Case Study Description of Regal Carnation Hotel, Guam
In the spring of 2007, a vacationer is upset by the poor hotel experience he has had on the island of Guam. At the onset, the reasons for the bad experience seem to point to seemingly minor issues: bad management, poor service and old rooms. The value of the case lies in the analysis of the symptoms and arriving at the root causes of the problem, particularly the profit maximization strategy of the hotel's owners in a mature industry. The case uses a different method of analysis, starting with micro indicators and moving to macro indicators: the analysis of symptoms, arriving at root causes, determining company strategy and finally assessing the company's position using the Product Life Cycle Model.
Swot Analysis of "Regal Carnation Hotel, Guam" written by Jim Kayalar includes – strengths weakness that are internal strategic factors of the organization, and opportunities and threats that Guam Symptoms facing as an external strategic factors. Some of the topics covered in Regal Carnation Hotel, Guam case study are - Strategic Management Strategies, Human resource management, Marketing, Organizational culture, Strategy and Strategy & Execution.
Some of the macro environment factors that can be used to understand the Regal Carnation Hotel, Guam casestudy better are - – supply chains are disrupted by pandemic , central banks are concerned over increasing inflation, wage bills are increasing, there is increasing trade war between United States & China, banking and financial system is disrupted by Bitcoin and other crypto currencies, increasing transportation and logistics costs, technology disruption,
competitive advantages are harder to sustain because of technology dispersion, challanges to central banks by blockchain based private currencies, etc
Introduction to SWOT Analysis of Regal Carnation Hotel, Guam
SWOT stands for an organization’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats . At Oak Spring University , we believe that protagonist in Regal Carnation Hotel, Guam case study can use SWOT analysis as a strategic management tool to assess the current internal strengths and weaknesses of the Guam Symptoms, and to figure out the opportunities and threats in the macro environment – technological, environmental, political, economic, social, demographic, etc in which Guam Symptoms operates in.
According to Harvard Business Review, 75% of the managers use SWOT analysis for various purposes such as – evaluating current scenario, strategic planning, new venture feasibility, personal growth goals, new market entry, Go To market strategies, portfolio management and strategic trade-off assessment, organizational restructuring, etc.
SWOT Objectives / Importance of SWOT Analysis and SWOT Matrix
SWOT analysis of Regal Carnation Hotel, Guam can be done for the following purposes –
1. Strategic planning using facts provided in Regal Carnation Hotel, Guam case study
2. Improving business portfolio management of Guam Symptoms
3. Assessing feasibility of the new initiative in Strategy & Execution field.
4. Making a Strategy & Execution topic specific business decision
5. Set goals for the organization
6. Organizational restructuring of Guam Symptoms
Strengths Regal Carnation Hotel, Guam | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Strengths in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The strengths of Guam Symptoms in Regal Carnation Hotel, Guam Harvard Business Review case study are -
Cross disciplinary teams
– Horizontal connected teams at the Guam Symptoms are driving operational speed, building greater agility, and keeping the organization nimble to compete with new competitors. It helps are organization to ideate new ideas, and execute them swiftly in the marketplace.
Ability to lead change in Strategy & Execution field
– Guam Symptoms is one of the leading players in its industry. Over the years it has not only transformed the business landscape in its segment but also across the whole industry. The ability to lead change has enabled Guam Symptoms in – penetrating new markets, reaching out to new customers, and providing different value propositions to different customers in the international markets.
High brand equity
– Guam Symptoms has strong brand awareness and brand recognition among both - the exiting customers and potential new customers. Strong brand equity has enabled Guam Symptoms to keep acquiring new customers and building profitable relationship with both the new and loyal customers.
Training and development
– Guam Symptoms has one of the best training and development program in the industry. The effectiveness of the training programs can be measured in Regal Carnation Hotel, Guam Harvard Business Review case study by analyzing – employees retention, in-house promotion, loyalty, new venture initiation, lack of conflict, and high level of both employees and customer engagement.
Successful track record of launching new products
– Guam Symptoms has launched numerous new products in last few years, keeping in mind evolving customer preferences and competitive pressures. Guam Symptoms has effective processes in place that helps in exploring new product needs, doing quick pilot testing, and then launching the products quickly using its extensive distribution network.
Strong track record of project management
– Guam Symptoms is known for sticking to its project targets. This enables the firm to manage – time, project costs, and have sustainable margins on the projects.
Learning organization
- Guam Symptoms is a learning organization. It has inculcated three key characters of learning organization in its processes and operations – exploration, creativity, and expansiveness. The work place at Guam Symptoms is open place that encourages instructiveness, ideation, open minded discussions, and creativity. Employees and leaders in Regal Carnation Hotel, Guam Harvard Business Review case study emphasize – knowledge, initiative, and innovation.
