Marriott Operation Management and Corporate Strategy - Essay Example

?Table of Contents Page Part A (Operations) 2 Introduction 2 Marriott’s outputs of the key operational transformation processes 2 The five performance objectives 4 Creation of quality service 5 Speed 6 Dependability 7 Flexibility 7 Cost 8 The impact of four Vs in Marriott’s design of operational processes 8 Volume 9 Variety 10 Variation 10 Visibility 10 Conclusion 11 References 12 Part B (Strategy) 14 Introduction 14 Market positioning strategy 15 Resources based view 18 Corporate strategies and resources 18 Why positioning strategy and resources are complementary? 21 Conclusion 22 References 23 Part A (Operations) Introduction In this section, the proponent tries to discuss the outputs of the key operational transformation within Marriott International Incorporated, its five performance objectives applied, and the impact of four Vs in the design of operational processes in the said business. Marriott’s outputs of the key operational transformation processes The business name is Marriott which is carried by Marriott International Incorporated. This company is undeniably has undergone operations strategies over time to ensure that strategic decisions and actions will result to operation’s main role, objectives, and activities (Slack et al, 2007). Why there is a need to transform inputs it is because they cannot automatically be considered final goods or services. This is clear in the case of making a product and using technology for instance to transform raw materials into something useful by undergoing different processing stages (Thomson and Formby, 1993). The same process applies when it comes to coming up with service offering. The whole process requires transformation of available resources into something useful that can be served for the benefit of the target users, customers or markets (Johnston and Clark, 2008; Stevenson, 2008; Looy et al., 2003; Hill, 2005; Jick and Peiperl, 2002). This means that it is not only in manufacturing organisations there is a need to come up with transformation of the inputs which in this case it is common to hear about the raw materials. However, in organisations where the final product is a form of service, it is important to understand that there are also basic inputs that need to be transformed. Marriott Hotels basically need to come up with staffs as its most important resources. In order for the management to effectively promote its vision, these staffs must be fully equipped with the right information so as to elaborately create a business environment that could satisfy customers. According to Slack et al (2007), staffs and facilities belong to the input transforming resources because they have the ability to act upon the input transformed resources which are commonly in a form of materials, information and customers. Due to input processing of material, information and customer, Marriot Hotels were able to come up with hotels with complete amenities and everything that a customer may want to find in a hotel. The five performance objectives The five performance objectives are important for an organisation not just for the purpose of obtaining corporate goals but in order to achieve competitive advantage (Slack et al., 2007). Quality, speed, dependability, flexibility and cost are not only determinants of good performance of an organisation but they are all essential characteristics that can be obviously found in a product or service offering. Outsourcing of service for instance, especially in hotels is found to result to reduce cost, and improve the quality and flexibility of the service (Rodriguez and Robaina, 2004). In reality, there is an observed link between business environment and the choice of operational strategy choice of the five performance objectives especially on dependability (Gyampah and Boye, 2001). Customer service in actual setting always integrates the issue of the service speed and part of it is the determination of customer satisfaction (Davis and Maggard, 1990). Flexibility issue is widely heard among manufacturing organisations. However, the bottom line of this is about the determination of the level of emphasis placed on other performance dimensions in an organisation (Upton, 1995; Kathuria and Partovi, 1999). Cost is an essential element in management and it has to be substantially determined in order enhance strategy development and conduct performance evaluation (Anderson, 2006). Creation of Quality service When it comes to these five performance objectives, Marriott International Incorporated has substantially focused its goals to expansion program and brand growth. However, this cannot be implemented successfully without the need to come up with basic focus. Marriot International Incorporated has specifically identified its three main important considerations in its operation (Marriott International Incorporated, 2009). The first focus is about quality service which is considered to be exceptional for the customers. The second focus is about ensuring growth opportunities for the associates. Finally, the third focus is in line with ensuring a promising return of investment among owners and stakeholders. The reason why Marriot