Marriott Hotel: Innovation Strategy and Market Positioning Report

This report examines the innovation strategy of Marriott International, building upon previous coursework to chart a roadmap for future growth and sustainability. It analyzes market trends, including the impact of technology, security, and changing customer demands within the hospitality industry. The report employs PESTLE and Porter's Five Forces analyses to assess the external environment, highlighting the vulnerabilities of the industry to political factors like terrorism. It also benchmarks Marriott against competitors like Wyndham International. The report emphasizes the need for change management and training to implement innovations such as AI integration, improved security, and recycling. The goal is to enhance market positioning, achieve sustainability, and create a competitive advantage for Marriott Hotel.

Managing Innovation

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
The following assignment is a continued part of the previously submitted coursework in
which the information was provided about the innovation history and capabilities of the Marriott
Hotel for their future opportunities to grow and develop. This report focuses on trends and
patterns of the market to identify that hospitality industry can be improved approached for
recycling, integration of technology through AI and improved security measures through
biometric entry. But it will not be easier for an organisation to interpret the same and apply in
context of operations as business will be required to carry suitable financial and human
resources. There will be a need to take numerous crucial efforts to identify feasibility of the
innovation and its benefit to the business. To enhance its capabilities numerous efforts relating to
training and development will be undertaken.
The major purpose of this report build upon the innovation considering the finding of
CW1 so that better market positioning and sustainability of the business could be attained. This
study signifies a broad area to explore the knowledge base towards implementing a business plan
with the help of innovation.
The consideration of external business factor have been helpful in determining that
hospitality industry is vulnerable to political factor, specifically terrorism. Therefore,
organisation is recommended to evaluate each factor before making any significant changes in
operations. The organisation who are operating in the same industry such as Wyndham
international have been quite ahead of this business and are undertaking such crucial efforts
towards sustainability. To incorporate the innovations in the business operations, an organisation
needs to emphasize on undertaking crucial change management plans so that better output could
be availed.

Table of Contents
EXECUTIVE SUMMARY ..........................................................................................................2
INTRODUCTION...........................................................................................................................1
MAIN BODY...................................................................................................................................1
Future of 2020 and beyond ....................................................................................................1
The organisations innovations requirement 2020 and beyond...............................................5
Building the future innovation capability for the organisation..............................................7
CONCLUSION..............................................................................................................................10
REFERENCES..............................................................................................................................11

INTRODUCTION
Innovation can be defined as the process by which the translation of an idea, invention or
thinking takes place of a good or service so as to create value for the customers and provide
satisfaction to them (Brow and Osborne, 2012). The company chosen for the successful
completion of this assignment is The Marriott international Inc. which is an American
Multinational Hospitality Company founded in the year 1927 and is providing their customers
with the facility of lodging.
The main purpose of this assignment is to capitalise upon the finding of CW1 and build
an innovation road map for the business so that sustainability in the business operations could be
achieved. In addition to this, the assignment will also take into consideration the impact of macro
environmental factors on the working of an organisation with the help of PESTLE Analysis
(Abdelkafi, Makhotin and Posselt, 2013). The assignment will also focus on the ways by which
the Marriott Hotel can make innovations for future requirements 2020. Finally, the assignment
will put focus on exploring the capabilities of the Marriott Hotel in order to innovate further in
future with the help of Roadmap that provides step by step execution of the innovation plan.
MAIN BODY
Future of 2020 and beyond
Hospitality industry is a group of companies which offer services related with lodging,
transportation, accommodation, event planning and many more. It is one of the fastest growing
industry among them hotel segment is considered to be more profitable sector and competitive
sector. The future of this industry can be forecasted to be very dynamic as there will be a
continuous changes in technology (AR,VR), technologies will be employed to facilitate
interaction with customers and deal with their grievances. Marriott will be the sector leading
service providers as they will be focus on acquiring some start-ups such as Airbnb (Tidd and
Bessant, 2014). The major threats will be frequently changing customer demands and cyber
security. Opportunities will be accessed through using social media for marketing and bookings.
