Marriott International Inc.: Entrepreneurial Strategies

This assignment analyzes Marriott International Inc.'s entrepreneurial role, examining the company's challenges, strategies, and approaches to expansion. It explores Marriott's use of entrepreneurial schools-of-thought, such as the displacement approach and strategic planning approach, to achieve business growth. The report also outlines specific strategies Marriott will employ to expand its global market share and revenue.

Running Head: Entrepreneurship In Context
Entrepreneurship In Context

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Contents
Introduction......................................................................................................................................1
Meaning of entrepreneurship...........................................................................................................2
Overview of the company................................................................................................................2
History.........................................................................................................................................2
Establishment and the growth......................................................................................................3
Challenges faced by the company...............................................................................................3
Entrepreneurial schools of thought..................................................................................................4
Emerging trends...............................................................................................................................4
Growth strategies.............................................................................................................................5
Conclusion.......................................................................................................................................7
References........................................................................................................................................8

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Introduction
Entrepreneurship is a process of designing and launching a new business. The person who
designs and launches or in other words a person who creates the businesses is known as
entrepreneurs. The report talks about the Marriott International Inc. entrepreneurial organization.
The paper talks about the history of the organization and the establishment and the growth of the
company along with that it includes the challenges faced by the company. There is a discussion
of the entrepreneurial schools of the thought in relation to the Marriott International Inc. It
consists of the emerging trends that can create an impact on the working of the company. The
potential opportunities and the threats related to the growth of the company will be discussed.

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Meaning of entrepreneurship
Entrepreneurship is the capacity and the willingness to develop, organize and manage the
business venture along with the risks in order to make the profit. In simple words, an
entrepreneur is a businessman whose focus is on launching and running of the business
considering the high risk involved in the launching of the product (Kuratko, 2016). Entrepreneur
of the company act as a leader and oversees the growth of the company.
Overview of the company
Marriott International Inc. was established in the year 1993 when the company was separated in
the two companies. The two companies were Marriott international and the Host Marriott
Corporation. Marriott Company is American multinational hospitality company that manages a
broad number of the hotels and the related lodging facilities. The company was founded by the J.
Willard Marriott which is currently managed by his son Bill Marriot and the CEO Arne
Sorenson.
History
Basically, the company was founded by John Willard Marriott in the year 1927. The company
opened its new first hotel Twin Bridges Marriott hotel in Virginia in the year 1957. In 1987, the
company opened the first Fairfield Inn and Marriott Suites Hotels. This how the company
became the first lodging company who offer a portfolio of brands (Marriott, 2017). In 1995, the
Marriott was the first hotel who offered the online reservation facility to its customers. In the
year 2010, company said that they are planning to add over 600 hotels by the year 2015.

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Establishment and the growth
The company is continuously registering the growth by acquiring the companies across the
world. In the year 2012, the company acquired Gaylord Hotels Brand similarly, in the year 2013-
Marriott debuts MOXY HOTELS. The company showed the focus towards the design AC hotel
of the Marriott imported into the America. In 2014, the company doubles its distribution in the
Africa by increasing more than 23,000 rooms along with that they acquired Protea Hotels
Brands. The company Acquires Delta Hotels and Resorts in the year 2015 and became the largest
Full-service Hotelier in Canada. In the previous year, the company again acquired the Starwood
Hotels and Resorts. The aim of the company is to create the world's largest hotel company that
consists of more than 5,700 properties that offer more than 1.1million rooms across 30 brands in
more than 110 countries (Marriott, 2017).
Challenges faced by the company
The company is facing some challenges which are creating an impact on the working of the
company. First and the foremost issue is a downfall in the economic growth of U.S., the U.S.
economy is showing a downfall (Salvioni, 2016). This is creating an impact on the past three
quarter’s sales. There are 300 corporate customers which decline from 4% year over year. The
second challenge is terrorism and political unrest, the international growth is a must for the
company and company is planning for the expansion of approximately 285,000 rooms outside
North America. The increase in the political unrest and the terrorist attacks are affecting the
action plan. The merger of the company with the Starwood Hotels and Resorts Worldwide is
becoming a culture challenge for the company. The company won the bidding war for Starwood
against the Chinese company Anbang, there is a risk which says that the China government can
reject the merger within China.

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Entrepreneurial schools of thought
The “schools of thought” are considered to be a foundation for entrepreneurial theory. This is an
approach that emphasis in researchers about the successful entrepreneur. There is a presence of
the macro view as well as a micro view of entrepreneurial school-of-thoughts Approach (Miles,
Gilmore, Harrigan, Lewis, and Sethna, 2015). There is a description of the Entrepreneurial
approaches considering the company.
 The displacement school of thought is one of the approaches that are related to the
establishment and the growth of the company. For instance, the company faces the on the
sales and revenue of the company from decline economic growth in China, and the
ongoing economic turmoil in Europe (Frederick, O’ Connor, and Kuratko, 2013). Threats
of the terrorist attract due to increase in the terrorist organizations such as ISIS.
 The strategic planning school of thought focuses on the planning process that helps in
successful venture development. The simplest way to view strategic formulation is
leveraging of unique elements. The Marriott make use of the unique markets, unique
people, unique products, or unique resources that are used by the company for the
effective venture formulation (Frederick, O’ Connor, and Kuratko, 2013). This is the
reason company is acquiring the hotels and resort of different places so that they can get
to know about the culture of the country and they can easily expand their business.
Emerging trends
The emerging trends create an impact on the growth of the company in the near future.
Technology trends: - Technology creates an impact on Marriott, the reason being the use of the
advanced technology. The company like Airbnb is offering the online rental services. The