has focused on these three main goals is very obvious and that is to come up with service that is highly exceptional in quality. If it can be observed, the stakeholders including customers and associates are essential targets to be motivated. Associates are motivated to work because of something they believe they will get when they give their best shot. In the same way, owners and stakeholders are motivated to think more of possibilities for their customers and associates to come up with higher returns. All of these when combined can substantially create important impact on customer service quality. What Marriott has created was a move to influence behaviour of all those who are substantially involved in its business. In fact, when it comes to managing quality, the behavioural context is better than other tools and techniques in total quality management in order to obtain competitive advantage. It was found that executive commitment, employee empowerment and open culture are better than process improvement, benchmarking, and information and analysis prior to the achievement of an organisation’s competitive edge (Samson and Terziovski, 1999). However, performance quality can also be identified by understanding expectation, perception, customer satisfaction and technical quality (Harvey, 1998). All of these are interrelated and there is a certain domino effect which Marriott was able to successfully consider when it comes to becoming as world-class hospitality company. Speed The advent of online transaction through e-marketing ensures fast delivery of services to the customers. At Marriott Hotels, they believe that customers’ loyalty start from a highly fast and reliable service offerings. The advent of online transactions with Marriott Hotels ensures fast bookings and ensures customer satisfaction. Not only that, Marriott Hotels also employed fast dissemination of information in line with the issues on global diversity, investors, social responsibility, news, careers and opportunities. The high speed of dissemination of these components can be remarkably done through maximising the full potential of information technology. These are important components that Marriott Hotels believed to matter for their customers. Dependability Dependability on Marriott Hotels therefore relies on its great potential to keep customers informed with the right information. This in return can foster trust and stability. What a travelling customer for instance needs in the entire duration of his travel is the right information so as to be guided accordingly and enjoy the rest of his experience. The inclusion of global diversity on Marriott Hotels’ information dissemination is a particular approach that will help build trust among its customers in the long run. Flexibility At of the very moment, Marriott Hotels are taking the lead to global growth by launching new innovative products. This specifically shows the flexibility of Marriott Hotels to introduce new product offerings and its ability to grow a certain level of output. This in particular has an important impact on Marriot’s capacity to solidify its value proposition in the market. Cost Lower cost can be remarkably experienced with Marriott Hotels by its Marriott Rewards’ program and marketing strategy. This in particular does not only promote Marriot Hotels to the fullest, but it also gives opportunity for customers to experience further significant membership benefits. Such benefits are primarily defined by Marriot Hotels to create significant customer satisfaction on cost and on its after sales service. This is a clear picture of an approach of trying to build a long-term customer relationship based on the value that cost of offerings may incur. Members have substantial discounts and rewards points which allow them to enjoy more of the value for their money invested with Marriott Hotels. The impact of four Vs in Marriott’s design of operational processes Volume, variety, variation and visibility are certain characteristics and important components of transformation process within a certain business that help ensure how much cost has to be incurred in the production of offering (Slack et al., 2007). In this section, there is a need to take closely in detail each of these from the point of view of Marriott’s operation. Volume When it comes to volume, Marriot was able to substantially consider coming up with lodging properties not just in the United States but across other 70 countries (Marriott International Incorporated, 2009). This means creating more accommodations for its potential clients not just in the United States but across other 70 countries. This wide range of accommodations helps ensure addressing wide range of services to potential customers. The increase number of clients helps ensure the amount in the production of service offering at a lower cost. For instance, the same number of personnel serving more clients means the unit cost for salary and wages decreases. At this point, Marriott can give more discounts for its potential clients which would further ensure customer loyalty. Obtaining for volumes of raw materials also helps Marriott gain significant discounts from its suppliers. This can only be obtained in