Workflow Analysis and Modelling - Case Study Example

Workflow Analysis and Modelling number PART In one of the industries where service quality is critical, the overall essence of the delivery of sufficient guest experience is familiar encounters with the hoteliers. On the flipside, there are plenty of pitfalls of as one fails to avail the positive experiences expected by the customers. However, in contexts of the challenging economic landscape, in today’s business, the issue is adequately relevant and continues to demand improved scrutiny. While resources are evidently scarce, and the consumers keep responding to belt-tightening financial scopes through being both selective and demanding on the hotel choices, Carlson Companies need to improve on its customer service scores as a necessity (Carlson Companies Inc, 2006). With such challenges in economic landscaping as well as a whole range of new professional and technologies realities heightening the negative and positive outcomes of single guest experiences, the service stakes continue raising way higher. For the newly connected and competitive world, the operators have to be much aware of the important needs of adjusting to the new realities, as well as the consistent delivery of an outstanding customer service. Carlson Companies can also focus on evolving customer expectations. The capability of satisfying and anticipating the evolution of customer needs is a critical priority. Evidently, customers are rather sophisticated with respect to their encounters of technology while researching, selecting, and purchasing leisure products and services (Szende, 2009). In addition, customers keep resisting the chain mentality as well as the true opportunities of creating customized and unique experiences even as they mind the listed bottom lines. In the end, marketing approaches need continuous adaptation and updates for the effective achievement of customers. Increasingly, the true differentiation remains a difficult scope in achieving the luxury markets while presenting mainstream targets. PART 2: PROCESSES AND TECHNOLOGY The main challenge here is the increase in the competition levels. Carlson Companies performance indicates that the entire industry is overbuilt. There are more hospitality rooms available against the number of guests seeking to be accommodated in them. The resultant competition often involves aspects of price-cutting through the efforts of providing more value to the guests and educing further profits under its generation (Reid & Bojanic, 2009). The steep drop in Carlson Companies’ occupancy ratio due to the tight competition and global slowdown across hospitality operators amounts to shrinking markets having brought down the rents of a hospitality room more drastically within the nations. The challenge here is the overlapping brands and market segmentation. Market segmentation remains to be a critical issue as lodging chains continue focusing on the specific traveler niche. For this reasons, brands appear to overlap continually. Carlson Companies observers have concerns that its franchises could be expanding its scope of brands for purposes of pointing at the investors purchasing from same franchisers and within the frontier competition with each of them. With the increase in the brands, the consumers’ ability in differentiating across each of them decreases. There is an increment in the levels of guest sophistication (Pantelidis, 2014). Consumers are becoming sophisticated which also includes having the distinct forms of products and services desired. Amenities, such as business centers, recreational and guest-room innovations, and exercise facilities, increase in costs. Carlson Companies has challenges in coping and keeping up with changing pace of technology due to the high expenses involved. The new computerized processes allow Carlson Companies’ managers match the guest demand with the room charges. This way, high demand, translates to high rates due to lessened discounts while low demand amounts to higher discounts (Yu, 1999). Technology enables yield management while demand-forecasting systems enable the maximization of revenue through holding the rates high within the periods of high demand and through decreasing the room rates in low-season periods. One of the ways of improving performance is having Carlson Companies establish an extensive service culture and process. The traditional industry service technologies that delivered customer service began with extensive training. Training is an important course even though it involves diversification of procedures as well as a strong leadership where a lasting foundation for consistent customer service is developed. With Carlson Companies’ right leaders shifting focus to customer-service focused while firmly committing to the establishment of service cultures of an efficient and streamlined service, there is support in property development. Further, this establishes as one of the integral processes and technology cultures (Yu, 1999). In ensuring Carlson Companies’ property garners utmost service scores