A Report on Digital Disruption and Its Impact on Marriott Hotel

This report provides an in-depth analysis of digital disruption and its impact on Marriott Hotel. It begins with an introduction to digital disruption, defining its influence on business strategies, and then explores the major trends affecting the hospitality industry, such as personalized experiences, digital...Read More

Data Insights

Table of Contents
Introduction .....................................................................................................................................1
MAIN BODY...................................................................................................................................1
Digital Disruption...................................................................................................................1
Impact of digital disruption on Marriott Hotel.......................................................................1
Data and information as a business tool ................................................................................4
Impact of Digital Disruption on Jobs and skills.....................................................................5
Online Research Questionnaire..............................................................................................6
A Discussion Guide................................................................................................................7
Discussion...............................................................................................................................7
Conclusion ......................................................................................................................................8
REFERENCES................................................................................................................................9
.........................................................................................................................................................9

Introduction
This presentation is going to given an insight about the concept of digital disruption and
its impact on a auto-mobile industry (Zervas, Proserpio and Byers, 2017). For this purpose,
Marriott Hotel is taken that considers as one of the biggest brand in hospitality industry. So, how
insight of data and information as well as digital disruption impact on its business, is revealed
over here.
MAIN BODY
Digital Disruption
It refers to a change which occurs when any new digital technologies affect the current
business strategies of an organisation. Digital disruption is a rapid advancement of technologies
that allows companies to introduce new business models (Oskam and Boswijk, 2016). This
would help in breaking down the traditional barriers and developing new value chain or
opportunities, for running successfully.
Impact of digital disruption on Marriott Hotel
In context with present company i.e. Marriott Hotel, three major trends which highly disrupts the
industry in which it deals are personalised experience, disruption in digital space and mobilised
interface (Skilton, 2016). Hereby, making a comparison with one of the newly entrance i.e.
Airbnb, its managers have evaluated that Marriott has taken more than 88 years to build its
global presence while airbnb with the help on digital technologies, takes just only four years to
reach at same position.
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This comparison doesn't show any ineffectiveness of Marriott Hotel, it just reflects how
digital disruptors help new startups in building its community on such a large level, especially
within an intense environment of competition. Therefore, to increase its accessibility and retain
its sustainable position, it is essential for Marriott Hotel to taken the data and information as a
business tool for modifying its strategies (Dewi and Darma, 2019). For this process, it can use
The Access over Ownership Model, which force respective organisation to focus on the concept
of collaboration with other hospitality organisations, rather than to enjoy single ownership. In
other words, by sharing information and business data, with travel companies, airlines and
others, it can sign a contract with them, to help in increasing customer base and by sharing
economy with disruptors. Hereby, using digital technologies, would aid managers of Marriott in
getting their support for attracting more new customers and retain the loyal ones for longer
period of time.
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Data and information as a business tool
Data and information can be used as a business tool or a key to deliver hospitality
experience which matter in enhancing customer base within a company. For this purpose, a
number of services can be used by Marriott Hotel to transform its business digitally (Straker,
Wrigley and Rosemann, 2015). It includes -
Mobility: The rapid development of technology can be measured in terms of mobile
applications, that provides a tides of opportunities to hospitality industry in increasing their
accessibility. Using mobile apps in business, will aid Marriott in providing a great guest
experience. Hereby, for better engagement of customers, this organisation also needs to create
high-functioning mobile apps like next-gen mobile app that includes – push notification for any
event related to reservation and other activities, interactive property maps, 24 x 7 hours live chat,
free international calling and more. It would build loyalty of customers towards brand more
strongly and transform their guest experience as well.
Voice activated technology: Since major problems that put an impact on guest
experience in hospitality industry is language barrier (Crittenden, Crittenden and Crittenden,
2017). Therefore, to knock down this barrier, it is essentia; for Marriott to deploy fueling voice
technology like Alexa, GoogleAssistant and more. Activating these voice devices in rooms, will
aid in translating both textual as well as voice language in real time manner and enhance guest
experience also.
Stronger authentication & biometrics: As Marriott Hotel mostly targeted the travellers
especially business class people, who used to come on regular basis for business meetings and
all. Therefore, targeting this group, it is essential for respective organisation to concern on check-
ins and check-outs services. In this regard, surveillance analytics, IoT beacons which includes
verification and identification information will help in transforming the same. These
technologies can immediately detect the presence of loyal customers and send them a digital key
card at mobile device.
Advance in-room application devices: To turn the traditional room services into a
revenue generator, Marriott can also introduce a next-gen smart desk applications, that allows for
integrating the interactive communication platform. This would help in getting a control over in-
room needs of customers like viewing local events, spa or restaurant reservation, booking
appointments or make an order for room-service etc. By facilitating these services, quality of
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customer experience can easily be enhanced that turns reducing overhead expenses for staffing
and increasing high return as well.
Automatic notification: Today, to take hotel services, customers demand to get real-
time notification first. It provides them information about booking confirmation, room readiness,
changes related to any service, new accommodations etc. Therefore, digital disruption has given
opportunity to Marriott to build an open-ended communication infrastructure like an advanced
omni-channel solution (Akbar and Tracogna, 2018). It will drive proactive customer engagement
service that helps to reduce some common errors, where respective hotel can manually or