increasing the number of accommodations. Variety The variety of service offered by Marriott is tantamount to not only having world-class level of accommodation but at providing quality information for its prospective clients. These two are combined in one package but it does not mean increase of the price incurred. This means cost saving on the part of customers and extra service for Marriott as a result of maximizing its total resources. Variation Marriott is also able to address the demand for its service, in season and out of season. This means variation of its services offered. In this way, it would not hire higher number of staffs in seasons when there is little number of travellers. This would also mean that its accommodation has become flexible and in line with the prevailing demand of the market. Thus, this creates more savings and cost-efficient production process for Marriott. Visibility Brand growth is an attempt for Marriott to be visible in the market and this is shown through its expansion program. However, this has something to do with promotional strategy as well. For visibility at low cost, Marriott was able to encourage internet-based transactions and promotions of its service offerings. Conclusion Marriott Hotel is clearly one of the companies that created service output for its target market. In the creation of this service output, there is a great deal of considering objective performance and design of operational process that is clearly influenced by volume, variety, variation and visibility. In consideration of these important issues, Marriot Hotel without question has significantly developed its competitive edge in its industry. Its achievement as world-class hospitality company is a clear manifestation of how the company uses performance objectives and business design. References Anderson, S. W. (2006) ‘Managing Costs and Cost Structure throughout the Value Chain: Research on Strategic Cost Management.’ Handbooks of Management Accounting Research, Vol. 2: 481-506. Davis, M. M., and Maggard, M. J. (1990) ‘An analysis of customer satisfaction with waiting times in a two-stage service process.’ Journal of Operations Management, Vol. 9(3): 324-334. Gyampah, K. A., and Boye, S. S. (2001) ‘Operations strategy in an emerging economy: the case of the Ghanaian manufacturing industry.’ Journal of Operations Management, Vol. 19(1): 59-79. Harvey, J. (1998) ‘Service quality: a tutorial.’ Journal of Operations Management, Vol. 16(5): 583-597. Hill, T. (2005) Operations Management. 2nd ed. London: Palgrave Macmillan. Jick, T., and Peiperl, M. (2002) Managing Change, Text & Cases. 2nd ed. London: McGraw Hill. Johnston, R. & Clark, G. (2008) Service Operations Management. 3rd ed. London: Pearson Education. Kathuria, R., and Partovi, F. Y. (1999) ‘Work force management practices for manufacturing flexibility.’ Journal of Operations Management, Vol. 18(1): 21-39. Marriott International Incorporated (2009) ‘Profile’ [Online] Available at: http://investor.shareholder.com/mar/default.cfm (Accessed: 25 January 2011). Rodriguez, T. F. E., and Robaina, V. P. (2004) ‘Outsourcing and its impact on operational objectives and performance: a study of hotels in the Canary islands’. International Journal of Hospitality Management, Vol. 23(3): 287-306. Samson, D., and Terziovski, M. (1999) ‘The relationship between total quality management practices and operational performance.’ Journal of Operations Management, Vol. 17(4): 393-409. Slack, N., Chambers, S., and Johnston, R. (2007) Operations Management. London: Pitman Publishing. Stevenson, W (2008) Operations Management. 10th ed. London: McGraw Hill. Thompson, A., and Formby, J. P. (1993) Economics of the firm: theory and practice. Bloomington: Indiana University. Upton, D. M. (1995) ‘Flexibility as process mobility: The management of plant capabilities for quick response manufacturing.’ Journal of Operations Management, Vol. 12(3-4): 205-224. Van Looy, B., Van Dierdonck, R., and Gemmel, P. (2003) Services Management. 2nd ed. London: Pitman Publishing. Part B (Strategy) Introduction Market positioning is one of the most important strategies that marketers need to bear in mind in order to create substantial demand for their products or services offered. After all, in modern times, marketers are trying to stimulate needs or demands for their offerings (Belch and Belch, 1998; Boone and Kurtz, 2006; Dibb and Simkin, 2008; Kotler et al., 1999). In this way, it is important to come up with the right information that can actually stimulate the target markets to initiate demand for the products that marketers are trying to offer. This is a simple manifestation of one of the competitive forces in the market (Porter, 1991). On the other hand, resources-based schools of strategy try to identify the strategic resources that are under control and could be maximised to the highest level. In the same way, organisations that try to formulate corporate strategies need to identify at some point the level of their strategic resources in order to come up with a smooth-flowing operation. In this section, the proponent tries to establish the argument that market positioning and resources-based schools of strategy should be regarded as complementary