than for the work they have been chosen to work on, so in order to ensure that the employees are working for the benefit of the company, the relationship and communication should be emphasized more. The relationships with the employees can be improved by working jointly for one goal, it is the entrepreneur's job to ensure that the people working under him are working well, as in case of Marriott, he was so efficient in maintaining a long term relationship with the employees or was very much devoted to the well being of employees and this is an other important factor that is necessary for an entrepreneur to understand, on the basis of these things Marriott was able to start new venture and that in hospitality industry which success is impossible with out proper relationship with the human resource, a very good idea about maintaining a very good relationship with the employees that is commonly seen in the successful companies is that the entrepreneur of those companies know every thing about the workers, they know their backgrounds, their history of working and even the names of their children, this is a very good technique to maintain healthy relationships with the employees, as the employee would now pay attention to the particular company and would take interest in its operations as they would see that the company is also taking interest in their personal life. Another issue that was very well handled by Marriott on behalf of which he is a very successful entrepreneur in the U.S. history is that is the communication problem which is even bigger than the relationship problem, the communication plays a very important role as without communication it would be impossible for the employees in not even hospitality industry but in almost every industry to complete the given job, there are various issues arising in communication, such as the vertical communication problem, it means that the communication's direction would be both upwards and downwards between the top executives including the head of the organization which in this case is Marriott himself and the employees or even people working as labor, the problem is that the communication would travel downwards from top executive or the head to the employees in a way that the top executives or the head would write a letter (for instance) than it would travel all the way from top to the bottom staff and than to the lower level employees and when the employees would answer than the same problem would occur, and by the time the communication would be completed the point of issue would have gone late or no immediate action would be taken on it as the communication process took a lot of time for completion, so they need to do a very simple thing that they should introduce an open door policy and also should emphasize on the horizontal communication which is exactly the same rule followed in Marriott through out the world, which means that all the employees and external resources would have the permission to enter the top executive's door and answer to what ever the question might be also the top executives or even the Head can question directly to any one so that no further time is wasted and an immediate action can be taken on the prevailing problem. So to sum up all the happenings the relationship is based on the communication and the communication is based on the relationship between the entrepreneur and the employees specially in the hospitality industry, in order to work effectively both need each others support and both have to understand each others objectives, of course no body sacrifices for some one else, keeping this point in mind both of these parties should work for each other while taking care of the personal and the other's objectives, one of the good qualities of Marriott was that he was fair enough with the people working with him right from the beginning without discriminating anyone, perhaps he always knew that if some one would be in loss by maintaining poor relationships than it would be him, the loss would have been only one sided that is Marriott was the only one to face loss but as the competition grew and the number of companies increased so much and the world reached the industrialization stage, entrepreneurs understood their importance and now the greater loss is still one sided but it is on the side of the employees, as there are numerous of them but it takes a lot of time to prepare an employee in a hospitality activity, who knows how to deal with the customers and how and Marriott was always very much aware of this fact and that is a big reason behind his success along with many others. Work Cited & Other Sources Hisrich R., M. Peters, D. Shepher, "Entrepreneurship", (n.p.): McGraw-Hill, 2005. Gupta, M.L, "Business led HR strategies", New Delhi: (n.p), 1998. John Decks, "Business and Culture of Enterprise Society", Westport, CT: Quorum, 1993. Wikipedia, . Read More