Describe how you think Wernie will make sure that the way he manages the hotel is appropriate to the way it competes for business; Penang Mutiara, being one of the most prestigious hotels in Penang, have managed to secure a foothold in this lucrative and highly competitive environment. Wernie has the vision and very clear focused beliefs about the importance of running an effective operation where customers have every right to demand for first class service which they are obliged to provide for.
Assuming neighbouring competitors such as Pelangi Beach Resort Langkawi and Shangri-La’s Rasa Sayang Resort who is adopting common strategies like pricing and product strategies, Penang Mutiara aim at providing impeccable quality and customer orientated strategy to provide a personal touch as part of its uniqueness to retain customers. We will write a custom essay sample on Operations objectives at Penang Mutiara specifically for you for only $16.38 $13.9/page. In order to compete for business and to keep abreast with stiff competition in the hotel industry, currently, Wernie adopted impeccable quality strategy where he recognizes that “it is impeccable service which gives us our competitive advantage, not price.” Since it is cheaper to retain regular guests than to attract new ones, he understand the advantage of retaining regular guests through providing impeccable services which will in a way retain high occupancy rates to keep costs down while achieving reasonable profitability. To achieve that, he set basic standards for his staff to be well trained, knowledgeable, sensitive and anticipative to think ahead in order to provide basic and value-added services to satisfy customer’s needs. The ability to remember regular customer’s information and personal preferences can also add on to a personal touch upon their next visit. Additionally, quality services in terms of providing stylish design and top-class materials and being able to practise good preventive maintenance to the building structure and equipment is also another way of sustaining high class image and luxury atmosphere to create a comfortable feeling to welcome visiting guests.
Wernie also measure the performance based on five performance objectives of Quality, Speed, Dependability, Flexibility and Cost. To conclude, even though Penang Mutiara managed to maintain its competitiveness with their current strategy in the short run, however it is not sufficient to remain competitiveness due to volatile market demand. Moreover, with the emergence of the global tourism, hospitality industry and globalization with competition from ubiquitously, the need to augment existing and new strategies need to be address speedily. Qn 1b) Describe how you think Wernie will implement any change in strategy; Wernie should introduce new strategies to supplement and implement further changes to enhance the existing strategy. To implement speedily new changes in the short term, supply chain management method can be used to improve internal processes rapidly can also be utilised to stay competitive.
The strength of Penang Mutiara includes the strategic location of being secluded and tranquil and with Wernie who has vast experience at managing luxury hotel worldwide, he has the ability to lead and influence the staff to bring about better internal functions. To sustain existing quality strategy, Wernie can adopt proactive approach to enhance and maintain consistentancy in quality and level of services by conducting staff training, retrain and upgrading of skills to meet the volatile market demand and unpredictable customer expectation. He should always review and set new service standards for the staff for continuous improvement, conduct regular focus group studies to predict future customer requirements in terms of service and facilities, minimise and eliminate high employee turnover at the front desk by taking good care of staff welfare, and exercise job rotation of staff to promote innovation and creativity in the job. To supplement the informal channels of communication, regular consumer’s opinion surveys can be conducted for rating to monitor the quality of its services and quality and efficiency as part of the feedback method. With the target group of corporate businessman and to enhance its competitiveness, Wernie can adopt new flexibility strategy by utilisation of most advance reservations technology and internet for hotel reservations. He can also offer online competitive rates while ensuring complete security of customers’ personal information and credit card details and offer instant confirmation for hotel reservations to promote efficiency.
Marketing strategies is an important vision for growing of the profitability and value of the hotel such as introduction of frequent user programme, loyalty card program with further savings for travel and vacation plans. Hotel can also host elite social and sporting events which include International wine and food festival, polo championship, international cup to provide a platform to showcase its various expertises in lifestyle creation which can help to boost high occupancy rates also. With business travel growing at a faster pace than leisure, Wernie should expand target group to include corporate, business travel package and tourist group to bring in more profits. New lifestyle experiences and F; B concept strategy can also be implemented to define the highest standards of service excellence
