Organisational Consultancy: Strategic Analysis of Marriott Hotel

This report presents an organizational consultancy for JW Marriott Grosvenor House London, focusing on internal and external business environment analysis using SWOT and PESTLE methodologies. It identifies key strengths such as brand image and cleanliness, and weaknesses including high prices and information security vulnerabilities. Opportunities for website development and innovative customer service are highlighted, alongside threats from competitors and the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic. The PESTLE analysis examines political, economic, social, technological, legal, and environmental factors influencing the hotel's operations. The report addresses critical issues like poor customer service, IT problems, and website usability, proposing an action plan with recommendations such as employee training, IT infrastructure improvements, and website redesign. The conclusion emphasizes the importance of regular business environment scanning to mitigate risks and leverage opportunities for sustainable growth and profitability, encouraging the hotel to convert weaknesses into opportunities.

Organisational
Consultancy
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Table of Contents
Executive summary.............................................................................................................3
Introduction.......................................................................................................................6
Scope and analysis.............................................................................................................6
Overview of the hotel...................................................................................................................6
SWOT analysis..............................................................................................................................7
PESTLE analysis.............................................................................................................................8
Department descriptions .................................................................................................10
Findings and results..........................................................................................................17
Action plan ......................................................................................................................20
Recommendations ...........................................................................................................22
Conclusion .......................................................................................................................23
REFERENCES.....................................................................................................................25
Online-.............................................................................................................................26
Executive summary
Internal and external business environment will affect the basic operations of the
company. SWOT analysis model is used to identify the area of strength and
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weakness of the company as well as opportunities for growth and threats to defend.
Marriott hotels are gaining strength by their brand image and hygienic factors of their
hotel rooms. Marriott hotels keep their rooms clean so that more customers will get
attracted and their high brand image is used to increase the total number of
customers for the hotel. On the other hand, their high prices of services will also
impact bad upon customers decision making process for using their hospitality
services. Ineffective information security like hacking of personal data of Marriott
hotel's customers and employees will impact bad upon their high brand image.
PESTEL analysis is used to identify positive and negative impacts of external
business environment of an organisation. In context of Marriott hotel, there are
gaining opportunity from UK's political factor because they are having less
restrictions on their trading activities. Hence, the company can import their raw
material such as mattresses, furniture’s, and few others from other countries where
they found good quality in low prices. On the other hand, their economic factors like
high employment rate will also help them to hire skilled employees for their
operational activities. The high cost of raw material can be impact negative upon the
performance of hotel. Social factors of UK population are also play an important role
for the growth of Marriott hotel because their customers prefer more quality products
and their high quality of lifestyle to enjoy their life will help hotel to offer those
services to their customers which can provide satisfaction for the customers. On the
other hand, using high quality of machines and tools will improve their productivity
and profitability. It is also essential for the hotel to follow their legal regulations to
survive in the market and must focus on sustainable changes within their
organisation.
Identifying the organisational issues and make strategies to mitigate them is
also one of the most important tasks for the company to achieve their growth. In
context of Marriott, there are three issues which are impacting bad upon their growth
like their employees are not able to serve appropriate customer services to their
targeted customers. Most of their customers complaint regarding unresponsiveness
of the hotel toward their mails and texts. Second issues are IT problem and this
happen due to their technological challenges. They are mostly highlighted for their
insecure data protection tools. In the year 2018, the data of customers and
employees get hacked by the third party. Third and the last issue of Marriott hotel is
regarding their website and mobile applications. Their customers complaint that they
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are facing issues in reserving their rooms through their website and applications.
Hence, Marriott hotels must modify their website in such as manner which help
customers to use them effectively. It is essential for them to analyse the issues and
make effective measures to solve them as soon as possible before it impacts upon
their productivity and profitability. The following report also covers action plan to
mitigate the issues which was founded in the Marriott hotel. For example, for the
issues of poor customer services, Marriott hotel must hire new employees and
provide effective training to them to make sure that they will enhance their skills to
provide effective services to their customers to gain their high satisfaction. It is also
recommended in this report that the superior must measure the performance of their
employees on regular basis to analyse which employee is performing well and which
one is not so that the training opportunities will be provided to correct group of
workforces. On the other hand, it is also recommended that the hotel will take the
advice of IT expert to mitigate their IT problems within their organisation. IT expert
will help them to suggest few advance and modern tools and software which will help
them to protect their data from external threats and maintain the decorum of the
hotel. Secondly, hiring IT employees will also help the hotel to save their charges
which they spend on external IT services whenever they need an IT solution. Hiring
IT employees will help them to solve their issues quickly without paying additional
charges. The last recommendation is made regarding their website. They can use
various tools to develop effective designing of their website and mobile application
such as Web.com, Chrome DevTools, Grunt, and few others. They are also required
to measure the performance of their website that how much visitors visit their
website and what they are searching on their search tool through Google Page
Speed Insights, Gtmetrix, Dotcom-Monitor and many others.
