Strategic Management Report: Holiday Inn's Market Position in Sydney

This report provides a comprehensive strategic analysis of Holiday Inn's operations in the Sydney hospitality market. It begins with an executive summary and introduction outlining the objectives of the analysis. The core of the report presents findings derived from SWOT analysis, identifying the hotel's strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats, and Porter's Five Forces framework, evaluating the competitive forces within the industry, including the threat of new entrants, bargaining power of buyers and suppliers, the threat of competitors, and the threat of substitutes. The report concludes with recommendations for strategic actions, including cost leadership, differentiation, and focus strategies, aimed at enhancing Holiday Inn's market position and achieving a competitive advantage. The analysis uses academic references to support the arguments presented.

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Executive Summary
The main motive of this paper is to understand the model of strategic management. In this paper,
Holiday Inn has been taken into consideration to examine the business environment. Porter’s
Five Forces Framework and SWOT Analysis are the strategic management tools that are used in
the report to evaluate the hospitality industry of Sydney. Porter’s generic strategies are
recommended at the end of report that assists to attain the competitive advantage in the market.

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Contents
Introduction.................................................................................................................................................3
Findings.......................................................................................................................................................3
SWOT Analysis.......................................................................................................................................3
Porter’s Five Forces Framework..............................................................................................................5
Conclusion...................................................................................................................................................7
Recommendations.......................................................................................................................................7
Reference List.............................................................................................................................................9
Appendices................................................................................................................................................10

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Introduction
Strategic management is a procedure of analyzing, evaluating and measuring the
environment of business in which the organization operates in the market. It is necessary for the
firm to frame strategic planning for operating the business effective or smooth that assist to grasp
the major percentage of share and attain competitive advantage (Ansoff, Kipley, Lewis, Helm-
Stevens, & Ansoff, 2018). The aim of this report is to explore the environment of Hospitality
industry to expand the business or to operate the business effectively. Holiday Inn in Sydney has
been taken into consideration to evaluate its situation in the market. Holiday Inn is a British-
owned American brand of hotels and a subsidiary of Inter-Continental Hotels Group. It is the one
of the world’s largest hotel chain with the 1173 hotels that currently located in different places
and over 214000 bedrooms. The headquarters of the company is in Denham, Buckinghamshire
(Holiday Inn, 2018).
In the beginning of this report, the strategic management tools are used to analyze the situation
of the market such as SWOT Analysis and Porter’s Five Forces Framework. After that,
recommendation will be discussed to overcome the threat and weaknesses.
Findings
SWOT Analysis
Strength
It is observed that Holiday Inn has high brand image in the market due to its quality of
services provided by to its consumers. High quality of services is the major strength of the hotel
that attracts the consumers to visit their place. The other factor that consider as the strength for

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the company is its global network. Holiday Inn has the strong global network as it operates the
business in the most of the countries in the world. The hotel provides the various facilities such
as room facility, spa, big halls for events, pool and other facilities to consumers. Wide ranges of
services are the strength of the company.
Weaknesses
It is observed that the hotel is still trying to expand the operation in many areas just to
achieve the higher level of success in the business. There are the other hotels too that provide the
similar services by attending the guests. The similar services are considered as the weakness of
the hotel because it faces the challenges while entering the new market or operating in the
existing markets.
Opportunity
It is observed that the hotel provides the accommodation services to consumers due to
which it has the opportunity to provide the all of services in the hotel area to satisfy the guest at
the higher level. The hotel has the opportunity to establish the exhibitions to deliver the different
services to guest. It also supports to achieve the advantage of competition in the market by
beating the competitors by providing services to consumers (Moutinho, & Vargas-Sanchez,
2018).
As the Sydney is the popular place to visit or enjoy the adventure and the hotel provides
the services to tourist that is why; it has the opportunity to enhance the brand image and the
market share. It also has the opportunity to increasing its revenue by providing the special
services on occasions and on the special festivals.

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Threat
As the Sydney is known as the tourist place as 9.2 million visitors in the year 2018 are
visit the place due to which there are many hotels that provides the similar services to people that
is why; Holiday Inn has high threat of competition in the market of Sydney in the hospitality
business (Budget Direct, 2019). The main competitors of the hotel are Park Hyatt Sydney,
Spicer’s Potts Point and the others (Boutiquehotel, 2019).
It has been evaluated that the cost of providing the services is increasing due to which the
revenue of the hotel has been affected. It is also a threat for the hotel to maintain the balance
between expenses and revenue.
Porter’s Five Forces Framework
The threat of new entrants
It has been seen that the level of threat of new entrants is moderate as the capital
requirement is low. The hotel can easily enter the market with the limited amount of capital. But
the challenge that the new hotel has to face while entering the market is the high experience and
high brand image of existing hotels (Bertozzi, Ali, & Gul, 2017). It is difficult for the new hotels
to beat the existing hotels those are operating since many years. There are both aspects such as
positive and negative for the new entrants that is why; the threat of new entrants is moderate
Bargaining power of buyers
The negotiating power of consumers is high just because of various existing hotels in the
market. It has been seen that the customers have many choices to buy their services as there are

