Data Analytics and Business Process Innovation †Free Samples

Question: Discuss about the Data Analytics and Business Process Innovation. Answer: Introduction The decision by 10 different chain of hotels to merge together and become a single unified operation to combat market competitiveness as well as low-costing issues has led to the creation of a unified portal that would help them not only reduce the competition but also help them increase their revenue through better pricing. The portal would help them achieve better pricing by controlling their room prices according to their own demands as well as reduce the overall competition. Travel sector and in particular the Hotel industry has come a long way and has seen some major transformations throughout. The collaboration of StayTogether is among the latest such example wherein the primary motive is to offer best-in-class services at every point segment while also ensuring that the business does not have to run dry and be always in front of a smoking gun. StayTogether would however need to do a lot of ground-breaking changes in their way of operating the business as well as ensuring that a competent alternative to popular hotel reservation system is developed that is both intuitive for the customer as well as interesting to use. This should ensure that the customers do not feel anything missing and end up traversing on to their competitors. The StayTogether hotel chain would launch a new loyalty program that covers all the hotels within the StayTogether brand and would allow customers to receive loyalty points for booking the rooms which can be redeemed later on and the program also covers a host of new benefits including free hotel pick up and drop, concierge services and upgrade to superior rooms without additional cost (Orlitzky, 2015). Any rooms booked through the StayTogether website and mobile app would include a free buffet breakfast and an addition of a guest at no extra charge. A legal contract with all proper due-diligence has already been created among the member hotels agreeing upon the condition that all hotels would be listed under the same Staytogether digital initiative. The terms and conditions related to profit sharing and expenditure sharing is already done. The proposed project would be completed within the budget that was allocated for it. The proposed project would be completed within the schedule. The resources that have been engaged in the execution of the project has all the required skills and talents to perform their duties and roles which have been allocated to them. IT and IS Information Technology and Information Systems are two different sides to the same coin and contrary to what many may believe are not the exact same thing. There are difference between them and the same has been enumerated below: Information System or IS is defined as a term which is mainly associated and focused with information quality together with the availability of information. There are many different operations performed under them and these includes management, storage and handling of information among others (El-Awad, 2017). Complete information management is bundled under IS and any related problems are considered as IS issues. Any information and gaps that might be present during communication as well as transfer of information would be included in IS issues. In contrast, the IT or Information Technology with respect to Information System is associated with the technical infrastructure and its management (Bruni, 2014). There are many technologies that is included in the case of information structure. In addition to this, there would be a constant phase of improvement as technological innovation that keeps on happening. Adjustability of the technologies with one another and also with the system is included in IT issues. IS issues - Impact The StayTogether operation would be associated with many different IS issues and such issues would have varying degree of consequences too. The website that would be created for StayTogether together with its database could have security issues associated with it and same has been listed below: There would be a lot of private information within the website of the hotel chain that would comprise of details of all customers profile, their duration of stay, their address, financial details among other things. If the data is compromise in an unfortunate attack or an insider leaks the information deliberately, then it would have a great impact on the sensitivity of the information. Information integrity would play an important role which would be impacted in the case due to integrity based attacks like alteration of all the messages which are exchanged (Chasserio, 2014). For a hotel reservation site it is important that the site should be up and running 24 x 7 x 365 days a year. This is because people from all around the globe and from all different timezones are going to access the website and if there is an attack that threatens the websites availability, then it poses a great risk altogether to the company. Performance could be impacted owing to inadequate or incorrect adherence to key standards. IT Issues - Impact StayTogether would be associated with several It issues. If the business faces any such issues, the reputation and brand image would be spoilt and that would directly hit the business of the hotels. Given that its a competitive market, the competitors would never fail to take advantage of this situation. The