They also set time to achieve this solution like for mitigating the risk of poor
customer service, they choose 6 months’ time duration, 8 months for solving IT
problem and 1.5 months to develop effective website for their organisation which will
satisfy their customers. It is concluded that regular business environment scanning
will help the organisations to analyse their issues and risk and they can make
effective strategies to reduce the impacts of these risks upon their organisation.
Analysing strengths will help the company to gain high profit from these factors and
analysing weakness will help the company to work harder to convert their weakness
upon their opportunities.
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Introduction
It is essential for an organisation to identify their internal and external business
environment so that they can analyse the risk and make corrective actions to
mitigate the risk (Hodges, 2018). JW Marriott Grosvenor House London is a 5-star
service and luxurious hotel which is chosen for this report as the main organisation
to complete the report. There are various kinds of issues which are faced by this
hotel and due to which its operations get affected. Few of the issues are poor
customer service where most of the customers complaint that their mails regarding
any doubt or clarification of services will not get responded by the hotel (Top 10
Marriott Complaints and How They Can Be Resolved in 2019, 2019). Another issue
is IT problem where Marriott hotel is facing issues with reservations of guests, and
this happen due to technological challenges. And the last issues faced by customers
of Marriott hotel are regarding using their websites and applications for booking their
rooms. The search page of Marriott hotel is unable to answer the question
appropriately which is asked.
The following report will cover SWOT analysis and PESTEL analysis, wide range of
management techniques, positive and negative aspect of analysis, findings and
results, action plan to mitigate problem and recommendations. SWOT and PESTEL
analysis are used to identify internal and external business environment of Marriott
hotel so that the hotel will use the opportunity for growth and make effective
decisions for mitigating the risks and promote productivity for their hotel operations.
Hence, the main purpose of this report is to mitigate three risks of Marriott hotel
which is mentioned above by using SWOT and PESTEL analysis.
Scope and analysis
Overview of the hotel
JW Marriott Grosvenor House London is a 5-star service and luxurious hotel which is
located on Park Lane in Central London. They are having various kinds of rooms like
Deluxe room and superior room. The Ballroom of this hotel is perfect for wedding
and society events. This room has capability of 500 guests for conducting an event
(JW Marriott Grosvenor House London, 2022). They are having 420 total numbers of
rooms within their hotel, and it is founded in 1929 which means this hotel is having
93 years of age in the market. Recently the hotel is having 4.5-star rating for their
location, service, and hygiene. Recently, the hotel is facing the issues related to their
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website. Most of the customers are complaining that they are unable to use their
website appropriately for their reservations and secondly, customers are also
complaining that the hotel does not value for the money, and they charge high prices
for their services where most of the customers remain unsatisfied with their high-
priced services (JW Marriott Grosvenor House Mayfair, London, England, 2022). The
mentioned hotel is having 23 event rooms with 5,449 square meter total event
spaces. The largest space capacity of hotel is 2,000 guests with 29 breakout rooms
(JW Marriott, 2022).
SWOT analysis
Strength  High brand image
 Clean rooms
Weaknesses  High prices
 Ineffective information security
Opportunities  Effective and attractive design of website.
 Innovation in customer services
Threats  Competition
 COVID pandemic
Explanation of SWOT analysis of Marriott Hotel-
Marriott hotels are having various strengths like high brand image and clean
rooms and many others.
Strength-
They are 5-star hotel which is having high brand image at market and due to their
high brand image, most of the customers prefer to use their services more than once
because they have trust on the hotel. Secondly, hygienic factor is also one of the
biggest factors for the strength of the hotel (Brandi and Elkjaer, 2019). Their rooms,
dining halls, event halls, waiting area, garden and many other places of the hotel are
maintained clean.