This become possible due to innovations that players bring on regular bases within the industry
to stay competitive and bring variation in services to provide maximum customer satisfaction
(Bartlett, Doz and Hedlund, 2013). sThe pestle analysis of hotel industry fro future innovation is
explained below:
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Political: - It includes several factors that directly affect the future of hotel industry as
political regime, political stability, security laws, terrorism and more. (PESTEL analysis of the
UK, 2017). Therefore, concerning on these factors, hotels need to concern on improving their
services by bringing new innovations in order to attract more and more tourist to avail services.
For instance, with the increasing demand of security, Hilton has invented its process with the
help of internet of thing where it connect the smart phone with door as a key to open it up.
Marriot hotel operates at large level and majorly works for attaining higher growth and success
within marketplace (Schneider and Spieth, 2013). The company has future plans.
Main Factors that will affect Hotel in 2020 beyond include corruption, conflicts,
terrorism, hostility, technology management challenges, understanding of global context and
services spectrums demand learning system. One of the best effective opportunities is technology
with the help of which numerous advancements can be gained.
Economical: - It analysis factors like inflation-deflation rate, FDI, taxes, foreign
exchanges that directly influence the business operations. UK is considered as 5th largest
economy around the world and most popular place for FDIs. This provided several opportunities
in front of hotel industry as they call investors to fund their ideas in order to bring innovation in
services (Belussi and Staber, 2012). The major focus of the firm is to become the largest
hospitality industry within 2020 in terms of financial norms, thus company is concern over its
operations and economical aspects in respect to attaining higher growth and success.
Social: - This includes custom, norms and culture which group of people follows at the
place where company is operating its business. After recovering from Brexit issue the living
standard of people in UK get improved as a result of which they started demanding for more
better and customised services from hotels to enjoy their holidays and special events. This help
in influencing the players of hotel industry to bring more innovative services in front of its
customers for creating value and achieving sustainability at marketplace (Jansen, Cusumano and
Brinkkemper, 2013). For example, Holiday Inn is providing online service of customisation in
accordance with the demand and budget of the customers. Marriott is focused on adopting all
social changes in respect to become a competitive brand for the other hospitality organisation
dealing in the same industry.
Technological:- UK is technologically advanced that lead towards supporting Hotel
industry up to a great extend in improving their services by performing technological
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advancement in its service offering and operations (Berglund and Sandström, 2013). For
instance, Holiday Inn heritage augmented reality within its hotels in UK for providing more
realistic and virtual representation of Olympic in front of customer using smartphones. The
company is majorly providing facilities to corporate and high standard people, so the company is
focuses over adopting all kind of technological changes in their operations for betterment of
customers services. for adopting rapid advancement company will focuses on implementing the
advancement that will take place during the year of 2020 beyond for offering effective services
than its rivals.
Legal: - Hotels are required to focus toward bringing innovation to improve their security
facilities. For example, The Dragon Hotel Hangzhou in China is making use of Smart Cards to
unlock the rooms for the safety and security of their customers items. The company mainly
works for attaining future benefits; thus Marriott is majorly concern over legal norms and
regulatory frame works as the operations of the firm are implemented as per the legal norms
which are providing by the government (Frankenberger and et. al., 2013). The company will
assure to adopt all required changes in respect to maintaining their sustainability in future.
Environmental:- The government of different countries have become much strict in
relation to the environment due to the emission of harmful gases which made the government
strict for all industries. In order to avoid legal issue related with environmental errors, Wyndham
Worldwide focuses over performing actions that promote environmental sustainability and for
which it uses solar panels for electricity so that natural resources can be kept safe for longer
duration.
