Operations and Project Management

Introduction

Operations and Project Management deal with the day to day business activities to run the operations smoothly and mitigate the strategic issues. The strong operation and project management deals with planning, organising, motivating and controlling the resources to achieve specific business goals (Filimonau and Delysia, 2019). The report focuses on analysing the operations and project management practice at the renowned organisation, Penang Mutiara. Their strategic planning as well as future changed process will be analysed and evaluated. After analysing the strategies of Penang Mutiara, it would be possible to suggest suitable recommendations for further improvement. Penang Mutiara is a luxurious hotel chain, operating their business across Malaysia Indian ocean coast. The hotel’s general manager is Wernie Eisen, who is Swiss hotelier. The organisation is owned by Pernas-OUE of Malaysia and managed by Singapore Mandarin International Hotels. The manager focuses on ensuring service quality of the hospitality firm to serve their customer with appropriate services and help them to enjoy the products and services as per their personal needs and preferences (Wang, Hu and Zhang, 2020). Dependability and flexible operations are the main principles of running the hospitality services efficiently, where the managers are proficient to enhance dependability in serving the guests as well as maintain flexibility so that specific needs of the customers can be met. The study is helpful to understand the hotel operations, judging the operations by Hayes and Wheelwright’s (1984) scale of excellence as well as reviewing the performance objectives and analysing its internal benefits. The study also provides a scope to suggest ways to important operations and performance levels.

Managing hotel operations of Penang Mutiara

Wernie Eisen is general manager to run the operational activities of Penang Mutiara and he focuses on the quality of operations in hotel industry in order to retain the customers repetitively. Rather than quantity, the manager focuses on maximising the quality of their hospitality services to satisfy the customers across the international market place. The manager also develops the strategies of maintaining flexibility and dependability, so that the staff members can collaborate end provide the best quality services. The organisation offers quality hotel rooms, premises and additional facilities in the hotels (Haldorai, Kim and Garcia, 2022). Penang Mutiara is known as a luxury hotel, and the experienced team members are proficient to acknowledge the client’s needs and designs the services to satisfy them. The organisation also aims at time efficiency where the staff members provide immediate services and care to the customers, when they arrive at the hotels (Hua et al., 2019). Flexibility is being managed well, where the customers get instant reply, fast services and fulfil their demand. Diverse demand and different preferences of the customers are being met at Penang Mutiara in order to strengthen their customer’s base through maximising the quality of hospitality service and operational excellence. Another strategy of the hotel is maintaining dependability as a fundamental principle for well managed hotel. The team members in the hotels are cooperating and working as a group to provide, drinks, food, entertainment events, clean hotel rooms and other facilities, so that the manager can retain the customers and maxims their profitability in long run. Hereby, the operational objectives of Penang Mutiara are,

To maximise the quality of hospitality services

To strengthen client base by retaining repetitive customers

To maximise profitability in order to ensure financial stability of Penang Mutiara

To gain high competitive advantage in the global hospitality sector

For operational excellence, Penang Mutiara needs to choose creative solutions with technical innovation, so that the hotel can upgrade their system of operations and engage with the customers across the international markets. The change management practice is helpful for the organisation Penang Mutiara to implement necessary changes and secure future sustainable devolvement. Penang Mutiara must launch the contact less hotel check in and check out technology as well as upgrade the online operational network, in order to handle the international travellers (Franco et al., 2020). In addition to this, Penang Mutiara must focus on staffing strategies by developing human resource management. These are the major strategic changes to expand the hotel. The operational activities must be improved through continuous improvement and resource allocation, so that Penang Mutiara would be able to expand their hospitality network across the international market and meet the above mention strategic objectives (Sen and Bhattacharya, 2019).

Judging operations by Hayes and Wheelwright’s (1984) scale of excellence

Hayes and Wheelwright’s (1984) scale of excellence is effective to judge the operational excellence of the chosen organisation. As per the Hayes and Wheelwright’s (1984) scale of excellence, there are four stages, which includes internally Neutral, Externally neutral, Internally Supportive and Externally supportive.

Internally Neutral:

In the internally neutral stage, the objective of the firm is to reduce negative impacts of the operations in the organisation. With high impacts of the hotel operations along with negative externalities, the brand reputation of Penang Mutiara will be hampered.

