- Various Facilities (14)
- Sona Bath
- Steam Bath
- Restaurant (40% off)
- Bar (Blue-Lagoon)
- Sham-e-Gazal
- Valet Parking
- Free pass for events in Sayaji
- Free entry to Critical Mass
- Go Bananas (25% off)
- Complementary room for a night at SAYAJI HOTELS LTD., INDORE for anniversary
- Hotel facilities (15% off)
- Affiliation with 30 clubs throughout India
- Library under construction
- Acupressure & Massage
Other than these regular entertainment & sporting activities the club also hosts number of musical concerts, theatre, workshops, contests & tournaments.
The daily club attendance is around 15-20% & in order to encourage its members to spend larger time at the club, the club offers some exciting privileges like complementary anniversary room, 15% discount on all hotel facilities etc. all these additional advantages are made available by sharing resources with the hotel management.
Departments shared among Club & Hotel management are Human Resource, F&B production, F&B services & Accounts. Under this sharing of resources scheme, guests at hotel can enjoy games facilities provided by the club whereas members of club can avail discounts on all hotel facilities.
To inform its members well in advance about events that are going to be organized by the club, the management prepares a full schedule of its activities in a monthly planner. This planner includes date & time of events as well as important information/message for the members. Sometimes it also invites guest feedback by filling a simple form.
SAYAJI HOTEL:
As stated earlier SAYAJI HOTELS LTD., INDORE is into:
1. Accommodation
- Efficiency: Privileges include access to entertainment facilities, children below 12 years exempted from charges if sharing room with parents.
- Deluxe: Buffet breakfast at the coffee shop, fruit basket, mineral water, courtesy laundry of small garments, ironing of one pair of large garments, one game of bowling free everyday, airport pickup and drop, local drop to city office, 8 hours or 80 kms. Free usage of Tata Indica everyday, access to recreational facilities, children below 12 years exempted from charges if sharing room with parents.
- Grande: Welcome Mock tail, buffet breakfast at the coffee shop, fruit basket, mineral water, courtesy laundry of small garments, ironing of one pair of large garments, unconstrained internet usage, one game of bowling free everyday, airport pickup and drop, local drop to city office, 8 hours or 80 kms. Free usage of Ford Icon everyday, access to recreational facilities, children below 12 years exempted from charges if sharing room with parents.
2. Restaurant
- Portico: Casual dining at its best, with a lavish spread of buffet, comprising of Indian and Continental delicacies. Serving Breakfast, Lunch and Dinner.
- Kebabsville: Most sought after live kitchen destination serving unlimited helpings of 10 types of kebabs, followed by buffet dinner, at the pool side. Fixed cover charge. Dinner only.
- Sanchi: Fine dining venue, serving dishes from around the world and specializing in the centuries old traditional cuisines of Awadh.
- Go Banana: A meal on the go is what gets you to Go Bananas. From plain Jane sandwiches to exotic pizzas and hot and happening Mexican. Specialty tea, coffee and juices.
3. Banquet
- Mahal Convention centre
- Sapphire
- Jade Lounge
- Emerald
- Ruby
- Topaz
- Vatika Lawns
- Vrindavan Lawns
VARIOUS DEPARTMENTS AT SAYAJI
- Accounts & Audit
- F&B Production
- Banquet Operations
- Kitchen
- F&B Services
- House Keeping
- Front Office
- Purchase & Store
- Sales & Marketing
- Club
- Human Resource
- Security
- Engineering
- Electronic Data Processing
- Travel Desk
7 Ps MODEL OF INTEGRATED SERVICE MANAGEMENT
For manufactured goods the marketing strategies comprise of four basic elements: Product, Price, Place and Promotion. However for service performances the strategic elements are:
- Product
- Place
- Process
- People
- Promotion
- Physical Evidence
- Price
How these are implemented at Sayaji Hotels Ltd., Indore is explained below:
PRODUCT ELEMENT
For hotel industry, there can be only two product levels-core services & supplementary services. Among core services it is only accommodation facility i.e. a room to stay, a bed & a bathroom whereas the second level of supplementary services comprises of number of facilities like entertainment, restaurant, transportation etc.
