Case Study - The Melville Island Hotel

Case Study

The Melville Island Hotel

 

The 4 star Melville Island Hotel is located on the beautiful island of Melville in the Northern Territory. The hotel is almost 10 years old and starting to lose its original appeal. It was recently bought by a group of investors, who have many plans and exciting ideas for the property. The island is joined to the main city centre by a causeway. The locals of the island feel threatened by the future development to traditional lifestyle. A small café (part of the hotel) which was very popular with the local fishermen, had to be closed for development. This café was always full and people had to be turned away.

 

Most of the staff is casual seasonal employees. This is good because it provides jobs for the locals. All managers and supervisors are full time. College students usually work at the front while non-locals work in the back. Those working at the back of the house, speak little or no English. Housing for staff is provided on the premises.

 

The locals are quite determined to prevent further development of the property, and have established a group called C.A.L.M. (Citizens Against Losing Melville). This is generating bad publicity for the new investors.

 

Formalisation is minimal as the hotel works on crisis recruitment. There are numerous standing and action plans but none have been enforced or evaluated over the years. During the last 7 years, the hotel has been through 5 Human Resource Managers and 4 Sales & Marketing Managers. All other managers have assisted in various departments when the need arose. There have been numerous accidents in the restaurant and kitchen with only a minimum recorded. The staff eat and drink when it suits them, and there is no control in the purchase and ordering of stock. Furniture, Fixtures and Equipment (FF&E) in all areas are either insufficient or have reached their ‘used by dates’. The Housekeeping department in particular is under much stress with limited resources. F&B have not shown a profit in the last 2 years and room occupancy has been at its’ lowest.

 

You have been appointed as the Operations Manager to take corrective action with innovative changes.

 

 

 

Question 1 - What initial (development) planning that you as an Operations Manager would need to make? Discuss two (2) reasons for conducting operational planning.                                                                                                                                          

 

-          Normally operational plan is needed when reorganising system, introducing new products or system, and targeting new marketplace, reorganising staff training procedure.  And this hotel have to fulfil most of them mentioned above to operate this business properly and make a profit.

As an operation manager, I will reorganise the recruit and training system for the all staffs first.

 

Question 2 - Formalisation is part of organizational structure. How is it affecting the Melville Island Hotel? Discuss two (2) internal and two (2) external factors to be analysed.

 

Internal:   most of worker in the hotel are casual seasonal employees who has not been given the proper training for the tasks continuously, and it can result in low level of staff skills

F&B and room occupancy have not shown a profit in the last 2 years, it means this hotel do not have enough budget to operate the business in the future and it is negative effect for financial part.

 

External:  I believe that it is caused by industrialization, this hotel is quite old and losing original appearance as the stocktaking holders want to change it newly to follow new trend of whole industry, and most of tenant in that area did not want to develop their places so it is crushed with the needs of investors of the hotel.

 

                

Question 3 - What monitoring and evaluation systems would you implement and how effective would they be? Include the need for reports.                 

 

-          I will use a chart to make sure scheduled operations are processed in expected period and time.

Make a list for all tasks and allocate the staff who would be in charged. And Set the timeframe with starting and ending of the tasks. After or during staffs are operating the tasks, check it periodically and compare with expected period and actual period.

And budget should be checked as well, by comparing expected budget to the actual expend, it is clear how much was spend and evaluate the efficiency of budget 

And collect all of this results and make them as a document to keep them, it should be reported to the general manager and investors to show result of operation and set the next plan.

 

 

Question 4 - Apply the SMART strategy to one (1) goal you would like to achieve for the Melville Island Hotel.

 

       Set the goal: Attract more number of customers for next half of year than now

-          Specific : family travellers go to vacation especially holiday season, so main target can be family customers

-          Measurable : compare figures of customer number in the next half year to previous one

-          Achievable : set the foreseen customer numbers around 5% than before

-          Relevant : increasing number of customer would result in increasing profit

-          Timed : promote discounted accommodate price for peak holiday season

 

 

 

 

Question 5 - What changes would you recommend to the organisational chart of this organisation?            

                          

-           They need manager for handling housekeeping/maintenance part since someone should lead 3 of supervisor, 20 staff and 3 cleaners.  Also manager is needed in marketing department as marketing is the one of important factor for promoting the business. Additionally HR and finance department can be merged in the marketing department as there are only two staff, General manager might have difficult to lead 6 of department just alone.                    

 

                                  

Question 6 - As an Operations Manager, how are you going to assess the success of your operational plan for the Melville Island Hotel?

 

-          I would assess the success of my operational plan by using those ways below

Sales figure, Staff feedback, Customer feedback, Occupation level, Increases in productivity, average spend, and increases in operational efficiency.

When I compare the sales figure between the past and present, I can check how much sale figures have been increased. And analysed how much sale figures convert to the venue for the specific period.

And also quality of operation can be analysed by feedback from staffs and customers.