Weakness-
On the other hand, the main weakness of the chosen hotel is their high prices. They
are having high prices than their competitors which can influence their customers to
use other hotel services as compared to Marriott. Hence, this can impact negative
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upon customer base. Secondly, they are also receiving more complaints about
ineffective information security because in the year 2018, the reservations database
ofMarriott hotel was hacked and the data of 500 million customers was leaked
(Informative S.W.O.T Analysis of Marriott, 2022).
Opportunities-
Marriott hotels are having appropriate opportunity for the development of their
website in a proper manner which can be easily understood by their customers and
can be used effectively. Secondly, they can also use innovative way to serve their
customers so that they will gain high satisfaction. Innovation services like they can
welcome their customers respectfully by giving them a booklet of flowers.
Threats-
On the other hand, their competitors like Premier Inn hotels, Four Season Hotel,
Hilton hotel and resorts and many others are their biggest threat which attract more
customers toward their effective services and low prices (Damasceno and Abreu,
2018). COVID pandemic also impacted badly upon gaining revenue for Marriott
hotel. Government regulations such as lock down, social distancing did not allow the
customers to use hospitality services openly.
PESTLE analysis
PESTEL factors Their positive and negative impacts
Political factors  Fewer restrictions for trading activities for UK based
companies.
 UK's good relationship with other countries.
Economic factors  High employment rate
 High cost of raw material
Social factors  High purchasing power of customers
 Lifestyle of UK's population
Technological factors  Using advance and modern tools and machines.
 Designing effective website to meet customer’s
needs.
Legal factors  Health and Safety at Work Act, 1974
 Furniture and Furnishing (Fire Safe) Regulations
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1988/1989. 1993 and 2010.
Environmental factors  Marriott Global Cleanliness Council
 UN Sustainable development Goals.
Explanation of PESTEL analysis of Marriott Hotel-
Political factors- In context of UK, they are having no trading restrictions for UK
based companies which means the companies based in UK can import and export
their products and services easily without many restrictions. This can be beneficial
for Marriott hotel to gain more international customers. Secondly, UK is having good
relationship with other countries which can help Marriott hotel to expand their
business in other countries and gain high revenue.
Economic factors-According to D. Clark, 2022, unemployment rate of England was
4.2%, 4.1% in Scotland, 3.1% in Wales and 2,7% in Northern Ireland
(Unemployment rate in the United Kingdom from May 1992 to December 2021, by
country, 2022). This will help Marriott hotel to hire experienced and skilled
employees in their staff members so that they will manage the operational activity of
the hotel and provide effective customer service to their targeted customers. UK is
also having high cost of raw material which can impact negative upon Marriott hotel
to purchase their raw material like mattresses, furniture’s, eatable items to make
dishes and many others at high cost.
Social factors- UK's population is having high purchasing power which means they
are more focused on purchasing high quality of products and services (Musa and
Suryono, 2022). Hence, it is the good opportunity for Marriott hotels to offer high
quality of services to their customers to gain high revenue. Secondly, the lifestyle of
UK population regarding travelling is positive which means the population of UK
prefer to travel more and enjoy their life at the fullest. Hence, this can be the
opportunity for Marriott hotels.
Technological factors- It is a good opportunity for Marriott hotels to use advanced
and high quality of tools and machines like smart energy management, big data
protection by using advanced software, smart room keys, automatic changing lights
of rooms and many others. It is also suggested for the Marriott hotel to use effective
software to design their website like Adobe Dreamweaver, Weebly, WebFlow.
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Legal factors- It consist of all legal laws and regulations of a nation. In context of
UK, their Health, and Safety at Work Act, 1974 states that employer must focus on
safety measures at their workplace for their employees so that their employees will
not get injured while performing their official task (de Sousa and Castañeda-Ayarza,
2022). In context of Marriott hotel, they are having fire extinguisher at their kitchen
area and each floor to protect the employees and customers from fire. Secondly,
according to Dr. David Hawkridge, 2011, Furniture and Furnishing (Fire Safe)
Regulations 1988/1989. 1993 and 2010 law of UK how hospitality industry states that
every hotel in UK must purchase that furniture which will not spread fire quickly in
case of any accident in hotel related to fire (Flammability Guide: Fire Safety of
Furniture and Furnishings in the Home, 2011).
