Airbnb: In-depth Innovation and Leadership Challenges Report

This report provides an in-depth analysis of Airbnb's innovation and leadership strategies. It begins with a business case for innovation, highlighting Airbnb's market position and key innovations. The report then delves into the leadership challenges faced by the company, examining the leadership style of CEO Brian Chesky and how he has addressed these challenges. It uses theoretical frameworks from the module content to analyze the leadership style and challenges. The report also explores the innovation challenges, such as booking cancellations and customer service issues, and suggests strategies to overcome them. It discusses the framework for innovation within Airbnb, emphasizing the importance of leadership in driving innovation. The report concludes with recommendations for future steps, focusing on improving communication, customer service, and operational efficiency to maintain Airbnb's innovative edge.

1
Integration Management – Innovation and Leadership

2
Table of Contents
Integration Management – Innovation and Leadership...................................................................1
The business case for innovation.....................................................................................................3
Leadership Challenges.....................................................................................................................3
Innovation Challenges.....................................................................................................................5
Framework for Innovation...............................................................................................................6
Next steps and Conclusion...............................................................................................................7
References........................................................................................................................................8

3
The business case for innovation
Airbnb, Inc. is of the leading private companies of the world. The headquarters are located at San
Francisco. The basic activities performed byAirbnb is the operation of online market place and
provision of services in the hospitality department. It was founded in August 2008. Ten years
after its existence, it has boomed in a great way. It is now accessible through its mobile
applications and website under the address of www.Airbnb.com. The company has extended its
business throughout the world by offering a wide range of lodging, home stay and tourism.
Airbnb does not hold any real estate listings. It does not conduct events like a broker, connecting
others. For the bookings received by them, they take the stated fares and commissions
(Sundararajan, 2014).
In the contemporary era, Airbnb, Inc has to face several challenges in the ongoing procedure of
its business. But to give a blow to this, it has been innovating various things to easen its business.
The company has reached among the top 50 companies in the BCG most innovative companies
of 2018. Also it was one of the most innovative companies in the year 2017. It has successfully
provided lucrative offers for the customers and the travelers to avail the specialized and the
reasonable offers granted by Airbnb. The key modes of innovation include the attractive and
specialized tour, provision of easy access to the customers with the executives and providing
interesting trips. The major challenge is the competitive market (Ram & Zhang, 2018).
Leadership Challenges
The leadership style of Airbnb, Inc has been one of the best around the globe. This is because it
has taken the hospitality industry to different heights in a span of very little time. In about 10
years, it has reached top global market with a treasure of 31 billion dollars. The leadership styles
of Airbnb include the most appropriate methods to reach the desired goals. It included an
unbreakable determination and will to achieve success, the prevalence of trust among the
employers and the employees who are working together, proper and unambiguous
communication styles and a very responsible attitude towards work (Hajibaba & Dolnicar, 2018).
The leadership style was a mixture of providing the right services to the consumers at reasonable
pricing along with the desired profits of the company.

4
The leadership style used in Airbnb is based upon the demarcations between leadership and
management. This leadership style involves the taking of decision of what to do, the
development of the ability to do the above skills mentioned. Further, a factor ensuring that the
desired activities are completed. The leadership style includes the appropriate vision, strategies
and the proper direction with correct motivation, inspiration and communication between the
staff and the management. Innovative leadership is the key and it has been used here. It is a kind
of leadership different from the others (Zhang & Friedman, 2017). There is effectiveness,
guidance and direction of the behavior of tasks, maturity of the employees to follow these
directions are important in this style.
Brian Chesky is the Chief Executive Officer of airbnb. He believes in the obsessive perfection of
the matters of the company. This means that he desperately wants all the innovations to be made
with flaws and resolve all the challenges immediately without fault and flaws. The CEO has been
known as the most promising workers around the globe and he has successfully implemented
measures to take the company among the top 50 most innovative promising companies of the
world. The greatness lies is the span of time (Zervas, Proserpio& Byers, 2017). The time period
was really short. Chesky, put Airbnb in the process of long term success back in 2009. He visited
the hosts personally and channelized the problems and resolved all the challenges to make it the
best.
Brian Chesky has been very famous in the leadership of his company because of his
unconventional ways of handling the challenges. He is one of the most important entrepreneurs
of the world. Back in 2008, he was bankrupt (Forgacs&Dimanche, 2016). After that he
handcrafted during the US presidential elections, cereals based upon the theme of elections and
sold them at the democratic and the republican national conventions. This had shown immense
potential on his part especially the ideas which no one had thought before. Brian Chesky possess
the hunger to know things like children and he goes to the roots of the problem. After proper
examination he can resolve the disputes in the most efficient manner. This makes him different
from the others.
In the path of success of Brian Chesky, he has faced various challenges. The most important
challenges faced by him is the competition of the other companies in the market. Other similar
companies are booming up in the present scenario which provides similar offers and lucrative

