marriott’s customer- focused
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Marriott’s Customer- FocusedE-business strategy
INTRODUCTION Headquartered at Washington in the US.
In year 2003, it had a network in excess of 2,600 operating units in the US
1,15.000 employees
spread over 65 countries across the world.
Marriott became the first hospitality company to win the CIO- 100 award3 from CIO
magazine for four consecutive years (2000-03).
Marriott's diverse portfolio of popular hotel brands included leading brands such as
Marriott
JW Marriott
Renaissance
Ramada International
Courtyard
Residence Inn
The Ritz-Carlton.
HISTORY ln 1927, J. william Marriott (william) set-up a nine-seat root beers shop in
washington.
After some time, william started serving hot food along with root beer
and named the shop as 'The Hot Shoppe.
in 1929, Hot Shoppe was officially incorporated as Hot Shoppes, Inc.
In 1937, Hot Shoppe ventured into airline catering at washington airport, serving
the Eastern, American and capital airlines.
In 1966, the company ventured overseas, acquiring an airline
catering kitchen in caracas, venezuela.
In November 1967, its name was changed to Marriott
Corporation (Marriott).
Marriott became the first hospitality company to win the CIO- 100 award3 from
CIO magazine for four consecutive years (2000-03).
THE WEBSITE AND E-BUSINESS SYSTEM The unique features of the website were the 'Meeting Planner' and ‘travel agent
sections.
The 'Meeting Planner‘ section targeted business customers who conducted
frequent meetings.
The 'Travel Agent' section was targeted at travel agents, providing them the
required information regarding the codes of different hotels and their
respective queues so as to enable the booking of available accommodation
through the major travel reservation networks.
THE E-BUSINESS STRATEGY Serving Customers Proactively
Personalizing Service Offerings
Enhancing Brand Loyalty
Cross-Selling
BENEFITS In 1999, Marriott earned revenues of $150 mn from online bookings through its
website.
Estimates for the, year 2000 indicated that every month. the website received three
mn hits, making it one of the largest viewed websites in the US hospitality industry.
By 2002, the website emerged as a money-spinner for Marriott with online sales of
$1 bn.
More than 75 percent of all Marriott international reservations were through
mariott.com
Que 1: Marriott, recognized as one of the most customer-focused companies in the
hospitality industry, used IT proactively. Explain how the company used its website
to enhance customer satisfaction.
The user-friendly website provided great convenience to all Marriott customers
- tourists, business customers and travel agents.
Through the suggestion box, users could e-mail their suggestions on improving
Marriott's services to the customer service and guest relations department.
The customers could also provide feedback on specific service offerings at
Marriott.
The suggestions were then forwarded to the concerned department/hotel to
enable them take necessary action.
Que 2: Marriott's e-business strategy aimed at transforming itself from a property-centric
to customer-centric company. Explain the key objectives of the e-business strategy
and how Marriott went about implementing it. How did the strategy enhance the
customer focus of the company?
The four key objectives of the e-business strategy included.
Serving Customers Proactively
Personalizing Service Offerings
Enhancing Brand Loyalty
Cross-Selling
Que 3: Marriott's case is a classic example of how IT can be leveraged for customer
relationship management, What other IT initiatives can the hospitality industry in
general, and Marriott in particular, take to manage their customer relationships
better?
Marriott's management had realized that through IT, the company could make
its services easily accessible to clients and boost the company's finances
considerably.
Marriott wanted to install an e-business system which could provide it a single-
point interface for all the customer transactions across the company.
By employing this strategy, Marriott wanted to have greater control over the
company's worldwide operations.
THANK YOU
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