24 Jun IDENTIFY THE CORE TECHNOLOGIES USED BY HOSPITALITY EXTRAORDINAIRE.
Resource: Hospitality Extraordinaire Case Study in Technology Strategies for the Hospitality Industry, Ch. 2
Read the Hospitality Extraordinaire Case Study at the end of Technology Strategies for the Hospitality Industry, Ch. 2.
Answer the following questions in a 1,050- to 1,400-word paper:
• Define Hospitality Extraordinaire’s strategy. How does IT factor into this strategy to support or enable it?
• Identify the core technologies used by Hospitality Extraordinaire. Discuss the value each contributes and any competitive advantage derived.
• If you worked for a competing hotel company, what traits would you find most admirable in Hospitality Extraordinaire and why/what would you do to compete?
• If you worked for Hospitality Extraordinaire’s IT department, what challenges might you face? What recommendations would you have for new technology initiatives or directions?
• What are the key teaching points in this case? Why are they important, and how will you apply them in your professional career?
• What tools would you use to leverage the power of information in Hospitality Extraordinaire?
• Based upon your experience, which IT tool or strategy do you think has made the biggest impact on the company’s success?
Format your paper according to APA guidelines.
Click on the Assignment Files tab to submit your case study.
Here is chapter with all needed information
CHAPTER 2 Using Information Technology to Drive Competitive Advantage
Chapter Contents
Interview
1. Introduction
2. Technology Takes Center Stage
3. The Concept of Co-alignment
4. Achieving Competitive Advantage
5. Sustainability?
6. Summary
7. Case Study and Learning Activity
8. Key Terms
9. Chapter Questions
10. References
INTERVIEW
Abigail Lorden is editor-in-chief for Hospitality Technology magazine which reports on the latest trends and headlines related to technology issues and applications in the hospitality industry.
Q: Please share a brief overview of your background in terms of your education, work experience, and current role and responsibilities in working with hospitality information technology.
A: As editor in chief of Hospitality Technology, I regularly monitor and report on industry news and trends that are relevant to hotel and restaurant technology professionals. I call upon industry executives to share their insights, and I analyze the overall travel and consumer landscape for information that is relevant to my audience. In my role, I provide strategic direction for all of the publication’s content, the Web site, and several industry educational events. I have been with the publication for more than five years, and before that, I covered travel industry trends for AAA (American Automobile Association). I hold a BA in Communication from Rutgers University.
Q: Given the state of the economy, it is no longer business as usual. How is information technology reshaping the hospitality business landscape and the service delivery process?
A: Economic conditions have forced many hospitality companies to cut budgets, reduce staff, overhaul their menus, and even close locations. When used in the right ways, information technology has the potential to help organizations use their resources for the greatest operational efficiency, which can offset the potential negative impact of a reduction in internal resources. In addition, IT can help hospitality companies better respond to guests’ needs. This is really critical today since consumers are so price and value conscious and willing to shop around to find deals.
Q: What roles should information technology play in the hospitality industry? What are the critical success factors, and how can the value derived from information technology be effectively measured?
A: In short, information technology should be used to create better guest experiences, in ways that are economically sound for the hospitality operator. For example, IT should be used to add efficiency, accuracy, and personalization to the guest experience; it should also be used to create meaningful, lasting experiences for guests, allowing them to take as much control over their interactions as they desire, without detracting from the level of personal touch that they seek. Critical to success are guests’ ability to use any guest-facing technologies with relative ease and minimal instruction. In addition, the technology must provide a return on investment (ROI) to the hospitality operator. This return can be “hard” (measured in dollars and cents) or “soft” (measured through improvements in the guest experience, customer feedback, customer loyalty, employee retention, etc.).
Q: How can hospitality organizations use information technology to create sustainable competitive advantage and drive business value?