Therefore, it has been summarised from above analysis that future of hotel industry
beyond 2020, will highly affect by political, socio-economical and factors that will mainly
impact upon its operations. For example, instances of terrorism are rising which may affect
tourism in the future to a significant level. The economical and social trends in the future
indicate that there will be a positive influence in travelling of people as they will be possessed
with higher disposable income (Drucker, 2014). Technological advancement have become a
frequent phenomenon, therefore it is essential for a business to regularly update their tools and
techniques so that sustainability could be enhanced. The strictness in legislation can be expected
to which a business have to make sure that laws by the government are complied with.
Porter's five force model:
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Porter's five force model is considered as a holistic strategy framework which took proper
strategic decision away from determining the current available competition within market. This
model helps Marriott hotel in building a sustainable position within market and attain higher
growth and success. This model is based on five aspects that are associated as below:
Threats of new entry: New entrants is basically emphasising on brings innovation, new ways of
doing things and put pressure on Marriott hotel by implementing lower pricing strategy, reducing
costs, and rendering new value propositions to the buyers (Drucker, 2012). Considering the
trends for tourism, it can be forecasted that there will be an influx of new hotel businesses due to
low brand loyalty, week government regulation, access to suppliers and distributors will become
easy and more.
Bargaining power of suppliers: In the hotel industry, if suppliers bargaining power is high then
suppliers will extract higher price from the Marriott for the purpose of attaining growth and It
will impact the potential of Marriott to hold over above average profits in Hotels industry.
Considering the future, it can be said that bargaining power of suppliers will be higher as there
will be numerous businesses competing for the same customer segment.
Bargaining power of buyers: Buyers are the key aspect of organisational growth and they want
to take the benefits of best offering of the firm in less prices. This put pressure on the hotel
industry. If the buyers bargaining power is high, then Marriott Hotel usually tend to cause the
product price down thus limiting the potential of the Marriott to gain higher and sustainable
profits by facilitating good services (Dawson and Andriopoulos, 2014). In 2020, bargaining
power of buyers will rise tremendously as there will be large number of hotels competing to
serve a particular customer.
Threat of substitute products: This is the major threat for an organisation, thus When a new
product or service is effective in meeting the needs and wants of people in different manner, then
the profitability of the firm suffers. In the case of high substitute product Marriott Hotel is
concern over analysing new needs by conducting R&D or it risks losing out to disruptors in the
business. Considering the trend of 2020, it is essential for a business to create a distinct identity
in the market so that threat of substitute goods could be avoided as they are on a rise.
Rivalry among existing players: In the situation when the competition among the available
players in the same industry is intense then it will drive down the organisational prices and
decrease the overall profitability of the firm. If competition within market is intense then it
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becomes hard for current available players such as Marriott hotel to earn sustainable profits.
Rivalry between hospitality service providers will intensify as more and more businesses are
offering similar products and services to same set of customers.
The organisations innovations requirement 2020 and beyond
In order to enhance future of hotel industry, it becomes highly essential for all
organisations that deal in this sector to create innovation in its services. For this purpose, they
must concern on requirement of 2020 and beyond. In context with Marriott international Inc., it
belongs to hospitality industry which maintain its business operations by managing a range of
franchises of hotels and lodging related facilities over several geographical regions (Brown and
Osborne, 2012). It is a five-star hotel which always tried to maintain variations in its high quality
services for capturing larger market share through innovating its practices on regular basis as per
the changes in external environment. But apart from these efforts, there are number of
competitors present in industry who are racing over capturing one another's share by bringing
innovation in regular basis. So in order to maintain sustainability at marketplace it is very
essential for Marriott International to determine the gap between performance and deficiency in
its practices (Björkdahl and Holmén, 2013). This will help Marriott in identifying the innovation
requirement that support in improving practices to stand apart from crowd and achieve
sustainability in marketplace.
Gap & deficiency:- Marriott is required to bridge the gap between the performances of
Wyndham international hotels as it stand over first position. Wyndham international has decide
to focuses toward using innervational technology for involving solar panels, ozone and uniform
(Sustainability and Innovation go Hand in Hand, 2019). But Marriott hotel is only working
toward reducing the wastage and not to recycling product which is a gap between the both hotels
(Sustain responsible operations, 2019). This shows the large gap due to which Marriott hotel is
facing in term of its profitability, market share and performance. Therefore, it is required to
remove this gap by working over their deficiency by bringing new innovations (Brown and
Osborne, 2012).