At SAYAJI HOTELS LTD., INDORE there are three accommodation options for guests to choose from namely-Efficiency, Deluxe & Grande. Though all types of supplementary services provided by SAYAJI HOTELS LTD., INDORE can be availed under all the three options but for Grande they are a part of package itself whereas under Efficiency & Deluxe the guest has to pay extra charges for some of the services.
The product level diagram for SAYAJI HOTELS LTD., INDORE can be drawn as
Grande:
Privileges include
- Entertainment facilities
- Buffet breakfast
- Fruit basket
- Mineral water
- Laundering
- Ironing
- Bowling alley
- Airport pickup and drop
- 8-hours local transportation (Ford Ikon)
- Welcome Mocktail
Deluxe:
Privileges include
- Entertainment facilities
- Buffet breakfast
- Fruit basket
- Mineral water
- Laundering
- Ironing
- Bowling alley
- Airport pickup and drop
- 8-hours local transportation (Indica)
- Welcome Mocktail (Charged Additionally)
Efficiency:
Privileges include
- Entertainment facilities
- Buffet breakfast (Charged Additionally)
- Fruit basket (Charged Additionally)
- Mineral water (Charged Additionally)
- Laundering (Charged Additionally)
- Ironing (Charged Additionally)
- Bowling alley (Charged Additionally)
- Airport pickup and drop (Charged Additionally)
- 8-hours local transportation (Ford Ikon/Indica, Charged Additionally)
- Welcome Mocktail (Charged Additionally)
For accommodation hotel has 207 rooms and suites, which includes Presidential suite, Honeymoon suite and an Executive Floor called Sayaji Grande.
- SAYAJI HOTELS LTD., INDORE provide 4 dining options for its guests, namely
- Portico
- Kebabsville
- Sanchi
- Go Bananas
For Entertainment of its guests SAYAJI HOTELS LTD., INDORE offers a wide range of options like
- Critical Mass
- Go Bananas
- Billiards and Snooker
- Fitness centre
SAYAJI HOTELS LTD., INDORE has 9 banqueting venues all with different setups and capacities
- Mahal Convention centre
- Sapphire
- Jade Lounge
- Emerald
- Ruby
- Topaz
- Vatika Lawns
- Vrindavan Lawns
Product level diagram for club can be drawn as
Health and fitness activities include
- Swimming pool
- Baby pool
- Kids Zone
- State of art gym
- Sauna-Steam-Jacuzzi
- Wooden badminton courts
- Glass squash court
- Table tennis
- Lawn tennis
- Billiards and Snooker
- Card room
- Pool side bar-restaurant
- Dera-club bar
- Saraya-club restaurant
- Banquet halls
- 6 lane bowling alley
Other Privileges include
- Complementary anniversary room
- 40% discount at club restaurant and bar
- 15% discount on all hotel facilities
- Regular training programmes for members of sporting activities
- Coach, marker, trainer, lifeguard available at all times
- Regular cultural and social events
- Competitions, tournaments and workshops
- Proposed library, jogging track and volley ball
PLACE ELEMENT
This involves decisions on place & time of delivery of service, & also includes methods and channels employed for the same. Sayaji Hotels Ltd., Indore focuses most on speed and convenience of guest when it is concerned with place and timely delivery of services. These two are one of the important determinants in their service delivery system.
Housekeeping
This department has one supervisor and four bellboys at each floor to ensure the speed and convenience of service delivery for the guest. Method adopted for this is messaging through telephone and they also make use of walky-talky especially in public areas of hotel premises.
One good example of such efforts is, they have started their in house laundry system to avoid delays, which generally occurs if the laundry facilities are hired from outside sources.
F&B Production
Kitchens as well as Banquet Operations both utilize a fully computerized system to record all banquet booking details. This helps them to deliver services exactly as per the guest specification like food items to be served i.e. menu, form of presentation, decoration etc. Also it provides a great help in managing operations when it is a case of some last minute adjustment in the program. This record sheet is termed as FUNCTIONAL PROSPECTUS (FP) & it covers even minute details like:
- Arrival/Departure time of guests
- Menu details
- Seating plan
- Food package (standard breakfast, plain lunch, dinner)
Purchase & Stores
For this department the guests are none other than other departments of SAYAJI HOTELS LTD., INDORE itself. There are near about 7000 different items, which are required to be purchased & the demand for most of the items is very uncertain. Hence to avoid any delays in fulfilling requirements, the purchase department also makes use of computer data recording sheets. Standard format of this sheet is
With the help of this record sheet it becomes very convenient for purchase department to deliver items to other departments on time.