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company allows the private individuals to rent rooms directly to the visitors. Approximately 6
million guests stayed in Airbnb properties in the year 2013. The advancement of the technology
will create an impact on Marriott in the near future as well. Tourist will be able to check-in and
check-out with the use of the mobile apps (Van Niekerk, 2016).
Consumer trends: - There will a positive impact on the consumer on Marriott as more and more
people are willing to plan for a tour across the world. According to Mashable, the number of
tourist planning for the tour is continuously increasing (Bolton, and Mattila, 2015). There was a
rise in the tourist by 13% between the year 2013 and 2014. The Marriott Company is expected to
get the increased number of the Chinese and the Asian travelers.
Economic trends: - The economic trends that will affect the working of the Marriott include the
economic growth. The slow economic growth of the china and the turmoil in Europe create an
impact on Marriott. The buying power of the customer is declining in Europe; the decline in the
buying power will reduce the ability to travel. Exchange rate for the U.S. dollars is quite high
which resist the people to visit the U.S. These factors will definitely impact the working of the
company. The growing discrimination of the income group will resist the middle-class people to
stay in Marriott (Soelistijo, Anjani, Pratama, Pili, and Herdyanti, 2015).
Growth strategies
The growth strategies that company should follow must include opportunities and threats. These
strategies will help the company to increase their market share and the revenue of the company.
The company is already using the acquisition growth strategy and doing well, the two strategies
apart from the acquisition are stated below that shows the way to enhance the market share and
the revenue of the company.

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 Product development growth strategy can be used by the company in the future. The
company should add on the additional services in the products they are offering to the
customers (Christmann, 2017). The new feature will enforce the customers who are
planning to travel to stay in Marriott. The company is expecting to get the crowd from the
china and Europe. According to that company can add on the featured services for
Chinese and European. This will enhance the company’s revenue and provide the
satisfaction to the customer which will lead to increase in the market share of the
company.
 Diversification growth strategy will help the company to make use of the advanced
technology that helps the company in attracting the potential customers. In
diversification, a company will bring some new services that they going to introduce in
the new market (Johnson, 2017). The company can compete with the service provided by
the Airbnd and try to enhance the market share and revenue.

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Conclusion
The report is based on Marriott International Inc. that shows the entrepreneurial role in the
company. The initial part of the report talks about the brief of the company and the challenges
faced by the company. Though, Marriott is going doing company is acquiring the companies and
expanding the business in the global market. There is a description about the approached in
context to the entrepreneurial schools-of-thought. The approach discussed is displacement
approach and the strategic planning approach. Further, there is a description of the strategies that
company will use to an expansion of the business and enhance the market share along with
revenue.

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References
Bolton, L.E. and Mattila, A.S. (2015). How does corporate social responsibility affect consumer
response to service failure in buyer–seller relationships?. Journal of Retailing, 91(1),
pp.140-153.
Christmann, P., Christmann, P., Leong, J., Leong, J., Tan, M., Tan, M., Christmann, P.,
Christmann, P., Leong, J. and Leong, J. (2017). EAC Nutrition: Regional Expansion
Strategy. Darden Business Publishing Cases, pp.1-25.
Johnson, G. (2017). Exploring strategy: text and cases. Pearson.
Frederick, H., O’ Connor, A., and Kuratko, D.F. (2013). Enterpreneurhip
Theory/Practice/Process. Edition 3. Commonwealth of Australia.
Kula, E. (2013). History of environmental economic thought. Routledge.
Kuratko, D.F. (2016). Entrepreneurship: Theory, process, and practice. Cengage Learning.
Kuratko, D.F., Morris, M.H. and Schindehutte, M. (2015). Understanding the dynamics of
entrepreneurship through framework approaches. Small Business Economics. 45(1), pp.1-
13.
Marriott. (2017). Meet Our Founders. Viewed on 8th October 2017,
http://www.marriott.com/culture-and-values/marriott-family-history.mi
Marriott. (2017). Our Story. Viewed on 8th October 2017 http://www.marriott.com/about/culture-
and-values/history.mi

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Miles, M., Gilmore, A., Harrigan, P., Lewis, G. and Sethna, Z. (2015). Exploring entrepreneurial
marketing. Journal of Strategic Marketing, 23(2), pp.94-111.
Salvioni, D.M. (2016). Hotel Chains and the Sharing Economy in Global Tourism. Symphonya,
(1), p.31.
Soelistijo, U.W., Anjani, P.L., Pratama, H.I., Pili, H.L. and Herdyanti, M.K. (2015). Trend of
Mineral Commodity Price and its Impact on the Indonesia Economy 1990-2025. Earth
Sciences, 4(4), pp.129-145.
Van Niekerk, M. (2016). Business, Technology, and Marketing Trends Influencing the Financial
Performance of The Hotel Industry. The Journal of Hospitality Financial Management,
24(2), pp.153-157.