Externally neutral:

The performance objective in this sage externally neutral is to help the business maintaining parity with its competitions. It is helpful to implement the organisational strategy and gain high market share with creativity.

Internally Supportive:

In the internally supportive stage, the objective of the firm is to provide credible support of the business strategy in order to run the operations strategically. The organisations try to arrange resources and maximise the capability of the brand in order to perform well. The hotel Penang Mutiara is proficient and financially stable to arrange resources and reallocate it among the departments for working successfully. The main objective of Penang Mutiara is to maximise the quality of hospitality operations in order to satisfy the customers. Penang Mutiara develops high quality hotel building with additionally facilities, interior decorations which attract the customers. Penang Mutiara also arranges land, hire the experienced staff members and arrange financial capital for further investment. Such operational excellence improves brand capability and help to gain competitive advantage (Jawabreh et al., 2022). The organisation Penang Mutiara would be able to offer their services at better price by increasing operational excellence and cost leaderships strategy and apart from that, the hotel would also be capable of diversifying their services to satisfy the customers internationally with different needs and personal preferences. This stage is suitable for the business to get maximum return on their investment as well as increase their market share in long run.

Externally supportive:

In this stage, the objective is to provide the sources of competitive advantage by successful brand establishment. With appropriate resource allocation and business strategic planning, Penang Mutiara has the capability of gaining competitive advantage in such intense competitive environment. The expectations of the customer can be met with business creativity and strategic solutions. Through the analysis, it can be evaluated that, the operational process of the general manager, Wernie is in the third stage, which is Internally Supportive. The general manager of this stage is suitable for the business, as it helps in leading and controlling the functional performance of the brand, leveraging and automating the process, continuous improvement, performance evaluation as well as measuring and improving the process,. The general manager is proficient to support the business with creative solution and technical innovation. The business belongs to the third stage, where the manager Wernie is able to reallocate the resources and hire the experienced staff to run their operations strategically. The organisation is capable of investing the financial resources for further brand establishment and expansion. He provides credible supports to the business by appropriate strategic planning. There is financial stability of the business along with strong employee base at Penang Mutiara. The manager is proficient in managing diverse team members and leading them strategically towards achieving the brand objectives. On the other hand, Penang Mutiara is a famous hotel chain in Malaysia with strong customer base and there is strong reputation of the hotel among the international visitors at Malaysia. Hereby, strategic choice of Wernie along with strong resource base of the hotel is effective to strategize the hospitality operational process and run the business creatively. Penang Mutiara has the potential to grow faster with creative business solution, resource allocation and strategic planning. The major strategies of Wernie are maximising quality of their hospitality services, reducing the cost of operations to maintain profit margin as well as maintaining speed, flexibility and dependability. Through such business strategic plan, Penang Mutiara is able to run their operations proficiently and gain high competitive advantage over other competitive hotel chains across Malaysia. The brand would be able to expand their business with service innovation, maintaining quality of the hospitality services, financial investment, handling diverse team members, technical innovation and managing sustainable solutions, in order to secure future sustainable development.

Performance objectives and its internal benefits

In the hospitality industry, the factors like quality, speed, dependability, flexibility, and cost have strong influence on the external customers of the hotels. These performance objectives also affect the internal benefits of the hotels.

Quality

Quality is the most important performance objective of the hotel. The organisations try to maintain the best quality of hospitality services in order to expand their business and satisfy the clients in long run. Quality is the most visible part of hospitality and the customers can review the quality of their services of before choosing the best hotels. Penang Mutiara focuses on expanding their business by maximising the quality of the services. There are more than 440 rooms maintained well in the hotel and the staff members are proficient to deliver the best quality services, facilities, food and beverages. The staff members are experienced to maintain the quality of their operations to satisfy the customers. Penang Mutiara tries to manage safety and cleanliness of the hotel rooms, provide necessities to the customers, manage the clients by fulfilling their needs, including additional faculties, complementary services, food and drinks, cleaning and other room services. Penang Mutiara is successful to manage the customers and increase the numbers of repetitive customers in the hotel. The hotel building, quality equipment and cleanliness further attract the audiences. This strategy of Penang Mutiara has crucial impacts on customer relationship management, where Penang Mutiara manages the clients, fulfil their demand and meeting their expectations. On the other hand, it also has impacts on internal benefits. The employees are successful to meet the client’s need and they get benefits and compensations in the workplace. Through managing quality, the operational excellence can be maximising along with strong relationship management with other stakeholders.