5
deals for the customers at the best prices. Another challenge faced by him is the booking of the
hotels and the trips during the peak seasons at the best holiday destinations. The other challenges
are included under the Airbnb faced by him is the short term vacation of the rental department,
which increasingly hyped in the modern nations (Guttentag, 2015). The challenges faced by
Brian Chesky is also regarding the regulations imposed upon the Airbnb. There are challenges
regarding the expansion of the company across the different countries. The companies settled in
the different in the same sector often do not welcome the competitive company and create
problems for the same.
The challenges faced by Brian Chesky under the leadership of Airbnb can be resolved by him
through the efficient and the utmost planning of the strategies of the expansion of the business.
With the implementation of the proper planning, the problems in relation to competition can be
improved in a great way. The providing of special offers and grants at the reasonable prices
during the peak seasons like during the summer breaks or during the Christmas vacations could
overcome the challenge of competition. Application of the best methods can be highly effective
to resolve the challenges arising during leadership (Lampinen & Cheshire, 2016).
Innovation Challenges
The various challenges faced by Airbnb under the innovation methods include the following. The
website of Airbnb is accessible to the ordinary people for the purpose of rent and other measure
in relation to innovation. In the innovation methods, the major challenge faced is the cancellation
of the bookings at the prime times. This creates a lot of inconvenience for both the parties. The
expectation of the bookings are sometimes not up to the mark. There are often various
malfunctions regarding the stay or the facilities in lodging faced by the innovation of Airbnb.
There are choices regarding the hosts but these choices are not met with according to the needs
of the consumers or as stated by them (Kaplan & Nadler, 2015).
There ample reasons as to why the innovative measures do not move forward in the desired
direction. One of the major causes for this challenge is that the innovation methods are not
properly tested. They are inaugurated on the basis of the anticipations and expectations that it
would function in a particular manner. These methods do not do by that way very often and
results in the lack of proceeding towards success. Besides this, there is lack of proper planning in

6
the procedural steps of the business. The abrupt modes of cancellation can also be a big
bottleneck in the direction of success for Airbnb. It has to be checked that the hotel applications
and the websites of the Airbnb work in the appropriate manner (Koh& King, 2017).
The failure and the challenges of the Airbnb meet has been recorded from many aspects. These
failures and challenges decrease the growth of the company and creates hindrance for the
achieving of success for the company. The most important yet a petty component of the failure is
the trust factor. Once the trust and faith is broken in the company, the fate of the company begins
to lower in the minds of the consumers. The requirements of the consumers are not fulfilled
often. Sometimes the bookings are deceptive and also, there is not a good return of the value for
money of the consumers. The customer care service is not very abrupt in the dealings with the
customers and resolving their issues (Petropoulos, 2017).
In order to change the situations and overcome the challenges faced by Airbnb there is an
immediate need for the overcoming of these challenges. If these challenges and issues are not
overcome immediately, then the of growth and the pace of success would be lowered. The
customers would start finding alternatives in the lodging department or in the tourism industry.
the first step to curb these challenges is the making of appropriate which are customer friendly
and implementing them (Yang et al., 2016). The customer service of Airbnb should be made
more prompt in action and resolve the disputes. The abrupt cancellations of the bookings should
be stopped completely. Provision of quality services as expected by the customers at the implied
rates should be granted to them.
Framework for Innovation
The organizational priorities in relation to the leadership and innovation hold a very important
position for the prosperous market of Airbnb. Both the leadership and that skills are
complementary and supplementary to each other. Innovation includes the procedure of making
something novel, which has not been made before, in the past (Libert, Wind & Fenley, 2014).
Leadership is the procedure of making the others follow the path of the head of the company. It
helps in the facilitation of the employees to understand the path of success in their business and
follow the methods implemented by the leader. Without leadership, the innovation cannot
function because there will not be anyone to implement the innovative modes. And without

