Task Journal Entry. The Journal function in Interact2 must be used. External journal sites are not permitted. If your country geo-blocks Interact2 website or your circumstance prevents you from accessing the Internet (eg. due to a disability or if you are in a correctional centre), please contact your lecturer immediately. If it is an office/organisation firewall preventing access, you must find an alternative Internet access point to complete this task. Warning: Entering or editing data in this journal entry after 2359 hours on 10 May will result in deduction of marks. Write a business report based on the following: A group of ten hotel chains have decided to merge their business to combat market pressure for low priced hotel accommodation. The new chain called StayTogether has over a thousand hotels from all categories (backpacker, bed & breakfast homes to luxurious suites) around the world. It combats the sale of hotel rooms via popular web sites such as booking.com, hotels.com and so on which reduces their profits and waters down their corporate image. Bookings will be from a single web site only (with a complementary mobile app) and prices are fixed through the year with peak pricing during popular periods. Senior management has finalised on the following decisions: 1. A customer loyalty scheme called StayTogether Loyalty will reward customers with airport transfers, car parking on site and free nights. 2. If a kitchen and standard restaurant is on site, buffet breakfast and dinner is included in the hotel room price. This is to add to the dollar value earned per guest. Exclusive restaurants on site will charge extra. 3. If travellers arrive by selected airlines, rebates are given. Customers can choose credit for free nights or meals. 4. A corporate social responsibility programme to allow customers to nominate the charity where they want the chain to donate to. 1% of their total (billable) expenses will go to this charity. Write a business report outlining the above case, stating assumptions you make at the beginning of your report. Provide critique into the management decisions substantiating with reference to literature. In your report, make the difference between Information Systems (IS) and Information Technology (IT) issues and how it will affect customer choice, continued patronage, brand loyalty, etc. Suggest how to attract new customers (from competitors) and any other new business opportunities that may arise with such a set up (eg. technological services on site, personalised automated tour guide, etc.). All these should be substantiated with references. (hints and tips to write this assignment is available under Assignment tab of Interact2) Rationale This task meets Learning Outcomes 5 & 6: Students will : be able to critique management processes and involvement in planning for Information Systems and Information Technology in an organisation; be able to identify and co-relate emerging technology issues in management and provide a short balanced analysis report. Marking criteria Criteria HD & DI CR PS FL Title (1 mark) Introduction Word Limit: 150 words (3 marks) Provison of title (1 mark) Objective of the report and the relationship to other works in the field clearly stated (3 mark) Objective and/or relationship not clearly stated Either objective and/or relationship not present No introduction or introduction not relevant to the body. 1+3 marks 2 marks 1.5 marks 0 mark Executive Summary Word Limit: 250 words (4 marks) Summary of the complete report well written for the reader to become acquainted with the body of the material. Keeps to word limit. Summary covers some topics. Contains minor errors. Summary covers some of the key aspects only. Summary is an extended introduction. 4 marks 3 marks 2 marks 0 mark Significance and contribution - Body of Report, Recommendations & Conclusion Word Limit: 1800 words (9 marks) Report extremely well supported with relevant citation to literature. Recommendations appropriate and conclusion well presented. Any assumptions made are clearly noted. Report is supported with some citations whereas a few claims made are unsubstantiated with literature. Recommendations missing and/or conclusion poorly made. Report is supported with minimal citation.Recommendations and/or conclusion made disjointed from narrative in body of report. Report is not supported with relevant case study examples. Any assumptions made are not noted. 9 marks 7 marks 5 marks 0 mark Formatting, Writing Style and text structure [Read Presentation Guide below] (3 marks) Meets formatting and presentation requirements as set out No spelling, punctuation or grammatical errors. Did not meet at least two formatting and/or presentation requirements. Some spelling, punctuation or grammatical errors. Wrote report using points or numbered lists. Formating and presentation rules not followed. Multiple punctuation and grammatical errors. 3 marks 2 marks 0 mark Correct citation and referencing - Minimum 5 references (4 marks) APA 6th edition referencing applied to a range of relevant resources. No referencing errors. Direct quotes used sparingly. Sources all documented. APA 6th edition referencing applied to mainly a range of web links only and/or Two or more citation or referencing errors detected. Direct quotes used sparingly. Sources all documented. Referencing not done to the APA 6th edition standard. Over-use of direct quotes. Range of sources used is not appropriate and/or not documented. 4 marks 3 marks 0 mark Executive Summary (250 words) An executive summary, or management summary, is a short document or section of a document, produced for business purposes, that summarizes a longer report or proposal or a group of related reports in such a way that readers can rapidly become acquainted with a large body of material without having to read it all. For example, write your summary this way: This report provides an critical analysis and evaluation of... Results of the analysis show that the four management decisions designed to improve the business competitiveness are... The report finds the prospects of the company to compete successfully with booking.com and hotels.com are... Recommendations discussed include... Your Introduction can start like this (150 words): This report is a critical analysis of the management decisions in systems and technology at StayTogether, a group of ten hotel chains that have decided to merge their business to combat market pressure for low priced hotel accommodation...and so on and so forth (state the problems here that StayTogether is trying to resolve). This report will primarily discuss the four management decisions designed to affect customer choice, continued patronage, brand loyalty, attract new customers (from competitors) and any other new business opportunities that may arise with such a set up. Finally, this report provides recommendations on how to utilise ICT to gain competitive advantage against their competitors. In this report, i also made the following assumptions...(state assumptions here, for example, the app was developed internally (proprietary), by one of the hotel chain's IT group). You Body may be divided into the following sections (1800 words): Critique into the four management decisions (Since the goal is continued patronage, brand loyalty, attract new customers (from competitors) and any other new business opportunities that may arise with such a set up, discuss whether the four strategies below will most likely, or least likely help achieve their goals). The four management decisions are: - Loyalty scheme - Free buffet breakfast and dinner - Rebates - Social responsibility (i.e., charity donations) For example, you may write: Loyalty programs are structured marketing strategies designed by merchants to encourage customers to continue to shop at or use the services of businesses associated with each program (Sharp et. al., 1997). Over time the data can reveal, for example, a given customer's favorite brand of beer, or whether he or she is a vegetarian. Data collected can be used to formulate marketing messages specifically tailored to the customers needs. Loyalty program works because (state your reasons here)... REFERENCES Sharp, Byron and Anne Sharp (1997), "Loyalty Programs and Their on Repeat-Purchase Loyalty Patterns", International Journal of Research in Marketing, 14 (5), 473-86. Difference between IT and IS issues the company will face - Issues such as scalability issues, technology compatibility issues, data conversion issues, sustainability issues, legal issues (patented technologies), employment issues (machines replacing people in the job), user interface issues, etc How these issues affect customer choice, continued patronage, brand loyalty, etc. (for example, if user interface is not user friendly) Conclusions/Recommendations How to attract new customers (from competitors). Your response here should be beyond the four management decisions above. For example, should they use BI as well? CRM? SCM? New business opportunities that may arise with such a set up (eg. technological services on site, personalised automated tour guide, etc.). References Minimum 5 references. 0 0 0 Assignment 4 Format Follow the generally accepted format for a business report: - Title - Executive Summary - Introduction - Main Body - Conclusion - Reference List 0 0 0