55NL Year 1 Business assignment
Your new strategy
You must take quite important decisions at the start, that is referred to as Year 1. It occurs well before you start embarking on your first operational decisions on prices and costs, in Year 2. It 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 strategy for the (former) Emerald Forest hotel. 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 years. 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 you can invest.
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 1, Define your hotel's strategy. Fill out the light green sections as indicated.
You will see some 'locked' symbols on the other tabs of your Team File: don't worry. On the tabs year 1 and tab year 2-3-4-5 you can edit in the indicated cells. Do be careful in handling the file, it is a spreadsheet.
On the tabs 'Dashboard' and 'Results' you can never edit, but still use the black triangles in the cell-cornes, to get more information.
With mouse-overs in the cell in column B (black triangles) you will find more information. Only fill out the light green cells. Use adequate applied marketing concepts, not simply theories. Look on this platform for info as well. Look at best practices in the market that pay off and go a long way.
- Fill out your given Team Number
- Think of an appropriate New 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 six 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 (accessible) online and put a link in the cell D20. 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 and infor from this platform.
- Decide on the Target markets and target groups of your hotel: explain in approx. 10 lines. This should be in line with our strategy of course.
- Make an appropriate Picture of your hotels Management Team, so your team. 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 of your hotel: 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.
- Explaining the new logo, related to yur new strategy.
- Think of a Slogan / pay-off of your hotel.
- 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 the first social media (business) account-channel, matching your strategy.
- Create a second social media (business) account-channel, matching your strategy.
- Use the cell 'Extra information, see assignment' when requested by your coach or in the creativity assignment.
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 1 are ready, well before the deadline.
However, do note that all creativity assignments (see 55NL Assignments and timeline) must be uploaded individually to Brightspace.
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 1
- Hotel name
- History
- Strategy
- Target group
- Logo
- Job descriptions in hospitality
- House style and identity
- Free logo services from Canva