Requirement:- In order to improve its market position and achieving industrial
sustainability, Marriott hotel is required to bring new innovations that contribute toward
improving its performance and attracting more customers. Below presented in a brief road map
of innovation in context of Marriott Hotel by 2020.
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Following are the innovations that Marriott can bring by 2020: Recycling drone: Marriott hotel can use drone to recycle its waste material and convert
it into useful things. For this the managers of housekeeping department will send drone
over the round in the gap of 2-3 days which are attached with a small pickup hook which
took all the waste material such as cans, paper and other stuff which would be then
recycled to make it a useful thing (Drones Increasingly Finding a Place in the Solid
Waste Industry, 2019).
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 Integration of AI assistance: Marriott hotel can also use artificial intelligence for
providing its customer a better experience throughout their stay with the hotel (Dawson
and Andriopoulos, 2014). For this they can use smart speakers in hotel room that
customer can use to control the surroundings (5 Innovations that are Reshaping the
Hospitality Industry, 2019). With the help of this customers can improve place their order
and manage the instruments present in their room by ordering smart speaker such as
adjusting room temperature, curtains, music, lighting, locking door etc.
 Biometric for security: Hence, Marriott International can improve security at premises by
adopting face feature recognition biometric for the entry of customers (Dodgson, Gann
and Phillips, 2013). In this room lock will connected with the face feature recognition
system which can only be opened with the eye scan of customer (Hotel Technology
Trend, 2019).
Building the future innovation capability for the organisation
In order to build up future capabilities there are number factors that must be consider by
Marriott hotel that have a direct influence over its practices such customer centric process,
cultural development, knowledge sharing and many more. This will help it in bringing several
innovations in future that contribute toward its success and performance at marketplace by
improving its business practices (Drucker, 2012). But for implementing the innovation
effectively Marriott hotel must use road map which help in guiding it toward the number of
actions that must be taken in order to accomplish the success within innovation. An innovation
roadmap is consist of number of stages which help in performing each task in systematic and
effective manner. These stages are given below:
Suggest and reason:- From the above analysis of innovation that are suggested for
Marriott hotel, Recycling drone is consider to be the best one for it. The reason behind this
selection is that now a day customer prefer to avail services from the brand which is more in
practices that contribute toward the social and environmental development. In addition to this the
biggest competitors of Marriott hotel i.e. Wyndham international hotels is also involve in
environmental sustainability practices (Björkdahl and Holmén, 2013). By adopting this Marriott
hotel will be able to achieve competitive sustainability at marketplace and also become able to
improve its brand image.
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Impact of change:- For bringing this innovation by 2020, Marriott hotel is required to
improve its current process and practices. For this it is required to work over following areas of
business: Research & development:- In order to bring innovation R&D department plays a crucial
role by gathering all the required information regarding the marketplace in term of need
and expectation of customers in this regard and competition present (Drucker, 2014). For
bringing recycling drone, Marriott hotel is required to bring changes in its existing
operations to make it more advanced that help in performing research for this innovation
more effectively. For this it can hire or call expertise from the recycling industry who
have experience regarding the use and implementation of drone so that they can guide
existing employees. Required Resources:- For working over this innovation, Marriott hotel is required
several resources so that this plan can be implemented more effectively and provide
positive result. Main resource that are required by company includes financial resources
for performing activities effectively, tangible resources such as machineries and other
equipments hat are required to create and manage drone (Frankenberger and et. al.,
2013). In addition to this it also required key staff expertise in this field and help in
performing operation effectively. Apart from this some intangible sources such as
knowledge, skills, software etc. are also required. Technical skills required:- Marriott hotel is required some kind of technical skills among
their employees in order to bring and manage recycling drone for improving its internal
practices. This is because the drone will be managed through GPS i.e. it is connected with
a software and to handle this technical knowledge is required among employees so that
they can manage operations successfully and also deal with the technical errors.