A: Specific tools such as business intelligence (BI) and inventory management are great examples of areas in which information technology can provide competitive advantage. For example, if a restaurant operator can predict the number of employees it will need for a particular dinner shift and accurately monitor its product inventory to ensure it will have enough fresh salmon on hand for that shift, that restaurant will be able to better serve its guests without overspending on labor or having to inform customers that the restaurant has run out of salmon. This kind of information comes from having fully integrated systems that monitor sales, on-hand inventory, delivery lag times for food inventory, and much more. Integrated business intelligence across all areas of the operation has tremendous value for the restaurant.
Q: Where should hospitality business leaders look for new ideas and innovations?
A: New ideas are born every day—in board rooms, in test labs, in hotel guest rooms, in a technology manufacturer’s research facility, or scribbled on the back of a napkin during a business lunch. (I’ve seen that one firsthand!) To learn about these innovations, business leaders should attend industry educational and networking events, stay active in industry associations, subscribe to industry trade magazines, network with their peers online via social media channels, and communicate with their technology partners.
Q: In looking over the next three to five years, what do you see as the top industry trends and strategic priorities for hospitality companies?
A: I predict there will be greater integration of guests’ personal mobile telephones into their dining and lodging experiences—in fact, so much so that these devices will become an integral part of hotel and restaurant operations. Some examples of applications include room check-in devices, shopping and reservations/purchasing tools, location-based services, marketing platforms, and much more. I also see that guests will continue to want control over how they do business with hotels and restaurants; that is, when, where, and how they interact with hospitality providers—all on their own terms and increasingly through their smart phones. This will lead to ongoing involvement in social networking channels on a highly localized level and to even yet unexplored ways of inputting preferences and making purchases. For example, with location-based services enabled on a guest’s smart phone and opt-in preferences set with frequently used hospitality providers, a guest can automatically receive relevant information and offers after arriving in a certain city, say a text message from a favorite restaurant company with directions to its nearest location plus special offers or discount coupons. A third, yet continuous trend is that guests will be more inclined to patronize hotels and restaurants that can provide personalized services and experiences based upon their preferences and past purchase history. Hospitality is all about the experience; it is not simply a transaction.
Q: Whom do you consider to be on the forefront of these trends (i.e., the players to watch) and why?
A: In general, the lodging industry has been able to build more lasting and personalized relationships with guests than the foodservice industry due to the longer periods of time that guests stay at a hotel versus at a restaurant; however, both have much room for improvement and growth. On the lodging side, several hotel brands tend to be on the cutting edge of guest-facing technology. Mandarin Oriental Hotel Group, Fairmont Hotels and Resorts, and MGM Resorts International (formerly MGM MIRAGE) represent a few innovators. On the foodservice side, companies such as Pizza Hut and Chipotle have done very well in designing useful and dynamic applications for guests’ iPhones and iTouch devices.
Q: What do you consider to be the greatest challenges or barriers to information technology adoption in the hospitality industry?
A: In the current climate and for the next twelve to eighteen months, budget constraints will continue to pose a challenge to technology adoption in the hospitality industry. Looking longer term, limitations with the technology itself and integration between systems will be major challenges. Hospitality operators run vast numbers of systems (e.g., POS, CRM, inventory, payment processing, back office, labor.) from disparate vendors within their operations. These different systems don’t currently integrate at the level necessary for hospitality operators to have one guest record containing all information of the relevant guest information. In addition, on the lodging side, consumers are installing high-tech multimedia systems in their homes with access to things like high-definition content, digital records, streaming content from the Internet, and vast audio libraries. It is proving challenging for hotel operators to keep up with the pace of technology adoption in their guest rooms that consumers have in their homes.
Q: What parting words of advice can you share with current and aspiring hospitality business professionals?
A: Remember to stay focused on the most important element of the hospitality industry: the guest experience.
1. INTRODUCTION
Information technology (IT) is an important resource for any firm. In today’s era, it is hard to imagine how any business, especially a hospitality business, could operate without the assistance of IT. IT applications are seen throughout an entire firm—integrated with almost every business discipline and process, a useful resource for decision making, and increasingly a key ingredient in driving business value. As such, IT must be viewed holistically with the business in mind and be a topic of discussion in nearly every business decision, particularly those involving business strategy, marketing and distribution, operations, and future growth planning. Also, all business leaders should have some proficiency working with IT and an understanding of how to use it effectively to solve business problems, serve business needs, and create new opportunities. As such, the IT function should be represented at the executive-suite level with the chief information officer (CIO) occupying a seat at the decision-making table with visible support and participation from all top-level executives. These factors will ensure that IT is factored into decisions early on and for the right reasons—to create business value and advantages.