automatically trigger the notification and engaging multimedia as well. Along with this,
integrating the IoT/Sensors also provides a scalable notification system to address all critical
system in real-time.
UCC integration: It has been analysed that most essential factor which creates a great
impact on guest experience in hotel industry is role of staff members. It reflects that way
through which staff interact and communicate with customers, highly affect their satisfaction
level. Therefore, inability of workers in making appropriate communication with customers, can
severely diminishes their experience, that impact on reputation of Marriott as well. In this regard,
integrating dynamic communication channels in business, can provide end-to-end engagement
solution to this company. It includes a single app for messaging, video, voice, conferencing and
calendering etc. that helps in keeping employees productive.
Impact of Digital Disruption on Jobs and skills
Digital disruption creates a large impact on employment as well, because transformation
of business into digital platform can only be possible by contribution of staff members at
workplace. In this regard, any changes in business like launching on new applications and
technologies by Marriott, will directly affect the performance of employees in both negative and
positive manner (Dewi and Darma, 2019). Through data and information analysis, it has
analysed that rapid development in technology has increased that business processes, products
and system. It also improves the productivity as well that led to raise in profitability and
ultimately wages of employees. But it has estimated that implementation of various technologies
like longevity, Artificial Intelligence, robotics, IoT and more, leads to increase the
unemployment rate. But meanwhile an same time, it also creates more employment opportunities
related to management, computer operators, mathematics etc. for people having high technical
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skills. Therefore, to drive innovation and growth, it is highly essential for management of
Marriott Hotel to concern on developing a robust framework, i.e. potentially create a number of
jobs and introduce best talented workforce at workplace. Along with this, managers also need to
focus on broadening the existing skill development program which includes job rotation, job
transfer or mobility support for enhancing skills of its employees.
Online Research Questionnaire
To analyse what people think about digital disruption that are associated with hotel industry, a
questionnaire is being prepared, which will further fulfilled by one of the staff member of
Marriott Hotel, in London branch...
Questionnaire
Q1) Are you familiar with the concept of Digital Disruption?
a) Yes
b) No
Q2) Do you think, to get survival in business, focusing on digital disruption is essential for
big brands also?
a) Yes
b) No
Q3) As per your perception, which technology needs to be deployed within Marriott for
reducing threat of new entrance?
a) Advance in-room application devices
b) Stronger authentication & biometrics
c) Automatic notification
d) Mobility
Q4) For deploying digital transformation in business, on which factor Marriott needs to
concern first?
a) To identify niche market
b) To determine potential threat via market analysis
c) To identify demand of potential customer
Q5) What will be the main challenge, Marriott can face by integrating the digital
technologies in business?
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a) Talent management
b) High investment in transformation
Q6) Which will be the major benefits that Marriott can gain after digital transformation?
a) High Growth and Profitability
b) Enhancement of guest experience
c) An edge over competitors
Q7) Give your views about how disruption can help Marriott in enhancing its productivity
and achievement of high satisfaction of customers...
A Discussion Guide
In order to take feedback of one of the staff member of Marriott on given questionnaire,
face-to-face interview method will be used. For this purpose, a guideline is also been prepared
that consists following steps:
Step I – Firstly, in online interview, general intro will be taken of chosen respondent.
Step II- After a general intro, post on which staff member is designed will be asked to analyse
job role and contribution of his views in running business successfully.
Step III – Under this step, researchers will ask the prepared questions in systematic way to get
views and prepared notes as well.
Step IV – In final step, all information will be gathered in proper manner, under a pen drive and
some data in documents for final discussion.
Discussion
By taking the feedback of chosen respondent on digital disruption, it has been analysed
that today major technology firms like Airbnb, are replacing most hotel brands, as they offer
more technological solutions as well as create new markets to enhance guest experience. Now,
traditional hospitality industry is going to evolve more into niche markets, that serves specific
types of customers and extremely luxury sector, so hotels can afford to pay reasonable salary to
its staff. But organisations who fail to identify their niche, may become the money machines for
others that consider as technology companies. Therefore, brands like Marriott which is big
enough to survive within hospitality industry, but its business may get more tougher, if it doesn't
concern on integrating business with dynamic changes in digital technologies. Along with this, to
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survive more effectively and reduce threat of new entrance that come up with latest technologies,
respective hotel also need to be evolved and reinvented itself, for exploiting the opportunities,
that helps in coping with challenges of digital disruption as well. But hereby, the only question
which remains unanswered is up to at what extent digital transformation will have to take place
within hospitality industry, to enhance the guest experience and run business efficiently. So, it is
essential for researchers to correct their investigation, in order to get better outcomes.
Conclusion
It has been concluded from this presentation that digital disruption plays a main role in
enhancing performance and productivity of hospitality industry. It creates new market and
opportunities for hotels in increasing their guest experience and getting long term engagement of
them in business as well.
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REFERENCES
Books and Journals
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.
Oskam, J. and Boswijk, A., 2016. Airbnb: the future of networked hospitality businesses. Journal
of Tourism Futures. 2(1). pp.22-42.
Skilton, M., 2016. Building the digital enterprise: a guide to constructing monetization models
using digital technologies. Springer.
Dewi, M. V. K. and Darma, G. S., 2019. The Role of Marketing & Competitive Intelligence In
Industrial Revolution 4.0. Jurnal Manajemen dan Bisnis. 16(1). pp.1-12.
Straker, K., Wrigley, C. and Rosemann, M., 2015. The role of design in the future of digital
channels: Conceptual insights and future research directions. Journal of Retailing and
Consumer Services. 26. pp.133-140.
Crittenden, A. B., Crittenden, V. L. and Crittenden, W. F., 2017. Industry transformation via
channel disruption. Journal of Marketing Channels. 24(1-2). pp.13-26.
Akbar, Y. H. and Tracogna, A., 2018. The sharing economy and the future of the hotel industry:
Transaction cost theory and platform economics. International Journal of Hospitality
Management. 71. pp.91-101.
Online
Futurist Keynote: Digital Disruption In The Hospitality Industry. 2015. [Online] Available
Through:<https://www.anderssorman-nilsson.com/blog/futurist-keynote-for-the-
hospitality-industry-part-1/2>.
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