Marriott’s Customer- Focused

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Marriott’s Customer- Focused E-business strategy

Transcript of Marriott’s Customer- Focused

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Marriott’s Customer- FocusedE-business strategy

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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).

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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.

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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.

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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).

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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.

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THE E-BUSINESS STRATEGY Serving Customers Proactively

Personalizing Service Offerings

Enhancing Brand Loyalty

Cross-Selling

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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

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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.

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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

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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.

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