“Ritz-Carlton: Using Information Systems to Better Serve the Customer” Case Solution And Analysis, HBR Case Study Solution & Analysis of Harvard Case Studies

“Ritz-Carlton: Using Information Systems to Better Serve the Customer” Case Solution

Introduction

Ritz-Carlton, a luxury hotel company having around 25+ hotels worldwide. It was established by W.B. Johnson Properties in 1983, who wanted to create a chain of luxury hotels in America with outstanding products and services to appeal to corporate travel and meeting planner and other related guests. It had started its foundation after achieving the trademark ‘Ritz-Carlton’. The foundedof thecompany dedicated a tiring effort to assure the highest quality standards in every location throughout the world.

In 1994, the hotel owned nearly 25 hotels in United States, 2 in Australia, 1 in each state of Barcelona, Mexico and Hong Kong. New setups were planned for Korea, Japan, Florida and Singapore. The sales of 1993 were estimated to be around $471.4 million having an employee count of 14000. The average room charge was $150 per night with average occupation rate of 70%. The basic progress of a company was determined by the location and design of the hotel and W.B. Johnson Properties were well aware of it. They researched location and unique designs that the customer would prefer and help in attracting more customers. (W. Earl Sasser, 2002)

Although Ritz-Carlton competed with well-known individual hotels in various locations around the globe, Ritz-Carlton and Four Seasons were the only two dominant brands in terms of luxury hotels in North America. The hotel consisted of two major information systems i.e., Encore and COVIA. Encore was meant for local individual hotels while COVIA was a global system covering all the hotels worldwide. Encore was a local system so an employee can access data for a guest, then encore would request the data from COVIA and then send back the updated file of customer back to COVIA.

Problem Statement

Everyone who works for Ritz-Carlton has noticed that the company does not have a complete information system, despite the fact that it is one of the most prestigious hotel chains in both North America and the rest of the world. Even while both the Encore and COVIA systems are able to do the duties for which they were designed, none of them is very effective at storing or retrieving vital information, such as which clients are waiting and what they need. Ritz-Carlton placed a significant amount of emphasis on the capabilities of its staff members to continually provide outstanding service in order to maintain its position as the industry leader. The organization also believed that maintaining records of the trips made by clients and the preferences of individual customers helped them provide superior service to their clientele.(W. Earl Sasser, 2002)

Question No 1: Analyzing the Hotel Industry by 3C

The 3C model is a strategic business model created by Kenichi Ohmae, and is used to analyze three major factors namely:

Customer
Company
Competitors

Customers

In-depth consumer research is the best way for a firm to identify as to how to appeal to the consumer market. The identification of the target market is very necessary to bring about success in terms of upbringing profit and removing losses. The customer target for the Ritz-Carlton hotel are business executives, mostly middle-aged persons and elders, corporate, leisure travelers and families from rich class section of society. Its main aim was for travelers, business person and elderly or middle-aged people. Ritz-Carlton insisted ion providing excellent services to its customers and had gained a satisfactory response and many were repeat customers as well. The firm focuses on the employee being responsive even if they are holding an important task. They need to answer the customer first and then return to their routine. If for example a customer wants ice bucket then the employee nearby has to leave its work and provide them with the ice bucket and then return back to its work.(Bowen, 2001)

Competitor

Competitive analysis is very necessary for a firm to prosper in market. The details of the rivalries, their services, ideas, customer attraction, and retention are of great importance for the firm to exist and gain market. According to analysis, the major competitors for Ritz-Carlton are Four Seasons Hotels and Resorts, Hyatt, Marriott, Belmond Ltd. and Loews Hotels. Ritz-Carlton survey in US suggested that there are only two luxury hotel brands perceived by US customers i.e. Four Seasons hotel and Ritz-Carlton but four seasons was a primary competitor in only few countries so it was not a major competitor although it shared luxury segment with Four Seasons Hotel. Ritz-Carlton has been ranked 2^nd in terms of CEO, 3^rd in product quality, 4^th in gender ranking, and 3rd in pricing rank, 3^rd in customer service.(Li, 2020)

Company

The corporate analysis is done to know about one’s own company. After doing the customer and competitor analysis a person can come up with the corporate analysis very well. It mainly depends on customer reviews about the products or services. The company reviews for the Ritz-Carlton hotel are very good as the US customers perceive only two luxury brand hotels out of which Ritz-Carlton is one. The product and service ranking are also remarkable as ranked to top 3 out of luxury brand hotels worldwide. This means the internal relations and coordination of the company is also going smoothly and well placed on track.(Zaman, 2022).....................

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“Ritz-Carlton: Using Information Systems to Better Serve the Customer” Harvard Case Solution & Analysis