Travel Desk
Their service is to avail transportation facility to the guest. They maintain records for each guest so that they know in advance at what time the guest is to be received/dropped at airport. Accordingly they prepare schedule for their official pick-up cars. Same procedure is followed for providing local transportation facility also.
PROCESS ELEMENT
By process here, we mean the method & sequence of actions in which service operating system of an organization works. As far as SAYAJI HOTELS LTD., INDORE is concerned; each department has its own design & implementation procedure for creating & delivering services.
Accounts
The accounts department has been divided into two sections as per its operations- one is audit section and the other is account section. The account section follows a routine sequence of collecting information from all the departments & recording the details of transactions in to account sheets. This is particularly done to judge the performance level of each department on daily basis. Accounting methods followed here are similar to any that of any other service or manufacturing organization.
The audit section of this department is solely responsible for conducting audits. Internal auditing takes place every month whereas external auditing is once in a year.
Forecasting method adopted is trend analysis of past 2-3 years.
F&B Services
This department is also known as Banquet Booking where bookings for functions like conferences, parties, seminars, marriages etc. takes place. The process starts at Banquet desk where the guest can drop all the booking details by telephone or a personal visit. Then on the basis of information collected from the guest, Banquet Function Prospectus (FP) is prepared which covers all details regarding arrangement of function. This FP is then forwarded to all related departments like F&B Production.
During this entire process, direct interaction of the guest is only with the Captain who is a person from Banquet Booking & is responsible to make arrangements exactly as demanded by the guest.
F&B Production
As stated earlier it comprises of Kitchen & F&B Operations. Once these departments have received FP they start working for arrangements. Kitchen has three sub-sections & after receiving the FP it is send to the respective sub-section for further processing. F&B Operations on the other hand receives FP, which tells about seating plan, music, lights, decoration etc.
House Keeping
For House Keeping the process starts from receiving the request or complaint from the guests, which is provided to them either by the Front Office or by the Bellboys working at the floors. As soon as the request is received from anyone of the floors, it is communicated to the supervisor at that floor through telephone & the guest is immediately attended.
Purchase & Stores
The sequence followed by this department is, in every 3-4 days they examine each item of their record sheet. Any item which goes below the minimum stock level is purchased immediately. For each item they have a list of tentative suppliers from which the supplier is selected & order is placed after negotiations.
The purchase action may also take place if any specific demands are put forward by any department, in which case, the same sequence of actions is followed but the demand should reach at least one day in advance.
Marketing & Sales
They start their operations by budgeting, for which they make use of methods like trend analysis for regular events and brain storming for new events. Once the budget is prepared, the process of campaign planning starts, which covers in-house development of advertisement design and media planning. Later on press conferences are organized preceding the respective events. This was all about marketing of events.
As for their marketing efforts for their main product that is hotel and banquets, they function on two bases: firstly they prepare profiles about the likes and dislikes of regular as well as esteemed guests. Secondly they gather information about corporate bodies through personal visits and pass the information to the respective departments as and when required.
Club
They start with their monthly planning, which deals with various functions like budgeting, staffing, marketing, events, tournaments, programmes etc. These plans are prepared on the basis of segmentation of existing members like female members, children, senior citizens etc. After that these plans are implemented month long. One important point to be noted here is that the marketing activities for the Club are totally different from that of SAYAJI HOTELS LTD., INDORE.
Travel Desk
They receive information regarding incoming guests from the front office, which tells them about when a particular guest needs to be picked up or dropped at the airport and about his local transportation requirements. Accordingly the Travel Desk people prepare schedule for all their official vehicles.
PEOPLE ELEMENT
The performance in Hospitality sector largely depends on direct interaction between the guests and the firm’s employees. The nature of these interactions strongly influences the guest’s perception of service quality. Employees at SAYAJI HOTELS LTD., INDORE take great care of this aspect and try to satisfy all possible demands of the guests, unless against SAYAJI HOTELS LTD., INDORE policies. There is an unsaid practice that “You don’t need to ask permission to say YES to a Guest, rather you have to ask permission to say NO to a Guest.” The best thing is that even a waiter or a bellboy is allowed to take decisions on his own.