annually through providing memorable guest experiences, its savvy operators and owners need not be hesitant in continuously evaluating their procedures and policies in assuring they do everything possible to optimize the guests’ convenience and comfort. This is an approach that will ultimately garner increased brand loyalty in the end. In case the appropriate procedures coupled with right leaders cannot be tracked, any form of training will not trigger the top-notch service result levels that address customers’ needs while satisfying Carlson Companies’ professional objectives. Figure 1. The business system diamond The other approach is having to accelerating merging and change of Carlson Companies’ technologies. Carlson Companies’ systems, as well as their interfaces, encounter rapid growth and changes based on Internet-based technologies. This dramatically allows more flexible and easier integration, which is more involved in the completion of guest and operational data. Carlson Companies’ hotel operators have moved to take advantage of the opening while streamlining their operations while the adoption is hampered due to outdated infrastructure and older systems. The required investment in upgrading Carlson Companies’ technologies is significant; however, the benefits of the change are not realized in the absence of such change (Sfodera, 2006). This is a highlight of the continuing need for industry education. It cut across management companies and the manner that business benefits are recognized and quantified with properly integrated technologies. It includes an ultimatum for end users using the systems efficiently and effectively. The current systems face under-utilization while the situation is not facilitated by the reluctance of the industry in investing in the available regular refresher training to users. Full operation optimization needs new technology adoption and effective systems integration. PART 4: POTENTIAL CHANGE MANAGEMENT AND RISK ISSUES From the case study alongside, it is clear that Operating Issues are part of the issues affecting Carlson Companies. Labor shortages influence Carlson in its geographic location where there is consistent difficulty of challenges noted. In most of its subsidiaries, Carlson Companies hospitality expansion faces limitations by capital and human resources. The shrink in the labor force has plenty of challenges embedding Carlson (Yu, 1999). The elements of retaining and attracting qualified employees are an issue that only isolated markets have achieved and, it is a major challenge. Wage levels, demography, the worker satisfaction failure and low pay and long hour’s reputation are cited to be contributive factors. The levels of creativity among hospitality professionals are starting to generate innovative strategies for the capture and retention of high quality skills. The other aspect is cost containment challenges (Kendrick, 2011). Carlson Companies are increasingly facing the challenge of finding new ways of reducing costs without having to sacrifice the levels of standards imposed by the guests’ expectations. The concept of achieving set goals with fewer resources needs the managers to have a rethinking of the ways of operating in a more effective manner while examining cost savings possibilities that do not influence the perception of value by the guests. Carlson Companies needs to appreciate that the demand for condo-hotels is rapidly growing. The stated surge for condo-hotels coupled with alternative forms of ownership is bringing completely new aspects of challenges and risks for hospitality management, lenders, developers, and unit owners. The alternative forms of ownership continue presenting more opportunities for Carlson Companies with particular focus on the substantial reduction of the financial exposure from the stated projects of development (Jagels, 2006). However, there are various issues across developer representations regarding sale of units and product or unit warranties as well as latent defects. They represent the potential exposure and liability for hospitality developers across the course of their operations. Through customer perspectives, it is not clear whether expectations of an individual unit owner are met across time. The condominium hotels management is becoming an extreme challenge. Carlson Companies faces options of managing volatile inventory, renovating and maintaining individual condominium, adherence with owner’s procedures and policies as well as other issues presenting various challenges. Figure 2. The operations framework The other approach is uncertainty growing global on security and safety. There are many concerns regarding travelers for purposes of protecting each of their respective forms of safety. Such concerns include airplane ventilation healthfulness and addressing terrorism vulnerability. Carlson Companies’ can continue pressuring the government to manage risks while occasionally affecting the tourism infrastructure of a given country including the restrictive visitation procedures and policies enactment (Drucker, 2012). The