Sustainable margins compare to other players in Strategy & Execution industry
– Regal Carnation Hotel, Guam firm has clearly differentiated products in the market place. This has enabled Guam Symptoms to fetch slight price premium compare to the competitors in the Strategy & Execution industry. The sustainable margins have also helped Guam Symptoms to invest into research and development (R&D) and innovation.
Operational resilience
– The operational resilience strategy in the Regal Carnation Hotel, Guam Harvard Business Review case study comprises – understanding the underlying the factors in the industry, building diversified operations across different geographies so that disruption in one part of the world doesn’t impact the overall performance of the firm, and integrating the various business operations and processes through its digital transformation drive.
Analytics focus
– Guam Symptoms is putting a lot of focus on utilizing the power of analytics in business decision making. This has put it among the leading players in the industry. The technology infrastructure suggested by Jim Kayalar can also help it to harness the power of analytics for – marketing optimization, demand forecasting, customer relationship management, inventory management, information sharing across the value chain etc.
Effective Research and Development (R&D)
– Guam Symptoms has innovation driven culture where significant part of the revenues are spent on the research and development activities. This has resulted in, as mentioned in case study Regal Carnation Hotel, Guam - staying ahead in the industry in terms of – new product launches, superior customer experience, highly competitive pricing strategies, and great returns to the shareholders.
Highly skilled collaborators
– Guam Symptoms has highly efficient outsourcing and offshoring strategy. It has resulted in greater operational flexibility and bringing down the costs in highly price sensitive segment. Secondly the value chain collaborators of the firm in Regal Carnation Hotel, Guam HBR case study have helped the firm to develop new products and bring them quickly to the marketplace.
Weaknesses Regal Carnation Hotel, Guam | Internal Strategic Factors
What are Weaknesses in SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The weaknesses of Regal Carnation Hotel, Guam are -
Aligning sales with marketing
– It come across in the case study Regal Carnation Hotel, Guam that the firm needs to have more collaboration between its sales team and marketing team. Sales professionals in the industry have deep experience in developing customer relationships. Marketing department in the case Regal Carnation Hotel, Guam can leverage the sales team experience to cultivate customer relationships as Guam Symptoms is planning to shift buying processes online.
Capital Spending Reduction
– Even during the low interest decade, Guam Symptoms has not been able to do capital spending to the tune of the competition. This has resulted into fewer innovations and company facing stiff competition from both existing competitors and new entrants who are disrupting the industry using digital technology.
High cash cycle compare to competitors
Guam Symptoms has a high cash cycle compare to other players in the industry. It needs to shorten the cash cycle by 12% to be more competitive in the marketplace, reduce inventory costs, and be more profitable.
High dependence on star products
– The top 2 products and services of the firm as mentioned in the Regal Carnation Hotel, Guam HBR case study still accounts for major business revenue. This dependence on star products in has resulted into insufficient focus on developing new products, even though Guam Symptoms has relatively successful track record of launching new products.
High bargaining power of channel partners
– Because of the regulatory requirements, Jim Kayalar suggests that, Guam Symptoms is facing high bargaining power of the channel partners. So far it has not able to streamline the operations to reduce the bargaining power of the value chain partners in the industry.
High dependence on existing supply chain
– The disruption in the global supply chains because of the Covid-19 pandemic and blockage of the Suez Canal illustrated the fragile nature of Guam Symptoms supply chain. Even after few cautionary changes mentioned in the HBR case study - Regal Carnation Hotel, Guam, it is still heavily dependent upon the existing supply chain. The existing supply chain though brings in cost efficiencies but it has left Guam Symptoms vulnerable to further global disruptions in South East Asia.
Skills based hiring
– The stress on hiring functional specialists at Guam Symptoms has created an environment where the organization is dominated by functional specialists rather than management generalist. This has resulted into product oriented approach rather than marketing oriented approach or consumers oriented approach.
Low market penetration in new markets
– Outside its home market of Guam Symptoms, firm in the HBR case study Regal Carnation Hotel, Guam needs to spend more promotional, marketing, and advertising efforts to penetrate international markets.
Lack of clear differentiation of Guam Symptoms products
– To increase the profitability and margins on the products, Guam Symptoms needs to provide more differentiated products than what it is currently offering in the marketplace.
Increasing silos among functional specialists
– The organizational structure of Guam Symptoms is dominated by functional specialists. It is not different from other players in the Strategy & Execution segment. Guam Symptoms needs to de-silo the office environment to harness the true potential of its workforce. Secondly the de-silo will also help Guam Symptoms to focus more on services rather than just following the product oriented approach.
No frontier risks strategy
– After analyzing the HBR case study Regal Carnation Hotel, Guam, it seems that company is thinking about the frontier risks that can impact Strategy & Execution strategy. But it has very little resources allocation to manage the risks emerging from events such as natural disasters, climate change, melting of permafrost, tacking the rise of artificial intelligence, opportunities and threats emerging from commercialization of space etc.
