52NL Year 0 Business assignment

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Your new strategy

You must take quite important decisions at the start, that is referred to as Year 0. It occurs well before you start embarking on your first operational year and lays the foundation of all subsequent assignments and certainly the decisions you will take down the road.
As a result, you will introduce your Management Team to Jill, Christina and your coaches as well as unfold your choice(s) and strategic plan(s).

Situation

You and Management Team are given the mandate to establish and develop a brand-new hotel site and its concept under the Emerald Forest Group Portfolio. So, it is inevitable you will need to make choices, take decisions on the new hotel concept itself, its setup, how to run it and most importantly how to team up with your peers so it is managed successfully.
That is precisely what you will do in this assignment. This will form the basis for your team, in all the four rounds. You are now tasked to focus on a new name, its strategy, its brand, and targeted group(s) etc.

Goal

Set up a basic strategy for your hotel. It is important that all current and future decisions remain in alignment with your business decisions. So, think your new plan well over. Unveil your creative and innovative skills, and be curious also about learning from the original hotel’s history and prior experiences with its recurrent customers and targeted groups. Your brand-new hotel site is set to accommodate 100 rooms, and sell a maximum of 36,500 guest nights per year. You will have the opportunity to incrementally invest over the years and improve your hotel concept, as you learn from your new customers. Mind, there is also a maximum.

Your image, brand, outlook plans and value proposition to a chosen market-segment will be indicative to the market and your stakeholders of your new hotel concept and what you were able to work on. This will trend up and be reflected on your occupancy rate over the years.

To show your new hotel concept situation to your stakeholders and visualize its new strategy you need to have it represented by your logo and slogan, and a suitable Management Team picture.

Task, deliverable

See your Team File, tab Year 0, Define your hotel's strategy. Fill out the section as indicated.
See your Team document, tab Year 0. Fill out the section as indicated.
You will see some 'locked' symbols on the tabs of your Team File: don't worry. On the tabs year 0 and tab year 1-2-3-4 you can edit in the indicated cells. Do be careful in handling the file, it is a spreadsheet.
The tabs Dashboard and Results you can never edit.

With mouse-overs in the cell in column B (black triangles) you will find more information.

• Fill out your given Team Number
• Think of an appropriate name for your hotel: very important: explain why you chose such name. Make the link to your strategy. Check the internet to see what pops-up using this name e.g.
• Give the full names of all the Management Team members and assign a role to each of them. If your team has less than five persons, some of you will have a double role. This doesn't affect your workload in the Game.
• Provide a mobile phone number as the contact number of your team (preferably of the General Manager). We will use this for instructions on how and when to contact e.g.
• Make a Management Team contract. You can either put it in your Team File or post it anywhere online and put a link in the cell D2: Additional information here. Double check if the link works!
• Decide on the strategy of your hotel: explain in approx. 10 lines. Have clear and measurable goals. Look at the available historical data and operating reviews of the hotel, and ensure you come up with realistic ideas. Rather than ideas impossible to achieve. Use the right concepts (theories) from marketing.
• Decide on the target groups or markets of your hotel: explain in approx. 10 lines. This should be in line with our strategy of course.
• Make an appropriate Management Team picture. Make the link to your strategy, so be sure the way you present your team matches the image and the chosen strategy of your hotel.
• New hotel logo: this should reflect your strategy as well: does it tell what you are doing, your image? Is it recognizable? Explain why you chose this logo in a few lines. Be sure, again, to use marketing and communication concepts. And think of IP-Copyright: you can't just 'steal' things.
• Make a link in explaining the new logo to a new house-style.
• Think of a new slogan. Explain why you chose this slogan in a few lines. Be sure, again, to use marketing and communication concepts. The slogan should be usable without the logo (as well). Again, keep IP-Copyright in mind.
• Create a Facebook (business) page, matching your strategy.
• Create a second social media account, matching your strategy.

• Use adequate applied marketing concepts, not simply theories. Look at best practices in the market that pay off and go a long way.

Assessed elements

• Did you perform all the above outlined items?
• Are your proposed ideas and decisions well-argued?
• Are the right or suitable concepts and theories used?
• Are all in line with the strategy?
• Are the choices somehow realistic?

Handing in

Working on your Team File, means your work in the cloud: no need to save (done automatically) or hand-in. Just be sure all sections on your Team File tab Year 0 are ready, well before the deadline.

However, do note that all creativity assignments (see 49NL Assignments and timeline) must be uploaded individually to LMS at the same time and before the deadline.

Help files

• Demo Team File of a finished Game. Each competition is a bit different, but it will give you an idea of what a filled out Team File might look like
• Year 0
• Hotel name
• History
• Strategy
• Target group
• Job descriptions in hospitality
• Logo
• House style and identity
• Free logo services

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Emerald Forest Hotel offering an emerald hotel experience! | Run your own hotel in this management simulation.