BUS7371 | Advanced Operations Management Assignment Brief | Management

Faculty of Business and Information Technology Policies and Guidelines

This BUS7371 advanced operations management assignment brief course is governed by the regulations and policies published by Whitireia New Zealand. You are required to comply with these regulations and policies found in the Whitireia Student Manual. For more information on Enrolment, Assessment, Health and Safety, Quality, Student Services, and policies on Academic Concerns, Student Discipline and Complaints, please refer to the student programme handbook in Model

Course Detail

Course Aims and Objective
Students will be able to make decisions for accommodation services by evaluating and analysing current trends and future implications relevant to accommodation operations management.

Learning Outcomes
Lo 1: Analyse reports and ratios related to accommodation management in order to evaluate the success of the department; create front office budgets and investigate the establishment of appropriate room rates and forecast room availability.

• Interpret Managers daily report
• Calculate RevPAR and explain how it can be improved/ managed
• Analyse a RevPAR index
• Prepare a budget
• Analyse and explain budget results
• Apply the basic pricing methods
• Describe the preparation and purpose of a room availability forecast

Lo 2: Investigate the various approaches to revenue management, maximisation of room revenue and occupancy objectives through the application of yield management principles, and the implementation of revenue management strategies in the front office

• Describe the basic principles underpinning revenue management
• Identify how the choice of distribution channel effects revenue
• Explain the role of front office staff in a hotel’s revenue management process

LO 3:    Analyse and investigate the purpose, principles and processes of the front office audits

• Explain the types of audits conducted in a hotel and their purpose
• Describe the process flow of an audit
• Describe the principles of an audit

Lo 4: Evaluate the suitability and the use of accommodation facilities to suit different market segments.

• Describe the scope of facilities management
• Explain the process of developing a new property
• Identify the reasons for maintenance and refurbishment
• Describe how different markets require different physical plant
• Explain the reasons hotel may want to be more environmentally aware and possible steps to realise this goal

LO 5:    Design, implement and analyse customer feedback satisfaction surveys for accommodation operations.

• Identify appropriate survey techniques for gathering customer feedback
• Design sound and useful questionnaires
• Identify appropriate techniques to collect data
• Perform basic analysis of data and interpret the results

Learning Level
As a level 7 paper, students will be required to:  
Carry out processes that:

• Require a command of highly specialised technical or scholastic and basic research skills across a major discipline.
• Involve the full range of procedures in a major discipline.
• Are applied in complex, variable and specialised contexts.

Requiring:

• Specialised knowledge with depth in more than one area.
• The analysis, reformatting and evaluation of a wide range of information.
• The formulation of appropriate responses to resolve both concrete and abstract problems.

Applied:

• In planning, resourcing and managing processes.
• Within broad parameters and functions.
• With complete accountability for determining and achieving personal and/or group outcomes.
• 
  

Assessment 1 Customer Feedback

Instructions

Scenario
Allen Smith, the General Manger at the Horizon Hotel in Auckland, looked between his most recent STR report, the pile of readings for his MBA course and view out his window of the office building next door. His course on Management Strategy had him reading about factors influencing customer satisfaction. His list was so far was service delivery, ambience and he was still trying to figure out where servqual fit in all this.

His immediate problem was that the hotel was not making the RevPAR targets set by Head Office and had recently lost several business development accounts. Allen also thought that the rate of repeat bookings, very important to his downtown hotel, had dropped in the year he had been General Manager.  The guest feedback form was one developed by Head Office. While Allen could look at the trends for the different items, he was struggling to work out what were the most important items to address first. He was also confused because the scores on the feedback forms seemed not to map up with the feedback on Trip Advisor.

What he really needed was some research to help him figure out what was important to the guests. He also needed a better way to manage the feedback coming from Trip Advisor. Not to mention the Marketing department had just started a Facebook page which also seemed to be getting a lot of guest comments about service. Unfortunately he was too busy with other problems right now. He looked down the list of staff to find someone to give the job to and his eye stopped on the name of the bright new graduate from Whitireia that had just been hired. You are working on the front desk and have just finished checking in a guest when you look up to find a grinning General Manager standing in front of you. “Hi” he says “could you do something for me…”

Tasks

This assignment has two parts, Part A and Part B. Do not use the questions or figures from Part B in Part A.
Part A: Read the scenario above and write a report to design a new guest satisfaction programme for the Landmark hotel. Your report will need to:

• Explain why guest satisfaction is important to the success of the hotel.
• compare the functions of guest feedback forms, Trip Advisor and other forms of social media
• design a research programme to gathering information regarding importance and satisfaction – this needs to include justification of the methods used
• design a way to manage to integrate feedback from the different sources and share information within the hotel

You need to be able to support your research design and manage programme from theory
Part B: Using the Guest Survey spreadsheet given to you, under Assessments on Model, you are to analyse the data given which is based on a subset of questions from a hotel guest survey. You must:

• Calculate the mean, median and mode along with the standard deviation
• Provide definitions for each of the measurements you use 
• As well as reporting what the figures are, you must discuss what they mean for the hotel
• Recommend actions to address any problems you identify
• Give theory to support your recommendations

You will need to support your work with research from the academic journals as well as your textbooks. You need to have at least 12 journal articles overall for Part A and B. You are also expected to cite at least 4 hotel websites, newspaper articles or articles from industry sources such as Hotel News Now for examples for Part A. You may Not use textbooks or Wikipedia as sources. All references must be in full APA format.

                                                                        

                                                                                                                       

Assessment 2 – Presentation of Journal Article

Task:

• From the given list below choose a topic.
• Find an article from one of the academic journals, listed in your course outline, on your chosen topic.
• Summarise and present the article – your objective is that the audience understand the main points of the article even if they haven’t read it.
• Give examples of how the article illustrates or expands on the theory taught in class and covered by your text book
• Using either your own experience or newspaper articles show how the theories apply to a real hotel.
• Your presentation needs to include a question session where you will ask your audience questions concerning your presentation. The questions need to be thoughtful and you need to be able to provide the audience with the answers. Simple questions will not be considered!

Instructions

• Before your presentation you need to hand in your journal article to your lecturer two day before the individually allocated due date.
• You need to hand in a soft copy of your presentation. Softcopy has to be dropped in the drop box on Model by the morning of the presentation
• You are encouraged to use different presentation techniques as long as the audience is able to follow and understand your presentation. Options could be:
• Power point presentation, Whiteboard, Posters etc.
• There is no limitation on your presentation technique. However, if you choose something other than power point presentation there must be an electronic version of your summary to upload on to Model.
• Please use the APA 6 reference for your article as the title for your slides or summary document.
• Each student will be assessed individually based on the marking guide.

Assessment 3 – In Class Test

This closed book test of 2 hours will consist of a range of calculations and short answer questions covering ratio analysis, budgeting and revenue management. You will need to bring a calculator to the test. You may bring a paper based dictionary if you wish; no electronic dictionaries will be permitted. Mobile phones or other electronic devices may not be used as a calculator substitute.

Assessment 4 – Final Test

This will be a three hour written closed book test. It will consist of three short (2 – 3 page) essays based on case studies. The case studies will be made available in class in Week 10

Assessment 5: Participation Mark

General guidelines

• Attendance at all classes will not guarantee a pass grade for this component of the assessment programme. High attendance, however, will be the basis for the quality of your contributions.
• Participation marks will be based upon the quality of your contributions, not the quantity. In other words, your subject lecturer will reward you for positive, insightful contributions and questions that address the learning outcomes of the subject. If your comments/ questions deal with general issues, but do not address the learning outcomes (please refer to your course outline), your lecturer will not count such contribution towards the ‘participation mark’.
• You will be rewarded for contributions that demonstrate your understanding and preparation of assigned material. Examples of quality contribution include, but are not limited to:
  • Coming to class prepared (i.e. reading assigned material prior to class) with questions about issues that you have not understood or which you think need further discussion/ elaboration.
  • Bringing textbook to class as required
  • Positive participation in any class discussions
  • Positive participation in any class exercises/ problem solving/ in-class case studies/ etc.
  • Volunteer summaries of concepts/ frameworks at the end of a session/ topic that might help your peers to better understand the learning outcome. If you plan to provide a summary, please let your lecturer know.
• Please note: If your assessment programme requires you to present an assignment (or part of an assignment) to an audience, your performance in such presentation will not be taken into account for the participation mark.
• For more information on the course’s individual learning outcomes, please refer to the cours outline
• Please refer to the marking guide for more detailed information on the participation mark

How will your subject lecturer allocate participation marks during the course?

• There are two (2) ‘cut-off dates’ for your participation mark
• Cut-off dates: At the end of week 5 and at the end of week 10.
• Your subject lecturer will allocate one mark for each cut-off date. You will be given feedback on your participation mark during the course (e.g. via Moodle™)