There are only four departments at SAYAJI HOTELS LTD., INDORE, which are involved, in direct interaction with the guests. These are:
Front Office
The front office is the frontier division that is constantly in direct contact with the guests. Its main function is to collect all the requests or complaints of the guests, which are communicated, to them either personally by the guest or by filling the comment card (feedback form) and send it to the respective department for prompt action. They also maintain Guest profiles for prominent and profitable Guests which is a major tool at SAYAJI HOTELS LTD., INDORE for Guest Relationship Management.
For all these function they require people with politeness, patience and who always maintain a smiling gesture in all circumstances. That is why they have their own Front Office HR management for providing specific training to all their employees.
F&B Services
This division is also a prominent consumer interactive wing since it deals with the highly profitable and corporate guests who either come for arranging functions like parties, marriages etc. or formal meetings like conferences and seminars. Such guests if dissatisfied not only mean an immediate big loss, but also mean a greater future opportunity loss since such functions act automatically as a promotion for SAYAJI HOTELS LTD., INDORE. Thus Banquet Booking employees are required to maintain healthy relations with these guests on individual basis to bring regular business to SAYAJI HOTELS LTD., INDORE.
Club
The people aspect here is a bit different because here the employees have to interact with the very same members of the club each day. They do not have any formal front office desk, where they receive members’ requests and the members are free to communicate their suggestions to any of the employees, be it a desk clerk or the General Manager Club. Therefore the employees at the Club are specially instructed not to ignore any of the suggestions, however small.
House Keeping
House Keeping is the only department, which interacts with the Guests while they are enjoying the core services provided by SAYAJI HOTELS LTD., INDORE. For maintaining their services at the level of SAYAJI HOTELS LTD., INDORE they provide backroom training for new recruits, by allowing them to work under the guidance of experienced ones while not allowing them direct interaction with the guests during the first few weeks. It is only when his behavioral aspects are satisfactory that he is allowed to come in direct interaction.
Human Resource
Hunan Resource department though never directly comes in contact with the external people element but is responsible for all the internal people management aspects. This department caters to all the internal manpower control functions for all the other departments at SAYAJI HOTELS LTD., INDORE, like recruitment, induction, performance appraisal, wage and salary administration etc. For this the HR department, though sleek, has highly competent employees.
PROMOTION ELEMENT
This component which is a part of Marketing Program plays three vital roles: providing needed information & advice, persuading target guests of the merits of a specific product, & encouraging them to take action at specific times. In service marketing, much communication is educational in nature, especially for new guests.
At SAYAJI HOTELS LTD., INDORE the promotion responsibility lies with the marketing department, which is separate for both Hotel and Club.
Marketing and Sales (Hotel)
Their main promotion tools are events, food festivals etc. These events are held on a yearly basis and are season specific regular events. These events are non-profit ones and the guests are invited personally. They contribute to the publicity aspect and long term relation building.
Other than this the media used for advertisements is generally the Print media, hoardings and pamphlets. One specimen copy of pamphlet has been attached with the report, and it provides a detailed overview of the services provided at SAYAJI HOTELS LTD., INDORE.
The SAYAJI HOTELS LTD., INDORE also organizes press releases for publicity whenever deemed necessary. These however are the used only when some VVIP guest is expected at the Hotel.
Marketing (Club)
There is an emerging Marketing department at the Club with freshers from the Pioneer Institute of Management being employed for the purpose. Their job is quite different from that of the Hotel Marketing department because the Club need not attract new members, rather they have to focus on retaining their existing members. Thus the Club Marketing department looks after designing of monthly mailers, which is their prime tool for informing the members of the upcoming events.
They also organize press conferences when they hold open events. Pre planning of any new schemes to be launched is also the responsibility of this department.
PHYSICAL EVIDENCE
Physical evidence includes any and everything, which is visible, tangible and contributes to the ambience and gives physical proof of the service quality provided at the hotel. This includes building, furniture, lighting fixtures, drapery, cars, computers etc. In the Hotel industry these things are of critical importance since these exteriorly project the standard of the Hotel in the minds of the guest, and thus must be carefully maintained.
