During this process Dunfey Hotels Corporation wants to achieve certain goals and evaluate previous operations through proper documentation using the four basic steps: assess supply-demand relationship

How good companies achieve success

The surest way to promote fast product development is to plan how it will be done.

Whether developing a new service or a new product, companies should use a parallel approach to product development. Parallel product development can bring products that meet customer needs into the marketplace quickly by integrating design and capabilities and marketplace information. It's not based on one element or magical formula; rather, it is a collection of principles that must be practiced together. It is parallel in two ways: It relies heavily on the use of multifunctional teams who work in parallel, and the teams perform as many tasks in parallel as possible. Successfully done, it's the best way for a company to conduct its major new-product development projects.

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Analysis

To stay ahead of the competition, proactive service companies must constantly look for new product innovations.  The traditional product life cycle theory indicates that typically a product will have a s-curve with stages of growth, maturity, saturation and decline in sales and profits.   This holds true also for services products, which means that product development and new-product innovations is important in services companies.  Improvements to Dunfey Hotels and acquired properties can render that product so new as to make it seen by prospective purchasers as a genuinely new product, and if an existing product is launched to a new market or to other purposes, that product is also new for the customer.  

In most cases Dunfey Hotels Corporation advances on and modifications of existing products.  The management welcomed the various types of product options that vary from major innovations to minor styles of hotels.    Major innovations are new services for markets as yet undefined.  Startup business consists of new services for a market that is already served by existing products that meet the same generic needs.  New services for the currently served market represent attempts to offer existing customers a service not previously available from the company, although it may be available from other companies.  Service line extensions represent augmentations of the existing service line, service improvements represent the most common type of service innovation.  Style changes represent most modest service innovations, although they are often highly visible and can have significant effects on customer perceptions.

Although Dunfey properties were a mixed bag of hotels, widely diverse in location and service level, they have embraced the proper strategic market segmentation, which were tailored fit according to the needs of their customers.   Market segmentation as the act of identifying and profiling distinct groups of buyers who might require separate products and/or marketing mixes (Kotler et al., 1996: p314).

The Dunfey properties were divided into four groups: Classic & Luxury Hotels; Major Meeting & Convention Hotels; Inns and Airport Hotel and International Hotels, each managed and directed by a group of director for operations.  Some hotels were affiliated for marketing purposes only i.e. linking the inns to national advertising campaigns and existence of Dunfey organization.  

The Dunfey Planning Process

The most important elements of service development for Dunfey properties that are handled and directed by the management for implementation can be described as: The Dunfey Management Approach and The Way They Work.

During this process Dunfey Hotels Corporation wants to achieve certain goals and evaluate previous operations through proper documentation using the four basic steps: assess supply-demand relationship; positioning; gap analysis; structuring measures requirement.

Multifunctional teamwork-Multifunctional teams make fast services development possible. They are made up of people from all key functional areas who can contribute to and have a stake in the project. The team members are all involved in the project from the start and they select their own leader. Key suppliers and customers are often development team members.

The teams are empowered to make decisions and draw upon company resources as needed. They are allowed to make critical decisions, and they have adequate resources and incentives.

Facilitated front-end project planning-The surest way to promote fast product development is to take the necessary time at the front end of the project to plan how it will be done. This is the time for a multifunctional team to use a trained facilitator to:

·List key assumptions.
·Set project mission and objectives.
·Generate a critical path chart.
·Identify project risks.
·Determine required resources.
·List preliminary product features.
·Prepare for a presentation of the plan to senior management.

Faster cycle times, higher-quality products, fewer design flaws and more enthusiastic teams will more than repay the time taken at the front end of a project by the development team.

Good product definition-A clear product definition is an essential aspect of any development project. The product definition addresses the following questions:
·Who are the customers?
·Who else has a vested interest in the product?
·What do we know about the customers?
·How will the product be positioned in the marketplace?
·What are the product's competitive advantages?
·What customer needs will this product satisfy?
·How much are the customers willing to pay for this product over time?
·When is the product needed?
·How will we reach the customers with the product?
·How will we promote the product?
·What reliability level is needed with this product?
·What is the use environment of the product?