Opportunities Regal Carnation Hotel, Guam | External Strategic Factors
What are Opportunities in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The opportunities highlighted in the Harvard Business Review case study Regal Carnation Hotel, Guam are -
Loyalty marketing
– Guam Symptoms has focused on building a highly responsive customer relationship management platform. This platform is built on in-house data and driven by analytics and artificial intelligence. The customer analytics can help the organization to fine tune its loyalty marketing efforts, increase the wallet share of the organization, reduce wastage on mainstream advertising spending, build better pricing strategies using personalization, etc.
Identify volunteer opportunities
– Covid-19 has impacted working population in two ways – it has led to people soul searching about their professional choices, resulting in mass resignation. Secondly it has encouraged people to do things that they are passionate about. This has opened opportunities for businesses to build volunteer oriented socially driven projects. Guam Symptoms can explore opportunities that can attract volunteers and are consistent with its mission and vision.
Reforming the budgeting process
- By establishing new metrics that will be used to evaluate both existing and potential projects Guam Symptoms can not only reduce the costs of the project but also help it in integrating the projects with other processes within the organization.
Use of Bitcoin and other crypto currencies for transactions
– The popularity of Bitcoin and other crypto currencies as asset class and medium of transaction has opened new opportunities for Guam Symptoms in the consumer business. Now Guam Symptoms can target international markets with far fewer capital restrictions requirements than the existing system.
Increase in government spending
– As the United States and other governments are increasing social spending and infrastructure spending to build economies post Covid-19, Guam Symptoms can use these opportunities to build new business models that can help the communities that Guam Symptoms operates in. Secondly it can use opportunities from government spending in Strategy & Execution sector.
Remote work and new talent hiring opportunities
– The widespread usage of remote working technologies during Covid-19 has opened opportunities for Guam Symptoms to expand its talent hiring zone. According to McKinsey Global Institute, 20% of the high end workforce in fields such as finance, information technology, can continously work from remote local post Covid-19. This presents a really great opportunity for Guam Symptoms to hire the very best people irrespective of their geographical location.
Low interest rates
– Even though inflation is raising its head in most developed economies, Guam Symptoms can still utilize the low interest rates to borrow money for capital investment. Secondly it can also use the increase of government spending in infrastructure projects to get new business.
Building a culture of innovation
– managers at Guam Symptoms can make experimentation a productive activity and build a culture of innovation using approaches such as – mining transaction data, A/B testing of websites and selling platforms, engaging potential customers over various needs, and building on small ideas in the Strategy & Execution segment.
Leveraging digital technologies
– Guam Symptoms can leverage digital technologies such as artificial intelligence and machine learning to automate the production process, customer analytics to get better insights into consumer behavior, realtime digital dashboards to get better sales tracking, logistics and transportation, product tracking, etc.
Manufacturing automation
– Guam Symptoms can use the latest technology developments to improve its manufacturing and designing process in Strategy & Execution segment. It can use CAD and 3D printing to build a quick prototype and pilot testing products. It can leverage automation using machine learning and artificial intelligence to do faster production at lowers costs, and it can leverage the growth in satellite and tracking technologies to improve inventory management, transportation, and shipping.
Lowering marketing communication costs
– 5G expansion will open new opportunities for Guam Symptoms in the field of marketing communication. It will bring down the cost of doing business, provide technology platform to build new products in the Strategy & Execution segment, and it will provide faster access to the consumers.
Learning at scale
– Online learning technologies has now opened space for Guam Symptoms to conduct training and development for its employees across the world. This will result in not only reducing the cost of training but also help employees in different part of the world to integrate with the headquarter work culture, ethos, and standards.
Reconfiguring business model
– The expansion of digital payment system, the bringing down of international transactions costs using Bitcoin and other blockchain based currencies, etc can help Guam Symptoms to reconfigure its entire business model. For example it can used blockchain based technologies to reduce piracy of its products in the big markets such as China. Secondly it can use the popularity of e-commerce in various developing markets to build a Direct to Customer business model rather than the current Channel Heavy distribution network.
Threats Regal Carnation Hotel, Guam External Strategic Factors
What are Threats in the SWOT Analysis / TOWS Matrix / Weighted SWOT Analysis
The threats mentioned in the HBR case study Regal Carnation Hotel, Guam are -
Consumer confidence and its impact on Guam Symptoms demand
– There is a high probability of declining consumer confidence, given – high inflammation rate, rise of gig economy, lower job stability, increasing cost of living, higher interest rates, and aging demography. All the factors contribute to people saving higher rate of their income, resulting in lower consumer demand in the industry and other sectors.