At SAYAJI HOTELS LTD., INDORE, five departments look after the Physical Evidence component, in different respects. These are:
House Keeping
This department is responsible for the cleanliness and presentability of all physical evidences whether in Hotel premises or in the Club. Their services are of utmost importance because they not only clean all the physical components but also regularly check them for wear and tear, externally. If any item is found damaged or worn out then they place a request for purchase or issue of a replacement. It is important to mention here that they are not responsible for the functionality of technical items like electric or electronic gadgets.
Engineering
The engineering department looks after the proper functioning of all technical items other than the cars and computers. The usual items under their surveillance are lighting fixtures, fans and exhausts, air-conditioners etc. They work both on complaints as well as regular inspections. Thus they ensure the comfort of the guests visiting SAYAJI HOTELS LTD., INDORE and that the guests are able to make full use of the functional physical evidences.
EDP (Electronic Data Processing)
This department is solely setup for catering to the software needs of the departments and ensuring that the computers and the system hardware are running in perfect order, and it is this second aspect that is included in maintenance of physical evidence. All computer hardware maintenance whether in the hotel rooms or in the various departments comes under the purview of this department. But since the task is not very vivid and also not regular thus there are only two employees who work when any specific complaint is received.
Travel Desk
This department is responsible for maintenance and servicing of all the official vehicles owned by SAYAJI HOTELS LTD., INDORE, be it pick-up vehicle or local transportation vehicle. There are 22 official vehicles in all under SAYAJI HOTELS LTD., INDORE flagship, including 3 Mercedes Benz E Class, 7 Ford Icon, 12 Tata Indica. Both operating and functionality of all these vehicles is taken care of by this department.
Security
SAYAJI HOTELS LTD., INDORE has its own security division, which safeguards any and every physical evidence owned by the SAYAJI HOTELS LTD., INDORE. They protect all physical evidences from any harm by external agencies and theft. They are the ones responsible for any loss of physical evidences other than by natural reasons. They work round the clock in three shifts of 8 hours each. For carrying out their duties they employ 26 security guards and one person as in-charge.
PRICE ELEMENT
SAYAJI HOTELS LTD., INDORE decides the pricing strategies to be adopted for its various services it offers on the basis of cost to guest, value perception of the guests and profit margins. It is interesting to note here that for SAYAJI HOTELS LTD., INDORE the operating area is Indore and the catchment area is whole of Madhya Pradesh, whereby there are no close competitors and thus they do not adopt competitive pricing model. The SAYAJI HOTELS LTD., INDORE management during their discussion with us disclosed that earlier Hotel Taj, Indore was the only close competitor and at that time they had to consider competitive pricing, but since it was taken over by Fortune Landmark, there has been no further need for competitive pricing.
SAYAJI HOTELS LTD., INDORE believes in value maximization and not cost leadership. They prefer to enhance the value of their products and sell it at a premium, rather than compromise on the quality of the products or services and sell them at a discount, and the wide guest base they enjoy reinstates their belief.
Even in the club, this same attitude was reflected by GM Club, although Sayaji Club has close players in Indore but they cannot be taken as competitors because they are trustee run clubs whereas Sayaji is a privately owned, professionally managed club. But yet SAYAJI HOTELS LTD., INDORE Club membership still costs much less than the other clubs and enjoys a privileged status among the members.
SAYAJI AS A SYSTEM
The systems approach considers any service organization as a composite system made of four interconnected and interdependent subsystems. The service organization systems model is depicted in the model below.
SERVICE MANAGEMENT SYSTEM
1. Corporate Planning:
The whole corporate planning responsibility at SAYAJI HOTELS LTD., INDORE is vested in the Managing Director Mr. Sajid Dhanani. He undertakes the entire corporate planning in consultation with Mr Ziaullah, GM Club, and Mr. Bhalla, Advisor, along with a committee of all other senior management employees. All the major decisions regarding expansion, new product development or even major technological upgrade are however taken directly by Mr. Sajid Dhanani himself.
As per the feedback from all other employees, we gather that Mr. Sajid Dhanani is a very competent and energetic leader and is the core strength of SAYAJI HOTELS LTD., INDORE.