ongoing Middle East turmoil and coordinated bombings in a London bus among other events across the world continue causing travelers to reserve traditional assumptions of leisure travelling and vacations. Some non-traditional and remote destinations find tourism activities on the increase due to the places that have the appropriate attribute mixes in demand by clients. Carlson Companies’ can increase its efforts towards hotel brands and companies consolidation. Through brand consolidation and proliferation within the market, Carlson Companies continues to find it rather difficult to select effective brands that are not represented within the stated marketplaces. They are also not influenced through the territorial encroachment elements. While the trend evolves, Carlson Companies’ and its subsidiary companies can find such negotiation power shifts towards brands affecting the deal structures (OFallon & Rutherford, 2011). As a major brand company, Carlson Companies’ needs to continue isolating consumer segments for purposes of strengthening and creating specific brand niches for addressing micro-markets. On a similar note, it allows it to address the difficult considerations of the consumer in understanding brand difference through ‘intra’ and ‘inter’ scopes. The aspects that make sense to Carlson Companies’ and its brand becomes clearer to the customer through influencing consumer pricing as well as the commoditization of hotel products. Carlson Companies’ searching for shareholder value can be poised towards creating additional consolidation conditions unlike an online platform where up to 90% of hotel inventory can be managed through few companies. In addition, it is important to make it clear to the employees of the fact that failure cannot be permitted but rather at acceptable levels for purposes of being innovative (Barth, 2008). Carlson Companies can also work on getting stakeholder buy-in for its new initiatives. The stakeholders need continuous education on the objectives linked to the new initiatives and not simply the process changes. Currently, the Carlson hotel chain can acquire a successful self-service initiative within the hospitality industry. Being welcoming to the incremental forms of innovation allows innovation to surpass the idea while the existing idea can be engaged in new ways. The innovation approach helps in the mitigation of risks and easing of the burden on company resources. For this reason, leadership has to create cultures towards the motivation of employees for increased innovation (Clarke & Chen, 2007). The consideration includes the need to align the compensation and goals of the employee with innovation. Carlson Hotels can build innovation in the corporate bonus plan. Carlson Companies can accept to take up more risk. Immediately employees become empowered towards coming up with development ideas, the firm has to put in place avenues of accepting where the novel idea is the failure risks. Conclusion From part one of this paper, it is clear that the ability to make the considerable aspects of capital investments for which they are accustomed includes the improvement of customer service as a way of adding real value in the rapidly competitive marketplace. Service quality becomes a difference-maker. On the other hand, the economic climate that Carlson Companies operates in is its ultimate difference-maker. In part two, some of the viable strategies helping Carlson Companies’ improve on the evident processes while supporting success in service innovation include building innovation support for the culture of the firm. A critical resource in the identification of the ways of improving the processes is engaging its employees further. Special focus needs to be on its front lines where the workers regularly interact with guests. References Barth, S. C. 2008. Hospitality Law: Managing Legal Issues in the Hospitality Industry. New York: John Wiley and Sons. Carlson Companies Inc 2006, Business Process Management II: Carlson Companies Case Study, pp. 99-110. Business Source Complete, EBSCOhost. Clarke, A., Chen, W. 2007. International Hospitality Management: Concepts and Cases. New York: Routledge, Drucker, P. 2012. Management Challenges for the 21st Century. New York: Routledge Jagels, M. G. 2006, Hospitality Management Accounting. New York: John Wiley and Sons Kendrick, Tom. 2011. One Hundred and One Project Management Problems and how to Solve Them. New York: AMACOM Div American Mgmt Assn. OFallon, M. J., Rutherford, D. G., 2011. Hotel Management and Operations. New York: John Wiley & Sons. Pantelidis, I. S. 2014. The Routledge Handbook of Hospitality Management. New York: Routledge. Reid, R. D., Bojanic, D. C. 2009. Hospitality Marketing Management. New York: John Wiley and Sons. Sfodera, F. 2006. The Spread of Yield Management Practices: The Need for Systematic Approaches. New York: Springer. Szende, P. 2009. Case Scenarios In Hospitality Supervision. New York: Cengage Learning. Yu, L. 1999. The International Hospitality Business: Management and Operations. New York: Psychology Press. Read More