rather than competing. The proponent tries to elaborately discuss this scenario by providing substantial arguments based on the current issues prevailing under corporate strategy. Market positioning strategy There are different organisations in the world and each of them tries to come up with unique ideas which will eventually help them differentiate their offerings. In other words, different organisation tries to formulate different ideas prior to the creation of their competitive advantage (De Witt and Meyer, 2010; Porter, 1998; Porter, 2004; Hamel and Prahalad, 1994; Jarazabkowski, 2005; Mintzberg et al., 2003; Kay, 1993; Porter, 1980). For instance, some organisations focus on superior quality (De Witt and Meyer, 2010). Some international companies that focus on superior quality for their line of offerings are Toyota Motors, Apple Incorporated and other renowned organisations. These organisations try to incorporate in their corporate strategies some important components that primarily involve market sensing, quality control and supply chain management. In the case of Apple Incorporated for instance, there is a need to take control of its supply chain management prior to enhancing its specific moves on quality control and intellectual property right. It is through this way that the market will be ensured of timely delivery of genuine products from Apple. In short, Apple is trying to maintain its identity by ensuring quality and at the same time genuine products for the people. Thus, it does not allow just anyone else for the distribution of its products but there is a clear line of strategy that enhances its supply chain management control. Toyota on the other hand is after of ensuring the market and its different line of offerings based on the needs of specific market segment. However, its main strategy is to impart its high level of standard of quality in the market. Thus, Toyota is able to define its offerings as its main assets. That is why when issues concerning the quality of its products prevail, Toyota substantially have suffered from momentary decline of product disposal. Thus, Toyota was able to substantially face the issue and strongly would want to recover from such bad image about its quality of its offerings. It is clear therefore that when a strategy is so much focus on quality, there is a need to understand in-depth detail of the concept of quality control which specifically would involve issues combining the prevailing market conditions and customer service concerns (Barney and Hesterly, 2006; Lynch, 2003; Mintzberg et al., 1998). Thus, in the case of Apple Incorporated, it is important for them to develop high quality standard of line of products and on-time delivery for the customers. Another important positioning strategy involves the concept of innovation (De Witt and Meyer, 2010). In the case of Apple Incorporated and Toyota Motors, innovation is central to differentiating their line of offerings. In the case of Apple Incorporated, it substantially used another parties in order to create line of offerings that are highly innovative. In this case, Apple can demand for higher quality plus the use of cutting edge technology for innovative line of offerings. Apple is busy studying the market and relying on the third parties to produce for its innovative products is an edge because the company will no longer provide enough time for manufacturing but more time for understanding market needs and feedbacks. Thus, Apple has substantially focused on improving its skills on Research and Development. In this way, the needs and feedbacks from the market on its products will substantially be determined and through this, it would be easy to supplement the gathered information to the third parties that it has instituted for the product manufacturing process. Product development is therefore another important skill that Apple Incorporated has to substantially consider because of the innovative idea. Product development is without question tantamount to product innovation (Porter, 1998). It is therefore clear that an organisation that focuses on innovation requires substantial capacity for research and development, product development, technical skills and other important corporate considerations (Porter, 1998; Porter, 2004). Resources based view Market positioning is significantly different in approach compared to resources based view due to the fact that the latter is resource driven and starts primarily with resources. This strategy is more on gaining unique resources prior to the creation of product or service offering. Thus, it is important that it has to be linked primarily with working with environment. However, market positioning and resources-based view strategy are not opposing but they have to complement each other in order to come up with corporate strategies that have substantially possessed the essential elements. Corporate strategies and resources Firms need to assess their resources in order to find out the level of strategies they need to employ (Porter, 2004). Every organisation that tries to compete and wants to be a cut above the other includes in their strategy the market profile. It is important to have a market profile because it