Identify key trends, assumptions, and risk in the context of your business model
The given organization belongs to the Servicing Industry, and hence, the business model has to focus upon providing quality services to the customers. The approach should be customer-specific, so that the organization can achieve the desired objectives in the future. The vision of the organization is “To fulfil the demands of the customers by offering best hospitality services with reasonable accommodation to maximize the customer experience.” And, the mission of the organization is “To grab the customer focus by offering increased number of services and by easy accessibilities within the budget of customers.” In addition, the organization is now launching a Mobile App in order to increase their reach to the customers.
The risk factors associated with the given business model will include external risk factors of competition, internal risk factors of employee regarding their skill-set and motivation levels, and financial risks for ensuring stability of the organization. It is therefore, necessary to plan and deploy the strategic objectives after considering the inputs of the Balanced Scorecard.
Develop three strategic objectives for your new division of the existing business in a balanced scorecard format
Balanced Scorecard is an approach through which a given business can be analysed from four different perspectives (Simchi-Levi, Wu, & Shen, 2004). These include financial, customer value, internal operations and learning and growth. Each of these factors play an important role in formulating the objectives for the organization. The strategies thereby should be deployed considering each of these four factors.
Financial Perspective
Travelodge Hotel Company wants to expand its reach so that it can gain more access to the customers. The company wants to improve its position in the market and hence, for this purpose, it will take the support of marketing and promotion activities. The promotion plan will be designed in which different effective promotional activities will be used to increase the customer flow. Promotional tools such as TV and Print Ads, Mobile App Ads and marketing on social networking platforms will help in passing on the message to the audience. Once these strategies are deployed, the final outcomes will be measured through market share, profitability and competitive position.
In a given UK market, the company wants to increase market share by 6-7% over a period of next three years. The competition is extremely tough since there are several existing players. The hotel company is also aiming at increasing their profitability by 15% over a period of next two years. They want to increase their revenues by providing more luxury services to the customers.
Customer Value Perspective
Travelodge Hotel Company wants to define their strategically moves considering the different needs of the customers. The UK market is already saturated with other key players in the Hotel Industry. They are providing the state-of-the-art services to the customers, and hence, for the given company the key objective will be to provide quality services to the customers. In the present scenario, they do lack in providing luxury and other assisted services, but with the launch of Mobile Application and by providing the current services in a better way, they will definitely win positive word-of-mouth.
They need to focus upon customer retention rations and improve upon their services after taking necessary feedback from the customers. The key aim of the organization is to increase their customer retention ration from 20% to 30% over a period of next one year. In addition, they are trying to improve upon each and every aspect for which they have received negative comments from the customer in the feedback form.
Internal Operations Perspective
The organization is constantly looking out for the ways to improve the internal processes and subsequently improve the productivity of the organization. For this purpose, the top-level management of the organization will be deploying technological solutions and will also provide necessary training to the employees.
The organization is working on the comments, feedbacks and reviews provided by the customers, and accordingly is bringing in new changes in the organization. The productivity of the organization will be measured in terms of increase in the customers, employee's productivity levels, absenteeism rations, and staff motivational morale obtained through a survey. It will thus ensure that the organization has deployed the strategies in the right direction.
Learning and Growth Perspective
Travelodge Hotel Company needs to work a lot on providing training to the employees. The key motto of the organization is to deliver eminence facilities to the clienteles, and hence, for this purpose, the organization needs to train the employees in this direction. It will require organizing training sessions for the employees and provide them training on servicing modules.
In addition, they should also be trained on technological modules so that they can even operate on the Mobile application platform. The organization should motivate these workers through rewards and recognitions. The performance of the employees should be measured through a particular sheet. It will include details such as how many guests or customers they have served, how they have treated them and what are the comments provided by the customer to improve the services from the staff’s perspective.
These details can be obtained from the feedback perform. The employees should also be trained on Change Management aspects so that, whenever such issues arise they are ready to work in any given versatile environment. However, at the same time the target of the organization is to cut down the employee turnover ratio from 9% to 4-5% in the next following year.
Potential Risks and Mitigation Plans
The major risks associated with these strategies will include the correct formulation of the strategies and the timing of deployment of these strategies (Knowles, Diamantis, & El-Mourhabi, 2004). The organization needs to scan both the internal and external parameters and only then implement the decided strategies in the working environment. They might face legal issues when any customer breaches a law.
They might environmental issues due to environmental violations. They could even face threats of the competitors in a given market place. Hence, these all could turn out to be important risk factors, and to overcome them, the management needs to plan out for the mitigation plan. The mitigation plans will focus upon addressing the legal and environmental issues.
In addition, they will even take care of competition by providing the desired services to the customers. The strategies that are planned on the basis of Balanced Scorecard can be modified in the future as well. The organization will ensure that it does not breach any ethical violations in its day-to-day practices across the organization.
Ethical implications of the solutions
There are no major ethical implications of the solutions, except the fact that the employees should be aware of it. While delivering any services to the customers, they should keep in mind the ethical norms of the business entity. The employees should avoid all the breaches in the working environment. However, they should be motivated to sustain their job satisfaction levels. At the end, the customers should be happy and should be satisfied from the services of the hotel (Lee, 2007).
Brief Communication Plan: Purpose and audience
The purpose is to extend the reach of the organization and also to launch the new Mobile App of the given hotel. For this purpose, the audience will include both employees and customers. The employees will be informed through direct mails, communications on the notice boards and through group discussions inside the organization. On the other hand, customers will be informed through updated on the website, digital marketing on social networking sites, different promotions, and through personal messages to the existing customers (Lee, 2007).
Identify channels of communication. Define rationale
The channels of communication will include Internet, Mobile Phones, Tablets, Print Ads, and Television Media to a certain extent. Internet, Mobile Phones and Tablets will be useful to converse the organization message to the audience about the new services, the new Mobile App and other offers from Travelodge Hotel Company.
On the other hand, Print Ads and Television Media will be targeting the new customers who are yet not aware of this hotel. Hence, the rationale is not only to introduce the Mobile App services, but also to extend the reach of the customers. The organization is planning to expand the customer base and hence, these channels of communicating will work best in a given situation.
Summary
Balanced Scorecard provides an approach through which all the business activities can be planned as per the needs of the organization. It works upon four major parameters and on the basis of which the top-level management can plan the strategies. In a given case, Travelodge Hotel Company wants to expand the customer base. In addition, it will also launch the new Mobile App. Hence, for this purpose, SWOT analysis and PESTEL analysis recommendations were utilized to formulate the strategies for a Balanced Scorecard.
References
Simchi-Levi, D., Wu, D., and Shen, Z. (2004). Handbook of Quantitative Supply Chain Analysis: Modelling in the E-Business Era. London, UK: Kluwer Academic Publishers.
Knowles, T., Diamantis, D., and El-Mourhabi, J. B. (2004). The Globalization of Tourism and Hospitality: A Strategic Perspective. New York: Cengage Learning EMEA.
Lee, I. (2007). E-Business Models, Services and Communications. New York: IGI Global.
