Strategic Thinking, Value Management, & Airbnb Customer Service

This essay explores the critical role of strategic thinking and value management in achieving business success, using Airbnb as a case study. It examines various analytical tools, including the Balanced Scorecard, Gap Analysis, PESTLE Analysis, and SWOT Analysis, to identify factors influencing customer service and overall business performance. The essay discusses the advantages and limitations of each approach, highlighting their application in addressing Airbnb's challenges in customer service. It concludes that a well-established strategic thinking and value management process is essential for business growth and expansion, emphasizing the importance of techniques to solve problems like poor customer service and enhance competitiveness. The document provides references to support its analysis and is available for students seeking study resources on Desklib.

Introduction
 For becoming successful there is a chain of decisions that is
required to be adopted in relation to what are the actions that
are required to be performed for becoming a successful
business and the process of forming this chain of decision is
involved in the process of strategic thinking.
 It is a very important tool that is needed to in order to take the
important decisions for the future as well as present which
will help in successfully achieving the goals and becoming
successful. There are various critical skills that are required to
be developed and they are included in strategic thinking.

Balance Scorecard Approach
 Balance scorecard is the tool that is used in order to measure
the performance in case of strategic management.
 With the help of it the performance of any business can be
improved by identifying and improving the various
functions that affect the business internally and also the
outcomes that are obtained from them.

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 The four areas that are required to be considered are business
processes, learning and growth, finance and customers and
they are called as the four legs.
 Those factors that affect the performance of the company can
be easily identified and then the required changes in their
respect can be made with the help of future scorecard.
 Firstly area that is to be considered is the collection of timely
and relevant data is of the major importance and for this
purpose managers perform different actions in order to
collect the data.

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 The main perspective which comes is the
customer related perspective.
 According to this it has been seen that for being
a successful business it is necessary that the
focus should be given to the customers needs,
their demands and their specific requirements.

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 The set standards in relation to the quality of the product
should be met as it will be required to satisfy the customer
requirements and provide them with great customer
services.
 All this will be achieved in a better way if this process is
conducted by those members who have all the knowledge
regarding internal functions of the company because the
way they know the functioning no other external body can
know and take steps in this regard.

Limitation of balance scorecard
approach
 In addition to the above mentioned advantages there are
certain disadvantages also that are present in this approach
which include that this approach cannot be applied at a
short notice as for the application of this it is required that
a plan is formulated and then whole procedure takes lot of
time.
 Another limitation is that the data that is collected in it is
limited and does not cover all the aspects that are required
to be collected.

GAP ANALYSIS
 In order to solve the problem of poor customer services
certain steps are required to be performed and that can be
done with the use of a technique which is known as GAP
Analysis.
 With the help of it Airbnb can determine whether it is using
all the resources that are available with it in an effective
manner and is performing as per the required expectations
and all this can be done by comparing its actual
performance with the expected performance.

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 The gap analysis can be conducted by performing four
steps which include construction of organizational goals,
benchmarking of the current state, analysis of the gap data,
and lastly compilation in a gap report.
 Gap analysis should start with the identification of the
problem faced by business or by defining the goals of an
organisation.
 Before formation of the goals it is necessary that proper
research in the companies structure should be conducted so
that the information obtained can be utilised in formation
of the proper plan by which good customer services can be
provided.

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 The last step that is required to be taken in this series of
steps is to make a report compiling all the information that
have been gathered while performing the analysis.
 it should be included in the report that what all plans are
required to be made and all other actions that are required to
be taken in order to overcome the existing faults and further
helping Airbnb in achieving its set organisational goals and
objectives and provide the customers with maximum
satisfaction.

Disadvantages of GAP Analysis
 it will lead to the problem of cost and time as there will be
the requirement to conduct the analysis of the business
procedure and then making the plan and all this process
will involve consumption of lot of amount of money and it
will increase the cost burden on the company.
 Lot of time will be consumed in collection and analysis of
data and then formulation of plan on that basis.

PESTLE Analysis
 In order to identify the various factors that affect or shape the
company's environment there is need to conduct the PESTLE
Analysis.
 The factors involved in this are political, economic, socio-
cultural, technological and environmental.
 It will help the company in identifying the macro factors which
are required to be taken into consideration by Airbnb so that it
can formulate the policies that are required to followed in order
to solve the problem of customer services.

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 The other critical factor which is to be considered in the
pestle analysis is the economic factor.
 These are those factors which will have their impact on the
Airbnb in long run and they will show the performance of
the company due to which the performance of the company
will have to bear a direct impact.
 The customers will demand more services and Airbnb is
currently having problem in this respect.

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 The next are the technological factors that will be affecting
the company.
 With the change in the technology it will be required by the
Airbnb that they should consider their strategies again in
order to incorporate the changes in the business make the
business ready for the competitive market so that it can
achieve the customers support by providing them better
services.

Disadvantages of PESTEL Analysis
 The disadvantages in this model are that for the conduction
of these processes investment is required to be made which
is often not made by the company.
 The information required for the making of decisions are
sometimes modified resulting into formation of wrong
decisions and this will have an adverse impact on airbnb.

SWOT Analysis
 This strategy can be applied by any business as by applying it
organisation will be able know about the strengths,
weaknesses, opportunities and threats in relation to the
customer support services.
 By determination of these factors airbnb will be able to
identify strengths and weaknesses that are present in relation
to services that are provided to customers and then they can
focus on them.
 Due to weaknesses the company is not able to provide
appropriate services to the customers and is not able to stand
in the competitive market with the other companies.

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 Opportunities are those elements that are external and due to
which it can be expected that business has the chances that it
can grow and expand in the future.
 The major opportunities for Airbnb are that it can develop its
business by introducing the new line of products and services
which will increase the level of customer satisfaction.
 There are certain factors that every business is required to
face and they cannot be controlled by the organisation, such
factors are known as threats.

Limitation of SWOT Analysis
 Limitations of SWOT analysis include that in this every
point is given the equal amount of weightage.
 The limitation can be due to internal aspects which will
include that there may be faulty products due to lack of
good quality control or Airbnb can have shortage of skilled
employees who are managing the support services.

CONCLUSION
From the above mentioned research essay it can be concluded
that for the success, growth and expansion of any business it is
necessary that a proper strategic thinking and value
management process should be established. It has been noticed
that Airbnb is a company which is providing services of
accommodation to the public. It has been noticed that for the
success of this process the various techniques that are required
to be undertaken are covered by the company by which the
problem of poor customer services is solved.

REFERENCES
Ageron, B., Gunasekaran, A and Spalanzani, A., 2012. Sustainable
supply management: An empirical study. International Journal
of Production Economics. 140(1). pp.168-182.
Batra, A., Kaushik, P and Kalia, L., 2010. System thinking:
Strategic planning. SCMS Journal of Indian Management. 7(4).
Bratianu, C., Jianu, I and Vasilache, S., 2010. Integrators for
organisational intellectual capital. International Journal of
Learning and Intellectual Capital. 8(1). pp.5-17.
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