Within the hospitality industry, IT represents one of the largest areas of capital expenditure. To some, IT might be viewed as a rather large expense, but it should be viewed as a strategic opportunity. In reality, IT is both a support tool and a strategic enabler. IT should never be used for the sake of IT itself or just because it is the latest and greatest. Instead, IT should be used purposefully with the end business goals in mind. It should be used to solve business problems. If not used correctly, IT can become nothing more than an unwanted expense, a source of frustration, or an inhibitor to change, but when used correctly, many exciting possibilities can result—from service enhancements and product differentiation to new revenue streams. Moving forward, hospitality executives must continually look towards the strategic opportunities technology offers and use technology as a competitive method—or as a tool—to differentiate and create competitive advantage. Thriving in today’s competitive world is all about doing things better, faster, cheaper, and differently than anyone else.
The creation of competitive advantage must involve multiple aspects of the firm coming together. In this chapter, we want to explore the use of IT for creating—or at least contributing to—competitive advantage in a hospitality firm. If you look at history across the general business landscape, you can find many great companies that have creatively and strategically deployed IT to create competitive advantage. Some of the many examples include American Airlines and its reservation system, SABRE; FedEx and its shipping and package tracking software, PowerShip; Wal-Mart and its supply chain management technology; Hertz and its system for driving directions and use of mobile technology to support quick car returns; and Dell Computer’s self-ordering system for customized personal computers. More recent technology innovations include McDonald’s kitchen production and management system to support efficient and low-cost operations, Marriott’s reservations and revenue management systems to achieve rate premiums and higher occupancy rates than industry averages, Mandarin Oriental’s in-room guest technology to create memorable guest experiences, Southwest Airline’s Ding! application to push special promotions to customers and sell distressed (i.e., last-minute) inventory, Harrah’s customer relationship management (CRM) to personalize services and promotions, and InterContinental Hotel Groups’ use of mobile technologies to enable and support guest services for people on the move. These are just a sampling of some of the many creative and successful applications showing how technology can drive competitive advantage and differentiation. They illustrate how crucial technology has become in driving the competitive and very dynamic landscape. The magnitude of these initiatives also suggests the need for a great deal of vision, competencies, and capital resources to make things happen through IT.
Our challenge as hospitality managers is to find new opportunities—just as these exemplar companies did—in which IT can be used to solve business problems, create better service experiences, provide cost and/or informational advantages, and create distinction in the market place. Ultimately, technology should be used to lower cost structure, increase revenues and market share, create unique value propositions for guests, and generate unprecedented returns for investors or shareholders. Certainly, these sound daunting—and they are! Creating competitive advantage requires creative, out-of-the-box thinking. Like Apple’s CEO Steve Jobs, one must think differently. This requires seeing the future first, taking some calculated risks, and doing things that no one else has attempted. To do so requires dedication, determination, focus, and consistent allocation of resources. Sometimes, one can stumble from time to time, but if one learns from his or her mistakes, progress can be made. If creating competitive advantage were so easy, then every manager would have already thought of all the great ideas possible, and every company would have implemented them by now. Creating competitive advantage requires you to see things that others cannot or do not see and then act on these opportunities to make them happen, but it does not stop there. Once the competitive advantage has been created, the challenge shifts to sustaining that competitive advantage or destroying it and either reinventing it or replacing it with something else before anyone else has time to copy it and catch up to your lead. There is no resting on your laurels. This is a complex and never-ending game. Therefore, you, as a manager, must be prepared to play aggressively, think quickly and creatively, and be in the race for the long haul. Are you ready? Will you think differently, and act quickly?