2. General Administration:
SAYAJI HOTELS LTD., INDORE has a full-blown, in-house House Keeping department, which includes in-house laundry too. This division looks after all the aspects of general administration from cleanliness to ambience of the Hotel, Club as wall as Banquet. For supplies and replacements however, it works in close coordination with the Purchase & Stores. The House Keeping department at SAYAJI HOTELS LTD., INDORE utilizes latest technology like software monitoring, real time logs and wireless communication for effective management of General Administration.
3. Human Resource System:
SAYAJI HOTELS LTD., INDORE has a lean but efficient HR department to take care of HR functions. This department has only partially centralized functions. All HR issues relating to remuneration, performance appraisal, managerial development, setting and maintenance of organization culture etc. are centralized under the HR department, while respective departments handle issues relating to recruitment and training of lower level employees.
4. Finance & Accounting:
Finance is one of the departments at SAYAJI HOTELS LTD., INDORE, which is entirely centralized in the sense that everything related to finance, accounting and audit for all the three wings (Hotel, Banquet and Club) are conducted by the finance department. There are further subdivisions for Finance and Audit. While the finance department does the regular accounting functions, the Audit department performs internal audits twice every month and then analyses the results to compare planning and implement corrective action.
SERVICE MARKETING SYSTEM
1. Marketing Research:
There is no marketing research activities conducted by the SAYAJI HOTELS LTD., INDORE. It was clearly conveyed to us during interviews that any new development at the SAYAJI HOTELS LTD., INDORE is done on ex-post-facto basis on the demands and suggestions of the guests. The way SAYAJI HOTELS LTD., INDORE puts it is “ In the Hotel industry you don’t need to sweat and toil to find out what is bothering the guests or what more is needed from your side. All you need to do is to be nice to the guests and interact with them frequently and they would themselves communicate the rest to you.”
What we personally feel is that, what they suggested was in itself a sort of regularly performed, informal marketing research. The only thing was that all this comes so naturally in their trade that they don’t require to give it any fancy names.
2. Marketing Planning:
The marketing planning is under two broad heads:
- Hotel and Banquet (Sales and Marketing)
The Sales and Marketing department handle the responsibility for marketing planning for Hotel and Banquet. They are the ones who chalk out which services to provide, what would be the budget, which events to organize etc. in consultation with the MD.
The Sayaji Club has its separate Marketing department. This department has the responsibility of planning out the major offerings, activities and events of the club separately. They too do so in close coordination with the MD and take specialized help from the Hotel Marketing department.
3. Marketing Mix development:
As in the previous point, here too the marketing mix is developed for the Hotel and the Club separately.
- Hotel and Banquet (Sales and Marketing)
The Sales and Marketing department develops the products (services), pricing strategies, promotional strategies and place decisions in close coordination with the departments concerned, where the actual implementation of these services would finally take place. These strategies are then put forth in the senior managerial meetings with MD where they are formally approved for implementation.
The product and place decisions as well as the promotion and pricing strategies for the club are developed jointly by the Club Marketing department and the GM Club. Again all these strategies need to be formally approved by the MD before they can be implemented.
4. Guest Relations Management:
This is nothing but the Hotel Industry version of CRM. The GRM is carried out separately for Hotel, Banquet and Club.
The Front Office is the forefront department, which continually interacts with the Hotel guests. Although prima-facia their job appears to be one of conducting guests to their respective accommodation, record entry and check-out of guests, but their chief function is that of GRM. They welcome guests on the behalf of SAYAJI HOTELS LTD., INDORE and are hence the very first representatives of SAYAJI HOTELS LTD., INDORE to come in contact with the guests. They frequently inquire about the comfort of the guests and lend them an interested ear whenever the guests have something so say about SAYAJI HOTELS LTD., INDORE, all in all they make the guests feel at-home and taken care of. Further they maintain profiles of all the important guests for future reference.
For Banquet Services the Banquet Booking employees act as the interface between the guests and the SAYAJI HOTELS LTD., INDORE. The importance of their GRM increases due to the fact that the guests at the banquet are either Corporate or of very high social status and both these categories are critical for the smooth revenue generation for SAYAJI HOTELS LTD., INDORE. Guests at Banquet are usually regular ones and thus they demand special and personalized treatment. As such the Banquet Booking employees maintain individualized relations with guests and also maintain their detailed profiles for preferences. They provide many a facilities to their guests, which are not generally available elsewhere in SAYAJI HOTELS LTD., INDORE, e.g. They give personal discounts during negotiations, complimentary gifts, extra cuisines, floral welcome, complimentary snacks and most specially credit facilities for regular or corporate guests. Over all this, they keep in regular touch with their guests even when they are not having any direct business and even with them on special occasions.
