The Influence of Social Media on Marriott Group's Business Operations

This report investigates the impact of social media on the business operations of the Marriott Group of Hotels. The introduction outlines the background, research aim, and objectives, which focus on understanding social media's influence and its effective use within the firm. The literature review explores various social media theories and their impact on business operations, customer needs, and marketing strategies. The research methodologies section details an exploratory research design, a realism philosophy, and an inductive research approach. Data will be collected from 30 respondents using questionnaires and interviews, and analyzed quantitatively. The report aims to assess how social media communication channels affect Marriott's operations, customer engagement, and overall market success. A timeline for the research process is also included, outlining key activities and their corresponding weeks.

DIGITAL TRANSFORMATION

TABLE OF CONTENTS
INTRODUCTION...........................................................................................................................1
Title.........................................................................................................................................1
Background of Study..............................................................................................................1
Research Aim and Objective..................................................................................................1
Literature review....................................................................................................................2
Research methodologies.........................................................................................................3
Time line.................................................................................................................................5
REFERENCES................................................................................................................................6

INTRODUCTION
Title
“The influence of social media and how it affects the way business operates at Marriott Group of
Hotels”
Background of Study
With the advancement of technology and wide spread usage of social media
Communication channel for the promotion of business activities and function is the major reason
that will make the cited firm to use the social media Communication channel (Ngai, Tao and
Moon, 2015.). The extensive usage of social media is major tool that will help a business
organisation to have a better control over the wide range of operations. This will support firm to
promote its products and services, get insight about the changing needs and demands of
customers and develop a good quality product and services accordingly. Besides this, It will
emerge as the powerful tool for the hospitality firm to build a good network with its clients or
customers (Agnihotri and et.al. 2016). Tools like Facebook, twitter, Instagram etc will help in
better management of promotional processes that will support the growth of the hospitality firm
and have a sustainability in market. Besides this, the effective utilization of these tools and
techniques will lead to the effective rise in the insight or thought process hat will help in better
development of services on the basis of outcome received through the data investigation process.
The these tools and platforms will also act as one of the major medium of appropriate research
process for the cited hospitality firm.
For the research, Marriott Group of Hotels is being considered as the entity of context. It
is a well-known brand that works in hospitality industry. The social media communication
channels will lay a very deep influence on functionalities of cited trade firm and help the
enterprise to gain a good market position. Besides this, it will help the organisation to achieve its
targeted goals provide its customers with high quality of product and services that will help the
firm to have a good satisfaction level (Fan and Gordon, 2014). The usage of social media
communication channels is very common now days and thus, the hospitality firms like Marriott
group can use it to increase its effectiveness and market sustainability. The effective use will
keep the cited hospitality firm updated by providing a good insight about new and innovative
ideas, high level of product and services that will help in better and sustainable growth and
development of cited business firm (Dahnil And et.al., 2014). This research process will help in
1

the better management of the different ideas and measures that help in effective rise in efficiency
and operational significance of the cited business organisation that will help in meeting the
requirements of its researcher or the customers of hospitality firm. This will help in increasing
the productivity and revenue generation of the enterprise.
Research Aim and Objective
Aim:
To assess the influence of social media Communication channel on hospitality firm and
how it impacts the business operations of Marriott Group.
Objectives:
On the basis of above topic, the researcher has developed the following objectives to
attain, which are as follows:
 To understand social media Communication channel
 To assess the effective measures that will be used in a firm using the social media tools or
communication channels.
 To assess the influence of social media on business operations of Marriott Group.
 To evaluate the way social media communication channels are been used for execution of
effective business operations (Grayson and Hodges, 2017).
 How social media will help the cited enterprise or firm in gaining the better success in the
market.
Literature review
In accordance with the views of Ngai, Tao and Moon, 2015, different social media
theories have been taken into consideration that laid a very deep and crucial impact on the
business operations of a company. The adoption of various constructs and conceptual frame
works will help the Marriott group to develop effective and innovative services that will help the
firm to meet and fulfil requirements of their customers. This will also help in meeting the
serviceable needs or an organisation and will improve the overall functionality of cited
hospitality firm. This approach will support better growth and development of Marriott Group
and help in generation of good amount of revenue. Other than this, as per the ideas of Fan and
Gordon, 2014, the social media Communication channel and tools can be utilized as a powerful
tool for conducting the impelling and detailed analysis of needs and demands of customers and
develop high quality products and services in hospitality firm. This will help the firm to gain a
2

better control and help in effective rise in operational efficiency and will lead to the meeting of
targeted goals. Besides this, it will help the firm to enhance the communication process that will
help in effective management of customer's requirements and having a good control over the
business operations.
Grayson and Hodges, 2017, stated that better management of the such Communication channel
will be a major competitive advantage that will also as the major handling of the various
operations that will lay a very deep impact on a wide range of business operations. It will support
the adoption of different operations that will involve the different operations that will enable the
cited business firm to fulfil its CSR in much efficient manner. This will support the better
management of operations that will lay a very deep impact on growth and development of
business operations. Other than this, Uldam, 2016, stated that the effective corporate
management will lay a very deep and essential influence on rise in social networking and
meeting of targeted goals by Marriott Group. It will aid in increasing the core visibility of firm
and will help the cited firm to improve the overall functionality of business enterprise The use of
this media will help in better surveillance and tracking down of weak points and aspects of the
functionality of enterprise in a very effective way. Besides this, Zeng and Gerritsen, 2014, have
cited that the better management of the travel and tourism will be deeply affected by usage of
social media. It will also aid in development of wide range of perspective that will help in better
growth and development of business entity. The usage of social media to promote the tourism
will lay a very deep impact on overall operations of Marriott Group. Other than this, it will help
in promoting the goods and services that are meant to be offered by business enterprise Other
than this, Wang, Pauleen and Zhang, 2016, have described that the better handling of the B2B
communication will lay a very deep and significant impact on overall operations of company.
Thus, the organisation will take the effective measures to sustain a good interpersonal
relationship with other firms that will help in its better growth and development. Besides this, the
B2B communication will also improve the overall business performance of Marriott Group.
Apart from this, Paniagua and Sapena, 2014, indicate that the effective
management of social media is closely related to the overall business performance and thus have
a big and deep impact on productivity and profitability of business organisation. It supports the
adoption of wide range of measures that help in improving the business of cited business firm.
Other than this, Trainor and et,al., 2014, the effective implementation and utilization of social
3