is in this way that an organisation will be able to find out specific information about the market. With market profile, it is easy for the organisation to assess their available resources prior to creating important moves for the needed strategy. Another important component of a good strategy includes competitive analysis. Part of this analysis is to ensure the capacity of an organisation to compete. Under this level, an organisation is able to evaluate its available resources and will be able to find out its specific needs in order to substantially compete for its advantage. This is a specific line of strategic thinking that gives an organisation a chance to achieve competitive advantage (Walker, 2003). Another component of a good strategy is customer segmentation. The mere existence of every business is due to the availability of customers. Part of this analysis is to evaluate the kind of market to be enhanced and be part of the corporate goal. However, it is also included in this analysis to evaluate the needed resources and those within the company in order to substantially evaluate how to reach out specific market segment. Value proposition is another important component of a corporate strategy in which it includes the idea of creating an important value for a certain offering. This is not an easy task because it requires evaluation of resources available within an organisation to substantially understand how much more will be needed. Another important part of corporate strategy is positioning strategy in which the bottom line is to come up with an idea how a certain offering will be differentiated and will make difference in the market (Scholes and Whittington, 2008; Grant, 2008). This also requires evaluation of available resources in order to identify the needed strength to successfully implement competitive advantage (Porter, 1998). The above mentioned ideas on a good strategy pave way to how a certain organisation will eventually reach its competitive advantage. In particular, there is a strong emphasis on the existing link between a good strategy and its components with the corporate resources that must be necessarily involved. In the next section, the proponent tries to clearly discuss in detail how positioning strategy and resources are strongly interrelated with each other. This paves way to basic understanding how these two important concepts in corporate strategies are complementary to each other. The proponent tries to emphasise existing actual practice in the corporate world. Why positioning strategy and resources are complementary? As it can be observed, the above-mentioned positioning strategies are actually encompassed by Porter’s idea on three generic important strategies. The three generic strategies involve differentiation, focus and overall cost leadership (Porter, 1998, Porter, 2004). In the case of creating competitive advantage through superior quality, it is remarkably clear that a company like Toyota Motors is simply trying to employ the focus strategy by Porter. On the other hand, in the case of innovation strategy for market positioning strategy, an organisation may actually try to emphasise the strategy of either focus, differentiation or overall cost leadership. For instance, a company may be able to go for innovation of offerings that are much better than the other in the market but they must be of high affordability. In this case, such company is trying to employ overall cost leadership prior to its competitive advantage. Clearly, in order to implement effective positioning strategy, an organisation’s resources must be significantly considered. Toyota Motors could not substantially focus on its superior quality enhancement for its line of offerings if it has no considerable number of expert human resources for research and development, product development and more. In this case, Toyota must essentially consider the need to integrate its resources for product quality enhancement and innovation. This is about unleashing the power of the work force resource (Pfeffer, 1996). In the same way, Apple Incorporated must substantially consider to innovative marketing approach and it needs efficient resources in the process. This only implies that when one talks about resources, it does not only involve financial aspect and all other tangible aspects in an organisation, but there is a strong consideration on intangible aspects such as learning and growth, internal business process and customers. Conclusion Based on the actual practice in the corporate world, the market positioning and strategic resources thought by resources-based schools are indeed complementary in nature. After all, positioning strategies in the corporate world cannot stand by itself without the need to consider available resources of an organisation prior to a smooth-flowing operation. References Barney, J. B., and Hesterly, W. S. (2006) Competitive management and competitive advantage: concepts and cases. New Jersey: Pearson Prentice Hall. Belch, G. E., and Belch, M. A. (1998) Advertising and Promotion: An Integrated Marketing Communications Perspective. 4th ed. USA: Irwin/McGraw-Hill. Boone, L. E., and Kurtz, D. L. 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