Trade war between China and United States
– The trade war between two of the biggest economies can hugely impact the opportunities for Guam Symptoms in the Strategy & Execution industry. The Strategy & Execution industry is already at various protected from local competition in China, with the rise of trade war the protection levels may go up. This presents a clear threat of current business model in Chinese market.
Learning curve for new practices
– As the technology based on artificial intelligence and machine learning platform is getting complex, as highlighted in case study Regal Carnation Hotel, Guam, Guam Symptoms may face longer learning curve for training and development of existing employees. This can open space for more nimble competitors in the field of Strategy & Execution .
Increasing international competition and downward pressure on margins
– Apart from technology driven competitive advantage dilution, Guam Symptoms can face downward pressure on margins from increasing competition from international players. The international players have stable revenue in their home market and can use those resources to penetrate prominent markets illustrated in HBR case study Regal Carnation Hotel, Guam .
High level of anxiety and lack of motivation
– the Great Resignation in United States is the sign of broader dissatisfaction among the workforce in United States. Guam Symptoms needs to understand the core reasons impacting the Strategy & Execution industry. This will help it in building a better workplace.
Stagnating economy with rate increase
– Guam Symptoms can face lack of demand in the market place because of Fed actions to reduce inflation. This can lead to sluggish growth in the economy, lower demands, lower investments, higher borrowing costs, and consolidation in the field.
Barriers of entry lowering
– As technology is more democratized, the barriers to entry in the industry are lowering. It can presents Guam Symptoms with greater competitive threats in the near to medium future. Secondly it will also put downward pressure on pricing throughout the sector.
Aging population
– As the populations of most advanced economies are aging, it will lead to high social security costs, higher savings among population, and lower demand for goods and services in the economy. The household savings in US, France, UK, Germany, and Japan are growing faster than predicted because of uncertainty caused by pandemic.
Regulatory challenges
– Guam Symptoms needs to prepare for regulatory challenges as consumer protection groups and other pressure groups are vigorously advocating for more regulations on big business - to reduce inequality, to create a level playing field, to product data privacy and consumer privacy, to reduce the influence of big money on democratic institutions, etc. This can lead to significant changes in the Strategy & Execution industry regulations.
High dependence on third party suppliers
– Guam Symptoms high dependence on third party suppliers can disrupt its processes and delivery mechanism. For example -the current troubles of car makers because of chip shortage is because the chip companies started producing chips for electronic companies rather than car manufacturers.
Technology disruption because of hacks, piracy etc
– The colonial pipeline illustrated, how vulnerable modern organization are to international hackers, miscreants, and disruptors. The cyber security interruption, data leaks, etc can seriously jeopardize the future growth of the organization.
New competition
– After the dotcom bust of 2001, financial crisis of 2008-09, the business formation in US economy had declined. But in 2020 alone, there are more than 1.5 million new business applications in United States. This can lead to greater competition for Guam Symptoms in the Strategy & Execution sector and impact the bottomline of the organization.
Instability in the European markets
– European Union markets are facing three big challenges post Covid – expanded balance sheets, Brexit related business disruption, and aggressive Russia looking to distract the existing security mechanism. Guam Symptoms will face different problems in different parts of Europe. For example it will face inflationary pressures in UK, France, and Germany, balance sheet expansion and demand challenges in Southern European countries, and geopolitical instability in the Eastern Europe.
Weighted SWOT Analysis of Regal Carnation Hotel, Guam Template, Example
Not all factors mentioned under the Strengths, Weakness, Opportunities, and Threats quadrants in the SWOT Analysis are equal. Managers in the HBR case study Regal Carnation Hotel, Guam needs to zero down on the relative importance of each factor mentioned in the Strengths, Weakness, Opportunities, and Threats quadrants.
We can provide the relative importance to each factor by assigning relative weights. Weighted SWOT analysis process is a three stage process –
First stage for doing weighted SWOT analysis of the case study Regal Carnation Hotel, Guam is to rank the strengths and weaknesses of the organization. This will help you to assess the most important strengths and weaknesses of the firm and which one of the strengths and weaknesses mentioned in the initial lists are marginal and can be left out.
Second stage for conducting weighted SWOT analysis of the Harvard case study Regal Carnation Hotel, Guam is to give probabilities to the external strategic factors thus better understanding the opportunities and threats arising out of macro environment changes and developments.
Third stage of constructing weighted SWOT analysis of Regal Carnation Hotel, Guam is to provide strategic recommendations includes – joining likelihood of external strategic factors such as opportunities and threats to the internal strategic factors – strengths and weaknesses. You should start with external factors as they will provide the direction of the overall industry. Secondly by joining probabilities with internal strategic factors can help the company not only strategic fit but also the most probably strategic trade-off that Guam Symptoms needs to make to build a sustainable competitive advantage.