7
innovation there would be lack of the path of success and invention which the leaders are bound
to follow in the business procedure (Meleo, Romolini& De Marco, 2016). Thus, they are both
very important to each other and also very important for Airbnb.
The direction of the meeting of Airbnb should towards the implementation of the efficient modes
of working and towards the achieving of the business goals and profits. The meeting should
conduct the appropriate awareness and training programs for the employees so that they can have
a better understanding and knowledge about the wants of the customers. The meeting should
implement measures to update the website of Airbnb with the addition of the latest offers and
deals (Oskam&Boswijk, 2016). The application of Airbnb in the mobile should be made more
attractive to attract more customers. They can prepare programs for providing the best facilities
to the consumers at reasonable rates. This would ensure the direction of the meeting of Airbnb to
the path of success.
To improve the failures and the challenges faced by the management and the chief executive
officer of Airbnb, it is recommended that the communication skill between the management and
the employees of the companies should be widened. There should be awareness and training
programs held to educate the employees and resolve the challenges regarding the customer
service. It is further recommended that for the cancellations done, Airbnb should initiate the
issuance of refunds. This would help in gaining back the trust of the customers upon the
companies (Minami &Ushiama, 2017). It is also recommended that the supporting agents should
possess their own customer facing mail addresses. It is further recommended that response
should be given to every consumer upon their queries.
Next steps and Conclusion
After a close perusal of the above facts and information it can be concluded that Airbnb is one of
the best companies across the globe. It has achieved success in the lodging department very
easily in a short period of time. The CEO, Brian Chesky is responsible for such growth. However
it has faced plenty of challenges and failures in the past. To overcome these methods, there are
three practical steps given to improve the condition of the company. There should be awareness
and training programs for the employees, there should be an advanced website to adhere to the
problems of the customers and a prompt system of resolving the queries of the customers.

8
References
Forgacs, G. and Dimanche, F., 2016. Revenue challenges for hotels in the sharing economy:
Facing the Airbnb menace. Journal of Revenue and Pricing Management, 15(6), pp.509-515.
Guttentag, D., 2015. Airbnb: disruptive innovation and the rise of an informal tourism
accommodation sector. Current issues in Tourism, 18(12), pp.1192-1217.
Hajibaba, H. and Dolnicar, S., 2018. 6 Airbnb and its Competitors. PEER-TO-PEER
ACCOMMODATION NETWORKS, p.63.
Kaplan, R.A. and Nadler, M.L., 2015. Airbnb: A case study in occupancy regulation and
taxation. U. Chi. L. Rev. Dialogue, 82, p.103.
Koh, E. and King, B., 2017. Accommodating the sharing revolution: a qualitative evaluation of
the impact of Airbnb on Singapore’s budget hotels.Tourism Recreation Research, 42(4), pp.409-
421.
Lampinen, A. and Cheshire, C., 2016, May. Hosting via Airbnb: Motivations and financial
assurances in monetized network hospitality. In Proceedings of the 2016 CHI Conference on
Human Factors in Computing Systems (pp. 1669-1680). ACM.
Libert, B., Wind, Y. and Fenley, M., 2014. What Airbnb, Uber, and Alibaba have in common.
Harvard business review, 11.
Meleo, L., Romolini, A. and De Marco, M., 2016, May.The sharing economy revolution and
peer-to-peer online platforms.The case of Airbnb.In International Conference on Exploring
Services Science (pp. 561-570).Springer, Cham.
Minami, D. and Ushiama, T., 2017, September. Can you trust the user?: Collaborative trust
estimation model for recommendations. In Digital Information Management (ICDIM), 2017
Twelfth International Conference on (pp. 252-256).IEEE.
Oskam, J. and Boswijk, A., 2016. Airbnb: the future of networked hospitality businesses.
Journal of Tourism Futures, 2(1), pp.22-42.

9
Petropoulos, G., 2017. An economic review of the collaborative economy. Bruegel: Bruegel
Policy Contribution.
Ram, J. and Zhang, Z., 2018. An investigation into failure of Internet firms: Towards
development of a conceptual model. Australasian Journal of Information Systems, 22.
Sundararajan, A., 2014. What Airbnb gets about culture that Uber doesn’t. Harvard Business
Review, 11
Yang, S.B., Lee, K., Lee, H., Chung, N. and Koo, C., 2016, June. Trust Breakthrough in the
Sharing Economy: an Empirical Study of Airbnb1. In PACIS (p. 131).
Zervas, G., Proserpio, D. and Byers, J.W., 2017. The rise of the sharing economy: Estimating the
impact of Airbnb on the hotel industry. Journal of Marketing Research, 54(5), pp.687-705.
Zhang, Y., Zhang, Y. and Friedman, D., 2017. Economic recommendation based on pareto
efficient resource allocation. UK: WZB Discussion Paper.