media approaches helps the firm to build a better relationship or networking with its clients and
improve its overall performances. It helps the cited entity to have a good control over the CRM
approaches that are been undertaken by Marriott Group. The better utilization of technology will
help in effective improvement in customer satisfaction level. Likewise, Agnihotri and et.al, 2016,
also stated that the usage of social media impacts the contentment level of customers and thus
helps the cited business organisation to promote and sell its products and services in a much
effective and better way. Dahnil and et.al, 2014, stated and formulated certain factors that are
been taken in consideration by organisation that helps in rise in marketing operations using social
media.
Research methodologies
Research design: For the project, an effective exploratory research design has been used that
help in the better handling of the various insight of the customers and gain a good control over
the business operations that are been taken in consideration by Marriott group to have a better
insight of wide range of business operations related to the usage of social media Communication
channel like Facebook, Twitter etc (Uldam 2016).
Research philosophy: The realism philosophy is been used for the effective management of the
research process as it helps in better handling of a wide range of business operations. The realism
philosophy helps in gaining the significant and precise data as per the requirement criteria of the
hospitality firm. This will also help in meeting the needs and demands of the customers in much
effective and significant manner (Zeng and Gerritsen., 2014).
Research approach: For the research process, the inductive research approach will be used that
will help in the better management of wide range of business operations that will be effectively
executed by Marriott Group. The Inductive research approach will help in better management of
wide range of business operations that will lay a significant impact on business functions and
help the cited business firm to gather effective knowledge on how social media approaches affect
its functionality. Effective questionnaire or interview method is used to gather the crucial data
for analysis (Wang, Pauleen and Zhang, 2016).
Data sampling: The data collection approach is one of the most important and crucial processes
that is required to be taken in thought process for gathering the impelling and precise data for
examining the influence of social media communication channels and tools on the execution of
4

the business operations and how it impacts the growth and development of the cited hospitality
business firm. The sample size of the respondents will be 30 people including the customers as
well as the employee's of Marriott Group. This will help the firm to have a good idea and
detailed knowledge of the various sorts of business operations in a better and effective way
(Paniagua and Sapena, 2014).
Data analysis: This research process will involve the quantitative process of data analysis that
will lay a very deep and critical impact on the overall business operations of Marriott Group.
This approach or analysis method will help the firm to convert the gather data into a epochal
information that will provide the cited business firm with a detailed insight over the impact or
influence of social media Communication channel on business operations of Marriott Group
(Trainor And et,al., 2014).
Time line
The effective process will be followed that will help in the better handling of the various
operations that will help in the effective following of the research process that will help in the
better management of the different operation. This will also help in the rise in the overall
effectiveness and the adoption of the different research processes that will help in better
management of data investigation process. Other than this, the rimes line will help I n gaining an
assessment that will support the better handling of business operations in the organisation. The
time frames that are been followed will help in the better handling of wide range of various
research processes, that will be followed by the researcher or the information investigator. The
time line of the current research project are:
Activities
Week 1 Week 2
& 3
Week 4 Week 5 Week 6 Week 7 Week 8
& 9
Introduction of the
research
Assessment process
Collection of Primary and
Secondary Data
5

Data analysis
Research Design
Selection
Literature Review
Recording The Outcomes
Summarizing the result
6

REFERENCES
Books and journals
Agnihotri, R. and et.al., 2016. Social media: Influencing customer satisfaction in B2B
sales. Industrial Marketing Management. 53. pp.172-180.
Dahnil, M.I. And et.al., 2014. Factors influencing SMEs adoption of social media
marketing. Procedia-social and behavioral sciences. 148. pp.119-126.
Fan, W. and Gordon, M.D., 2014. The power of social media analytics. Communications of the
ACM. 57(6). pp.74-81.
Grayson, D. and Hodges, A., 2017. Corporate social opportunity!: Seven steps to make corporate
social responsibility work for your business. Routledge.
Ngai, E.W., Tao, S.S. and Moon, K.K., 2015. Social media research: Theories, constructs, and
conceptual frameworks. International Journal of Information Management. 35(1). pp.33-
44.
Paniagua, J. and Sapena, J., 2014. Business performance and social media: Love or
hate?. Business horizons. 57(6). pp.719-728.
Trainor, K.J. And et,al., 2014. Social media technology usage and customer relationship
performance: A capabilities-based examination of social CRM. Journal of Business
Research. 67(6). pp.1201-1208.
Uldam, J., 2016. Corporate management of visibility and the fantasy of the post-political: Social
media and surveillance. New Media & Society. 18(2). pp.201-219.
Wang, W.Y., Pauleen, D.J. and Zhang, T., 2016. How social media applications affect B2B
communication and improve business performance in SMEs. Industrial Marketing
Management. 54. pp.4-14.
Zeng, B. and Gerritsen, R., 2014. What do we know about social media in tourism? A
review. Tourism Management Perspectives. 10. pp.27-36.
Online
7