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large number of hotels that provides the every type of services with the all range of prices. The
guest can take the advantage of the services as per their own situation and affordability. As there
are many small or big hotels in the market due to which the customers have many choices to take
the advantage.
Bargaining power of suppliers
Bargaining power of suppliers is high as there are great numbers of suppliers in the
industry that provides the resources such as food, maintenances products, cleaning products, staff
uniform and the others. The resources provided by the suppliers are easily available in the market
due to which the negotiating power of suppliers is high.
The threat of competitors
The degree of threat of competitors is high just because of too many hotels in the market
of Sydney. In the Sydney market, there are many hotels such as QT Sydney, Park Hyatt and
others (Boutiquehotel, 2019). It has been seen that the competition among the companies is
increasing day by day with the moderate level of threat of new entrants. The increasing new
entrants also arises the threat of competition for the hotel.
The threat of substitute
The threat of substitute is moderate as there is no other facility replaces the services of
hotel that provides to tourist guest that is why; the threat of substitute is considered as low but as
there are many guest houses in the country that also provides home services to guest due to
which the chances of threat of substitute is high. As per the both aspects, the threat of substitute
is moderate.

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Conclusion
At the end, it is concluded that the Holiday Inn faces the challenges in the industry but it
also has the opportunities that it can easily grasp. The challenges which the hotel face is threat of
competitors and new entrants. The opportunity for the hotel is to grasp the large market share
and gain the competitive advantage in the market. To grasp the opportunity, it is recommending
that the hotel has to implement the strategies for the future success. Some of the strategies are
recommended below:
Recommendations
Cost leadership strategy
As per this strategy, the company has to reduce the cost of services and also deliver the
services in low cost to guest so that the great numbers of guest attracts towards it. It is essential
to reduce the cost of operation to gains the high revenue (Bell, Dyck, & Neubert, 2017).
Although, it is suggesting that the hotel provides the excellence quality of services that is why;
the hotel has to implement the premium price strategy so that the upper and middle can afford it
or the hotel can earns the high revenue.
Differentiation strategy
Holiday Inn has a lot of competitors in the market as there are huge number of hotels that
provide the similar services. The hotel has to offers the unique services so that it can gain the
competitive advantage such as clothes or handicraft exhibitions as per the Sydney customs, spa
and beach parties. These unique services attract the guest that helps the hotels to attain the
competitive advantage in the market.

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Focus strategy
Holiday Inn has to focus on the services to maintain the high quality. It is observed that
the hotel has to improve its services by trained the staff as per the department. By providing the
training to staff, the performance of employees is enhances. It is fact that the consumers are
always come back towards the excellence services that is why; the hotel has to improve its
services due to which the number of guest is increasing. This strategy helps the hotel to generate
the strong relation with the consumers due to which it has the opportunity to grab the market
share.

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Reference List
Ansoff, H. I., Kipley, D., Lewis, A. O., Helm-Stevens, R., & Ansoff, R. (2018). Implanting
strategic management. Springer.
Bell, G. G., Dyck, B., & Neubert, M. J. (2017). Ethical Leadership, Virtue Theory, And Generic
Strategies. Radical Thoughts on Ethical Leadership, 113.
Bertozzi, F., Ali, C. M., & Gul, F. A. (2017). Porter’s Five Generic Strategies; A Case Study
from the Hospitality Industry. International Journal For Research In Mechanical & Civil
Engineering (ISSN: 2208-2727), 3(2), 09-23.
Boutiquehotel. (2019) Sydney. https://boutiquehotel.me/sydney/simple/?
gclid=EAIaIQobChMIstLx9tWo5AIVi4BwCh3syAVpEAAYASAAEgI-LfD_BwE
Budget Direct. (2019). Australian Tourism Statistics 2019. Retrieved From:
https://www.budgetdirect.com.au/travel-insurance/research/tourism-statistics.html
Holiday Inn. (2018) About us. https://www.ihg.com/holidayinnresorts/content/us/en/explore-
hotels/about-us#
Mind Tools. (2018). Porter's Five Forces. Retrieved from:
https://www.mindtools.com/pages/article/newTMC_08.htm
Moutinho, L., & Vargas-Sanchez, A. (2018). Strategic Management in Tourism, CABI Tourism
Texts. Cabi.

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Appendices
(Source: Mind Tools, 2018)