2. TECHNOLOGY TAKES CENTER STAGE
One of the most significant developments related to technology over the past few decades (and for the foreseeable future) is the concept of digital convergence (Tapscott, 1996; Negroponte, 1995)—the coming together of numerous technologies to make great things happen. At the core of this convergence, as shown in Figure 2-1, are IT (i.e., computer hardware, software, databases, mobile devices, etc.), telecommunications and telephony (i.e., voice, data, cable, and wireless networks; telephones, facsimile, and telephone answering devices), interactive, multimedia content (i.e., text, voice, graphics, digital photos, sound, and video), and broadcast media (i.e., radio and television).
FIGURE 2-1
Information Technology Telecommunications Telephony ig Interactive, Multimedia Content
The Great Convergence Gives Rise to the Digital Economy
This digital convergence, supported by miniaturization, mobility, declining costs, push technology, constant connectivity to the Internet, and more powerful applications, is part of a trend driving computers to ubiquity in everyday life—so much so that computers are deemed essential or required for survival in today’s world. As such, technology is reshaping everything we do—from how we work, play, and learn to how we communicate with others. IT is redefining communications among our employees, guests, and suppliers; changing the nature of business transactions; and increasing the technology needs and amenity expectations of our guests. We must, therefore, learn to embrace technology and use it creatively to win over customers and provide our employees with the appropriate tools to perform their job responsibilities. We must constantly stay abreast of the developments taking place in and outside of our market space and remain alert to signals of change and opportunity. Lack of vigilance, however brief, could allow a competitor or outsider to move in, capitalize on new opportunities, and leave us in a trail of dust.
As a result of digital convergence, the competitive landscape is drastically and constantly in a state of flux. Speed, agility, connectivity, and the ability to amass and subsequently employ knowledge are key competitive ingredients to long-term survivability, but we must not seek merely to survive but to thrive under these conditions. This calls into question the competitive nature of business, the skills required to succeed, and what this will mean to managers serving as stewards of their companies and working to guide their companies to prosperity and vitality. Needless to say, the effects of digital convergence are both impressive and exciting—offering new opportunities and capabilities limited only by our imaginations. How we tap into this digital convergence will set us apart from others and allow us to create competitive advantage.
As Porter (1985), Quinn (1988), Burrus (1993), D’Aveni (1994), and others have astutely observed long ago, IT undermines traditional forms of competition, strategic management, organizational structure, governance, and economic policy making. The resulting environment is one of hypercompetition, where shorter transaction times, nontraditional competitors, volatility, surprise, and new alliances are the norm. For the hospitality industry, the implications are also profound: higher capital costs, more sophisticated and discriminating customers, knowledge gaps, more complex business operations, more demanding investors, new competitors, and new operating paradigms. Therefore, in the new business climate, continuous change, lifelong learning, and innovation will become standard components of everyone’s job responsibilities.
Bounded by Tradition
Our website has a team of professional writers who can help you write any of your homework. They will write your papers from scratch. We also have a team of editors just to make sure all papers are of HIGH QUALITY & PLAGIARISM FREE. To make an Order you only need to click Ask A Question and we will direct you to our Order Page at WriteDemy. Then fill Our Order Form with all your assignment instructions. Select your deadline and pay for your paper. You will get it few hours before your set deadline.
Fill in all the assignment paper details that are required in the order form with the standard information being the page count, deadline, academic level and type of paper. It is advisable to have this information at hand so that you can quickly fill in the necessary information needed in the form for the essay writer to be immediately assigned to your writing project. Make payment for the custom essay order to enable us to assign a suitable writer to your order. Payments are made through Paypal on a secured billing page. Finally, sit back and relax.
About Writedemy
We are a professional paper writing website. If you have searched a question and bumped into our website just know you are in the right place to get help in your coursework. We offer HIGH QUALITY & PLAGIARISM FREE Papers.
How It Works
To make an Order you only need to click on “Order Now” and we will direct you to our Order Page. Fill Our Order Form with all your assignment instructions. Select your deadline and pay for your paper. You will get it few hours before your set deadline.
Are there Discounts?
All new clients are eligible for 20% off in their first Order. Our payment method is safe and secure.