Free «Marriott Hotel: Case Study» Essay Sample

Marriott Hotel History

Marriott International Hotel was founded in 1927 by John Marriott and his wife when they opened a cool drinks stand at Washington, D.C. In the following years, success of their business led to the expansion and opening of a chain of hotels and restaurants. Marriott family opened their first two hotels in 1957 and 1959 in Arlington, Virginia. Next fifty years signified the company’s rapid growth and expansion. Currently, Marriott is the largest hotel company worldwide that operates over four thousand properties in 80 countries across the globe. Back at the time of launching the enterprise and expansion, Marriott family established basic of organizational culture and core values. The company founder, Willard Marriott believed that when management takes care of employees, they will take care of guests and guests would become loyal customers. Therefore, the spirit of service facilitates higher employee satisfaction and subsequent company’s growth. Thus, the company focuses on its culture, in order to improve its operations.

Marriott Hotel before Adopting the Four Disciplines of Execution

The quest for performance improvement started at the Bethesda Marriott, located near Marriott International Headquarters. Hotel management noticed that $20 million investments in remodeling and renovating the hotel over three years did not positively affect guest satisfaction scores (GSS). It became apparent that hotel employees had to foster new behaviors in order to execute their responsibilities and interact with guests more professionally. Analysis of the factors that affect GSS indicated that the hotel’s success depended on every employee’s greater engagement and accountability, as well as the quality of interaction with guests. Therefore, the significant change of organizational behavior was required. It became apparent that leaders struggled to raise the company’s key performance indicators because they attempted to achieve changes without changing human behaviors on which changes were contingent. Leaders realized that in order to progress, the company could not rely solely on the employees’ compliance, but needed greater commitment to the company’s values form its associates (Covey n.d). However, receiving the commitment of hearts and minds was rather challenging.

Marriott management realized that relying on monetary investments and exercising authority alone could not achieve desired changes . It became obvious that behavioral change was needed in each department: from lobby personnel to accounting department, to engineering, and communications department. Prior to adoption of the four disciplines of execution, Marriott executives would generally agree that improvements were needed in nearly every area: employees’ engagement level, guest satisfaction scores, sales and profit. Therefore, there was realization among the managers that they needed to raise the bar of expectations for their own performance and ensure that the customer satisfaction was high (Covey n.d). Thus, the adoption of the Four Disciplines of Execution (4DX) was welcomed by the staff.

Changes as a Result of Adopting the Four Disciplines of Execution

Many Marriott hotels responded with positive feedback about their experience and outcomes of implementing 4DX. One example of the effectiveness of the 4DX was that change of behavior among the company employees did take place. In Bethesda Marriott hotel, ESS went 20 points up. Marriott in Washington, D.C. enjoyed growth of EIWO from 69 to 89 and ESS from 53.3 to 67.0. Behavioral change occurred (as a result of planning, consensus, realignment of responsibilities and roles, and a certain measure of risk taking) and motivated hotel staff to execute their responsibilities differently also facilitated collaboration between different departments (Covey n.d). Notably, 4DX helped many employees and managerial staff members to change routines that have been ingrained into the company operation matrix for decades. Changes were not easy, but the commitment on the part of the management to see the changes through and lead the process of change to completion led to successful performance outcomes and increase in engagement scores (AOS) from 77% to 84% at New York Marriott. At the same hotel, after one year of practicing 4DX, hotel celebrated the highest GSS in the hotel’s 30-year history; 21 out of 22 hotel W.I.G.S. improved; elite recognition ranking improved by 178b places. Moreover, profitability budget was beaten by over $900,000 (Covey n.d). Change of behavior that Marriott staff achieved resulted in significant improvements of customer experience and raised quality of services offered. 4DX helped to emphasize and reinforce the spirit and philosophy of service throughout the company as a core value of its organizational culture. Notably, 4DX helped to raise not only guest satisfaction, but employee satisfaction, as well (Covey n.d). The company’s culture became stronger and led to further growth, innovation and operational improvement.

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One important development associated with 4DX implementation is the fact that once other hotels in the chain learned about 4DX pilot projects, they expressed the desire to adopt 4DX, participate in the program and become the part of it. Every hotel that participated in the pilot project reported remarkable improvements. Beside reporting significantly higher or the highest GSS ever, some hotels reported the highest ever results in both revenue and profit. Interestingly, there were instances when the highest GSS, sales and profit were achieved simultaneously within the same year (Covey n.d).

Achieved successes led to the decision to implement 4DX across all the Marriott hotels located in North and South America. With 4DX adoption, the company felt that it obtained what it takes to pursue the goal of becoming the most outstanding lodging company across Americas. Therefore, we might be able to see Marriott becoming a preeminent player of the world’s hospitality industry. This may lead to the company’s further expansion and improvement the quality of services it provides to its guests.