The product definition ultimately leads to a list of product features-those product attributes and benefits that the customer is willing to pay for. Other good product development practices are:

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Senior management of the development process
Strategically driven product planning
Adequate market research
Product features frozen early and kept frozen
Computer-driven critical path project management

Techniques

When developing a new product, a parallel approach to product development should be used. It is parallel in the sense that it relies on multifunctional teams that work in parallel, with the teams doing as many tasks in parallel as possible.
Make sure there is a companywide system for doing parallel product development. Such a system requires senior management involvement and buy-in.
Do everything you can to ensure middle-management buy-in. Also ensure that middle managers understand that their role in the product-development process is primarily supportive.
Communicate the message that speed isn't enough. New products must also meet customer needs in a superior way and must have high perceived value.

 Encourage development teams to do as many tasks as possible in parallel, at least to a degree consistent with the amount of risk the company is willing to tolerate.

When it comes to product development, it doesn't matter whether a company is in the service sector or a manufacturer of products. The principles of good product development are the same.  Companies that practice a parallel approach to product development will do best in the long run.

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Conclusion

Dunfey Hotels Corporation is an organization that has an ability to fulfill its mission through a blend of sound management, strong governance, financial sustainability, and a persistent rededication to achieving results.

The organization has a vital mission and a clear understanding to its identity.  It is actively involved in regular, results-oriented, strategic, and self-reflective thinking and planning that aligns strategies with the mission and organizational capacity.  The planning process involves stakeholders in an ongoing dialogue that ensures that the organization’s mission and programs are valuable to the neighborhood or consistency it serves.  

Dunfey properties creates a significant competitive advantage by providing clients with a brand-consistent portfolio of services that drive incremental group business through a compatible, group inventory management process that meeting planners view as "best-in-class."  The task of the company is to provide the best possible prerequisites for the experience, an attractive idea and description of the product, successful service process and reliable, functioning system.  

In the case of Dunfey Hotels Corporation, their concept is to answer the customer question for new experience, what is the benefit and value.  The main determinants should be the customer need and expectation.  

Dunfey Hotels Corporation views improving service quality as an ongoing process, rather than as an occasional project-i.e., they have systems in place for continuously monitoring customer service and taking appropriate corrective actions.

Service quality improvement cannot occur effectively without the benefit of insights from periodic employee research.  Employees are "internal customers" and, as such, firms need to understand the expectations and perceptions of those customers as well. The

quality of service that employees receive from a firm will have a strong impact on the employees' own ability and willingness to deliver superior service to the firms' external customers. Because most services are produced and consumed simultaneously, employees in effect become a part of a service firm's "product" and of the customers' total experience. Therefore, dissatisfied or unhappy employees are not likely to perform at their peak and deliver what customers would consider tobe superior service.

They must implement processes for striving to deliver their service reliably (i.e., "doing it right the first time") and for effectively resolving any service problems that occur (i.e., "doing it very right the second time").  Customers' were likely to engage in the following types of behavior in the future:

*Being loyal to the company ("LOYALTY")
* Being willing to pay a higher price for the company's services ("PAY MORE")
* Being inclined to switch to a competitor ("SWITCH")
* Being inclined to complain to others (e.g., other customers) when they experience a problem with the company's service ("COMPLAIN")

The service product means value, which is “the perceived benefits provided to meet the customer’s needs and want, quality of service received, and the value for money”.  The service product is fundamentally a complex human experience, which is an output of a production process, where the customers utilizes the facilities and services to generate the final output, experience.   The experience is the customer outcome, which in the eyes of the customer, is associated with added value and quality.  Dunfey Hotels have developed the facilitation of travel and activity of individuals away from their usual environment.  

Zeithaml, V.A, Parasuranam, A&Berry, L.L. 1990.  Delivering Quality Service. Balancing Customer Perceptions and Expectations. New York: The Free Press.

Ziethaml, V.A. & Britner, M.J. 1996 Services Marketing. Integrating Customer Focus Across the Frim. 2nd Edition.  US: McCraw-Hill Higher Education.

Morgan, M. 1996.  Marketing for Leisure and Tourism.  Hemel Hempstead: Prectice Hall Europe