Environmental factors- in context of Marriott hotel they launched Marriott Global
Cleanliness Council to focus more on cleanliness factors or the hotel in pandemic
situation. Marriott sustainability and social impact platform, serve 360: Doing Good in
Every Direction guide the company’s commitment to make a positive and sustainable
impact (Marriott International Provides Updates on Sustainability and Social Impact
Progress, 2020).
Department descriptions
In context of JW Marriott Grosvenor House, there are various kinds of department
which will help the hotel to conduct their operational work and few of the department
and their benefits and limitations are mentioned below-
Front Office Department- This department is responsible for solving customer’s
quarries regarding their services and facilities (Schuetz, Mair and Schrefl, 2018).
Benefits of front office department-
 Reduce call durations- One of the best benefits of front office department is
to reduce the time taken to answer a customer issue. This will help the
chosen organisation to satisfy their customers by answering the calls quicker.
 Less training- The employees of front office department need less training as
compared to other department employees. Hence, chosen organisation is not
required to spend more time and efforts for their front office department
employees.
Limitations of front office department-
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 Less salary- Less salary is given to the employees of this department which
is one of the biggest demotivation factors for the employees to perform well in
this department.
 Answering many calls and messages all together- It is tough for an
employee to answer calls continuously. This can create mistake or error for
employees to convey wrong information to wrong customer.
Solution- It is recommended to the Front Office department of Marriott hotel that
they must provide appropriate salaries and higher salaries to the employees of their
front office department to motivate them for better work and must analyse their
needs and wants to fulfil them appropriately. Purchasing high quality of machines to
answer the calls in computerized manner will reduce the efforts of employees and it
can reduce the errors.
Housekeeping Department- This department is responsible for cleaning rooms,
dining area, garden, and other area of hotel (Martínez-Martínez et. al., 2019). In
context of Marriott Hotel, their benefits and limitations are mentioned below-
Benefits of housekeeping department-
 Helps to maintain cleanliness of hotel areas- It helps the hotel to look
beautiful and hygienic for their guests and this is one of the most essential
factors in this department because it makes customers more satisfied.
 Fewer efforts in recruitment and selection- Hotels are not required to pay
more attention to test their skills and they directly assign them job on the basis
of their existing employee’s recommendations.
Limitations of housekeeping department-
 May disturb the guests- Housekeeping department is responsible for
cleaning the rooms on timely basis. This may disturb their guests again and
again for cleaning purpose.
 Unethical way of replying customers- Most of the hotels hires
housekeeping department t employees without conducting their interviews.
Hence, sometimes they hire bad mannered employee who reply customers
rudely. This can make customers dissatisfied with the hotel services.
Solution- It is recommended to the Marriott hotel that they must train about time
management to their employees in housekeeping department. They can teach them
that how politely they are required to reply their customers in case of any quarries.
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Secondly, they must clean the customer’s room when they were not present in the
room like when they left the room for dinner or any other purpose.
HR Department- This department is responsible for managing manpower and other
essential resources of the organisation (Filimonau, 2021). In context of Marriott hotel,
it is essential for them to manage their employees well to gain high satisfaction of
customers. The benefits and limitations of HR department of Marriott hotel is
mentioned below-
Benefits of HR department-
 Help the hotel to hire skilled employees- HR department help the hotel to
hire skilled and talented employees for their each department. This will
enhance the productivity and profitability for hotel.
 Resolve organisational conflicts- HR department help companies to
resolve their internal conflicts most of the time. They analyse the factors of
conflict and communicate to both parties to resolve their conflict.
Limitations of HR department-
 HR guidelines and restrictions limits the flexibility- The guidelines and
restrictions which are made by HR department limits the flexibility for
employees to manage some organisational issue by their own due to
restrictions. Hence, it lowers down the flexibility within the organisation.
 Involve in quick decision making- Sometimes HR department make quick
decisions without analysing the organisational current environment.
Solution- It is recommended to the HR department of Marriott hotel that they must
prepare those guidelines and rules which could not lower the flexibility within the
hotel. They must allow their employees to handle issues at their own level if they feel
that they are able to solve the problem.
Marketing Department- This department of Marriott hotel is responsible for
conducting marketing research and analyse the preference of customers, current
trends of growth and few other factors which can be used by the hotel to enhance
their productivity (Je, Khoo and Yang, 2021). Benefits and limitations of marketing
department of Marriott hotel is mentioned below-
Benefits of marketing department-
 Helps to analyse customer’s preference- Marketing department help the
hotel to analyse the needs and preference of their targeted customers and
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