 Legal aspects:- Marriott is required to take permission from government before
implementing this and licensing its activities so that it would be able to perform
operations without any legal compliances (Jansen, Cusumano and Brinkkemper, 2013).
Feasibility:- Feasibility helps in determining the viability of project and Marriott will be
able to determine that whether it would be able to manage this innovation and can achieve
profitability. Following are the factors that Marriott hotel must analyse to determine the
feasibility of plan:
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 Financial feasibility: This analysis helps in determining whether business carries
adequate fund which is required to bring this innovation or it has to arrange it from
outside. Since, the innovational plan of recycling drone required high investment for this
crowd sourcing will be used in order to gather the fund. Technical:- Technical feasibility is undertaken to identify whether business carry ideal
technical expertise to deal with the technology or not. For this Marriott Hotel is required
to perform a deep analysis over its existing technical resources which includes staff
knowledge, machinery and other resources (Schneider and Spieth, 2013) .
 Operational:- By performing operational feasibility, Marriott hotel become able to
evaluate the skills as well as capability of its existing employees. This will further
support in determining the skills that are needed within the employees in order to make
this innovation of recycling drone successful.
Approval process:- Once each and every attribute that are required for the
implementation of innovation in Marriott hotel has been analysed effectively and provide
positive outcome. Next step is to take approval regarding this innovation i.e. “Recycling
Drone” from the key persons of Marriott hotel i.e. Board of Director and investors. For this a
meeting can be arranged with broad of director where proposal regarding the innovation plan
of recycling drone can be presented to take permission from the key persons to work over it
(Tidd and Bessant, 2014). In addition to this it also required to take governmental
permission and licence from the regulatory authorities in order work over this plan.
Apply the change:- After analysing all the requirement for the development of
innovation and getting approval from regulatory authority, next step is to implement those
change. This stage is the execution of innovation plan after gathering and managing all the
required resources that are being identified in previous stages. Hence in order to work over
recycling drone innovation first of all Marriott hotel is required to call expertise for providing
training to its existing staff members (Biemans, 2018). In addition to this it also required to hire a
software developer to create a system that can track all the activities performed by recycling
drone and also guide it over the performance. Apart from this some technical expertise must be
recruit be Marriott hotel for managing the drone and rectify the errors that may found in its
execution.
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Review the impact of change:- After execution is being performed toward brining
recycling drone, next step is to experiment over the success of innovation. For this before
commercialisation of recycling drone an experiment would be perform with the help of sending a
prototype over a round in hotel (Berglund and Sandström, 2013). This help in determining how it
work and what changes required to be made in order to make it successful after improvising the
errors, drone will be commercialised and started using in operations of hotel for reducing the
wastage and recycling material.
CONCLUSION
From the above given report it can be summarized that innovation plays a significant role
in the success as well as market performance of an organisation. This is because regular
innovation in business product and practices support a company to remain competitive and
adoptable to changing environment. Innovation practices within hospitality industry plays a
crucial role this is because with the globalisation culture and place get integrated as a result of
which tourism activities enhanced worldwide. Hence, customer become more demanding in term
of availing effective and innovative services at any cost to make their tourism experience more
better. Because of this hospitality industry is considered to be one of the most competitive sector
throughout the world where players are focusing toward grabbing one another's market share by
brining innovation on regular basis.
There are number of innovations that are expected to be launched in nearby future that
are Recycling drone, Integration of AI assistance and biometric for security. But before brining
innovation it is very essential for a hotel to analyse the gap and requirement of innovation so that
positive outcomes can be extract out of efforts. Despite of all these for the successful
implementation of innovation, a hotel must focus toward implementing it’s with the help of road
map which help in performing the activities in sequential manner so that innervational objective
could be achieve from them.
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