Speed

One of the most important performance objectives is speed where it is the responsibility of the hotel managers to maintain speed of delivering the hospitality services. It not only gives satisfaction to the customers, but also strengthens their customer’s base by retaining international customers. Penang Mutiara would be able to provide the best quality hospitality services within effective time. It is hereby important to maintain the speed to serving the customers, so that the clients get immediate services, care and support to enjoy their time (Filimonau and Naumova, 2020). Time reduction during check in and check out would be effective strategic intervention, through which Penang Mutiara can satisfy the customers and it further reduces the waiting time of the clients. It not only maximises client’s satisfaction, but also upgrade the internal operational system, where Penang Mutiara is successful to manage their operations within effective time.

Dependability

Dependability is important in the hotel Penang Mutiara, where the general manager focuses on maximising dependability in the workplace. Keeping promise and fulfilling commitment towards the stakeholders is the main aspects of dependability. The manager is successful to handle the stakeholders by providing them high return on their investment. He also encourages to work as a partnership working practice so that team performance can be maximised. Dependability among the staff members including he chef, hotel managers, care takers, suppliers and distribution network as well as the hotel staff would be beneficial to work as a team and fulfil their job roles successfully. It improves the hospitality services, where the team members work together and enhance communities to serve the guests at the hotel (Hua et al., 2020). It is also the responsibility of the hotel managers to provide high return on their investment by running the hotel profitability. It also has strong impacts on client handling, here cooperative working further boosts their team morale and maximise overall performance for delivering the best quality services to the customers.

Flexibility

Flexibility management is another performance objective of Penang Mutiara, where the manager is concerned about handling flexibility in serving the customers. The staff members are proficient to negotiate with the customers and make creative solution for meeting their expectations. It is the responsibility of Penang Mutiara to serve their guest with the best quality hospitality services (de Grosbois and Fennell, 2022). Managing flexibility in the hotel for meeting the customer’s demand further helps to retain the customers by fulfilling diverse client’s needs and personal preferences. It is also helpful for internal operations, where speed of response will be increased to satisfy the customers.

Cost

60% of the hotel cost is allocated for food and beverages and energy cost is about 6% of overall cost of the hotel. The hospitality industry is concerned about reducing the overall cost of operations in order to maximise their profit margin. Penang Mutiara is proficient to reduce the operational cost and reallocate the resources for better hotel management. It has direct impacts on maximising profitability. Cost reduction strategy hereby has its effects on customers, where the organisations can reduce their cost and set the appropriate price range for the hospitality services that can be affordable for the customers (Ivanov et al., 2022). Such strategic intervention would be beneficial for the internal activities and organisational operations. Penang Mutiara is able to run their operations in a cost effective way to maximise their profitability and retain more long term and loyal customers for the quality services of Penang Mutiara.

Hereby, the above mention performance objectives are important for Penang Mutiara to expand their hotels across the international hospitality industry and gain high competitive advantage by serving the customers with the best quality hospitality services.

Suggesting ways to important operations and performance levels

Automated process

Hotel automation is the process of tactics of the time consuming and manual tasks towards technical innovation which reduces human error and delivers the services within effective time. It is important for Penang Mutiara to implement Artificial Intelligence, which improves machine learning practices. The hotel would be able to manage the customers by handling digital data base management. The hotel also needs to manage cloud computing system for tackling client’s data and upgrading the system efficiently. The safety and security of client data base management must be ensured at Penang Mutiara. Through machine learning process, the hotel would be able to analyse the client’s needs depending on their shared information, history of purchasing and enjoying the hospitality services, income status and personal preferences. The customer data base management and choosing the best way to meet their demand are possible through Artificial Intelligence (Chambers and Cifter, 2022). Moreover, the hotel needs to utilise robotics for handling client’s queries and providing the instant reply to each customers. The online customer interaction is possible under such system, where Penang Mutiara hotel would be able to provide continuous support, 24*7 guidance to resolve customer queries and provides them the best quality hospitality services. Hereby, the strategy of implementing AI is suitable for Penang Mutiara to upgrade the overall operations and tracking the customers and helping them by providing continuous support. It hereby provides a scope to Penang Mutiara to maximise their performance and ensure operational excellence (Nisar et al., 2021).