issues that could create troubles for StayTogether may have various level of consequences as listed below: Technical faults and failures in conjunction with equipment and tools are a common feature. There are multiple equipment and tools that could be used for StayTogether in terms of systems, networking tools and hardware. Any issues in these tools or misconfigurations thereof would create problems for business continuous services of StayTogether (Antunes, 2014) There are different entitles which are associated with chain of hotel with respect to external and internal systems. There are also various components and corresponding sub-components which are required to integrate together. This will help in maintaining the overall functioning of the system. Non-availability of server or any other application server may lead to stranding of users on the site. There will be zero conversion rate and business may experience huge losses. Strategies to Attract New Customers Enticing new users with offers and benefits such as discounts, deals and partner benefits. Some of these benefits could be made so that customers have to earn it. The chain of hotels can make use of cheap and yet highly effective marketing tools such as Social Media tools, Banner Advertisements, Google Adwords and SEO among others. The benefits and offerings for new customers aligned with an appropriate marketing campaign would allow them to create a buzz in a grand scale while making it yet cost-effective than man other methods of marketing. A survey of troubles faced by existing customers and a chance to hear them say what they would desire in their hotels would allow the company to tailor their Hotel service according to customers taste and demands which would be quite difficult for hotels that already have an established line of operations and are too rigid to accommodate the changes (Wamba, 2017). The company can also enhance their offering by ensuring that their services are not rigid and instead is quite flexible. This includes things such as limited hours of stay instead of full 1 day stay, accommodation of guests at no extra charge, ability to pay via mobile apps and wallets among others. The hotel chain can make use of loyalty member scheme. Under this scheme, the users will be imparted points on each stay. These points can be redeemed any time once they cross a certain limit. New Business Opportunities Since a large chain of Hotels are entering the market that has changed a lot in the last decade, they can analyze and tap several different opportunities that may be difficult for other companies. StayTogether would collaborate and partner with city touring services and ensure that a deep meaningful relationship is carved out such that people booking the services through the hotel have the best possible touring services that they can get. Collaboration with transporting aggregators such as Uber and Lyft among others would allow the business to provide a highly efficient method of transportation services without actually having to make any upfront investments. Incorporation of business intelligence and data analytics services at every part of the front-end business operation would ensure that customers behaviours are tracked and preferences are understood to provide better tailor made services for them. Frequent services are provided with special offers, deals, points and free upgrades so as to keep the past customers engaged and loyal to the brand. (Ferretti, 2016) Conclusion The mentioned hotel is a collaboration of 10 hotel chains. They have agreed with each other to perform together. In the past few years, there has been various changes happening in the field of travel and tourism industry. The hospitality industry is also experiencing the same ripples. As a result of which, it becomes necessary for any hotel to adapt o these changes and adapt itself in a way that it is able to meet the demands of the ever-rising customer number at every point of time. In view of this, it becomes evident that IT and IS issues associated with the hotels should be avoided. The hotel chain must keep a plan ready to mitigate any IT/IS related problems. One of the key steps which can be taken is to enhance the management with improved administration. The high-level management must ensure that feedbacks of customers and validations are conducted at regular period of time. This will avoid any issues in performance, availability and quality. In addition to these steps, actions must be taken to improvise the security and technical set up of the hotel chains. This will avoid any cyber-attack or threat. This shows that it becomes important and a necessity for StayTogether to have a good and supportive collaboration at the back-end to integrate all the systems and sub-systems of the hotel chain. It is necessary for StayTogether to have a collaborated back-end to integrate all of the systems and the components together as a single unit. References Antunes, A. (2014). MUVE IT: reduce the friction in business processes, 20(4), 571-597. https://dx.doi.org/10.1108/BPMJ-07-2013-0093 Brocke, J. (2014). Ten principles of good business process management, 20(4), 530-548. https://dx.doi.org/10.1108/BPMJ-06-2013-0074 Bruni, A. (2014). Entrepreneuring together: his and her stories. International Journal Of Entrepreneurial Behavior Research, 20(2), 108-127. https://dx.doi.org/10.1108/IJEBR-12-2011-0187 Chasserio, S. (2014). 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