Contactless check-in and check out

In the recent era of digitalisation, the hotels industry digitalises the whole system of check in and check out. Contactless check-in and checkout enables the hotel guests to arrive and check into the hotel rooms without any queries, picking up room keys, visiting to check in desk or meeting the staff members for face to face conversation. The guests are able to get convenient and frictionless experience. Penang Mutiara needs to upgrade the whole system and ensure contactless check in and check out in order to maximise the experience of the customers. The hotel is capable of developing technological infrastructure as well as managing their official website in order to interact with the customers (Ghaharian et al., 2021). Online support and customer enragement further help the clients of Penang Mutiara to contact with the representative and resolve their queries. There would be no such issues at the arrival of the guests at the hotel through this contactless check in and check out process.

Human resource management

Human resource management is another most important part of the hotel operations and performance management. Penang Mutiara is a renowned hotel running their operations across Malaysia and other international markets. It is important for the hotel to maximise quality in order to satisfy the international clients with diverse needs. There is strong employee base a Penang Mutiara and it is important for the hotel to manage the employees by providing them compensations and benefits. Monetary incentives and rewards should be developed by Penang Mutiara in order to encourage individual creativity of the staff and motivate them to perform well. On the other hand, Penang Mutiara must arrange training and developmental program, for the staff members, so that they can develop their knowledge and professional skill set to deliver the best quality hospitality services to the customers. Induction process at Penang Mutiara as well as technical training will be helpful for the staff to utilise latest technology for handling diverse customers across the international markets (Fraser, 2020). Clear job roles, shared vision and developing good corporate culture are also crucial at Penang Mutiara in order to manage diverse workers and lead the successfully. Employee engagement, cooperative working practice and enhancing communication are helpful for the general manager to tackle the staff members at the hotel and enhance their operational excellence in long run. Penang Mutiara also needs to focus on recognition and benefits, fulfilling the self-esteem and self-actualisation needs as well as creating values for the employees, so that the manager can retain the old and new staff in the hotel.

Choosing sustainable solutions

In order to maintain the quality of operations and maximise the performance of Penang Mutiara, the hotel needs to develop creative sustainable solutions. Penang Mutiara has the capability to invest in sustainable decisions in order to reduce the environmental impacts of the hotel operations. The hotel needs to invest in waste management practice by transferring the waste to the landfills, food distribution to eradicate poverty as well as using paper plates, cups and other reusable materials. The organisation is financially stable to invest in the strategic planning of reusing, recycling and renewable energy resources. Water reservation would be one of the effective ways for the hotel to preserve water (Majid et al., 2019). Implementing solar panel on the rooftop of the hotels would be the best strategy for Penang Mutiara, where the hotel is able to utilise renewable energy resources to run their operations sustainably. Such strategies provide a scope to Penang Mutiara to ensure green environmental footprint and protect natural resources of the earth. Penang Mutiara must utilise electric cars for developing green supply chain and reducing greenhouse gas emissions. The strategic solutions will be beneficial for Penang Mutiara to run their operations sustainably and secure future development with positive brand image.

Conclusion

It can be concluded that, Penang Mutiara is a successful luxury hotel and runs their operations across the international countries. The general manager is experienced to run their operations with business creativity and technical innovation. For maintaining the quality of their hospitality operations, the strategies are providing the best hospitality services, fulfilling client’s queries and meeting their personal needs and preferences, cost leadership strategy and maintaining flexibility. Dependability and speed are other performance objective of Penang Mutiara through which, it is possible for the general manager to create values for the customers. For further operational and performance improvement, the organisation needs to implement creative strategies, which will provide a scope to meet the customer’s needs and strengthen their stakeholder’s base by high return on their investment. The performance objectives along with creative solutions at Penang Mutiara will be advantageous for creating customer’s values and also upgrade the operational functions with technological innovation. The strategy of implementing Artificial Intelligence as well as developing contact less check in and check out process are beneficial for Penang Mutiara to enhance their operations towards automation process. On the other hand, Penang Mutiara must focus on strategic human resource management to retain experienced staff members to meet diverse needs of the customers and ensure flexibility and dependability in running the hotel operations. Moreover, it is beneficial to implement sustainable solution to run the business efficiently and create values for all the stakeholders.

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