There is no specialized department in Club for practicing GRM. Instead they specifically recruit and train all their employees such that to practice GRM. While talking to the employees at Club we gathered that the most important point there was, they had members instead of guests, which means that the same members would turn up everyday and that too to shed their worldly worries and tiredness and get a fresh feel. Thus the members have to be very good listeners and polite advisors. They must appease each member with out compromising on the comfort of other members. For example they have to be very polite, humble and adjusting in normal cases, but if any member misbehaves, say in the bar, then they have to take strict action to reassert the comfort of other members. And this is what makes GRM at the club so tough, since each member of their club is financially strong and highly resourceful which makes any action against them very difficult, and invites ill publicity.
SERVICE OPERATIONS SYSTEM
1. Diagnosis:
This is the process of extracting from the guests, what they want and more importantly how they expect it to be delivered. All this is done every time and for every guest since personalization is the most important issue. At SAYAJI HOTELS LTD., INDORE this thing is segmented in the tree divisions i.e. Hotel, Banquet and Club.
For Hotel, the Front Office and the House Keeping mainly perform the diagnosis process. Both these departments interact vigorously with the hotel guests and try to judge what they want and how they want it, so that it may be implemented, if viable for later guests.
For Banquet the Banquet Booking department performs the same function. They interact with the guests and fill every minute detail of their requirements in a format sheet, which is then used for further analysis.
In the Club it is a continuous process and is done by each employee of the Club. Guest interaction here is both very high and much above plain preferences of the guest. There is no specific department doing the same.
2. Design:
This stage involves converting the guest’s expectations to feasible products. The respective departments do the designing part because they are both more knowledgeable and more skillful in doing the same. The designing process itself also varies from department to department and is not very elaborate. It is generally limited to screening of guest suggestions, analyzing screened suggestions and deciding how and in what form to implement the same, if at all. This process is generally done in departmental meetings.
3. Development:
The development includes implementation of design and testing their economic viability and practical feasibility in test environment. Although the respective departments prepare the design, yet the MD and the senior management committee do the development centrally. The Accounts department does the testing for feasibility. The final controlled testing is done by the respective departments, where the guest reaction is recorded and analyzed, before implementing the final service package developed.
4. Delivery:
This is the actual implementation phase where the prepared service package is presented in front of actual guest. This is naturally done by the concerned department i.e. by F&B for Banquet and Restaurants, by Club officials for Club and by Front Office for Hotel. This phase proceeds only after the testing phase is thoroughly satisfactory. Here too the guest feedback is collected but that is analyzed for further improvement in existing product and not for initial product development.
SERVICE SUPPORT SYSTEM
1. Tangible:
This includes all the tangible items required for the smooth functioning of SAYAJI HOTELS LTD., INDORE and all those departments that work for either acquiring them or maintaining the existing ones.
The Purchase and Stores department is the first and foremost in this section, which acquires all types of tangible goods to be used or installed in SAYAJI HOTELS LTD., INDORE. They initiate purchase procedure of any item as and when an internal demand originates. They are also responsible for quality testing when the material is received at SAYAJI HOTELS LTD., INDORE premises.
The Engineering department is the one, which is responsible for the functioning of all the electric and electronic gadgets installed within SAYAJI HOTELS LTD., INDORE. It is like the spinal cord of SAYAJI HOTELS LTD., INDORE’s technicality. It includes engineers and technicians who work on call basis, that is they visit where ever any technical complaint originates and repair it there and then.
The EDP division is responsible for maintenance and proper functioning of any computer hardware installed in SAYAJI HOTELS LTD., INDORE premises. They also work on call basis so as to minimize the task force needed.
The Travel Desk division is responsible for the usage and maintenance of official SAYAJI HOTELS LTD., INDORE vehicles. They not only take care of the service and maintenance of the cars but also keep proper record of their usage.
2. Intangible:
This part deals with any kind of services required to run the service organization itself. These may be thus termed as support services. Prominent among these are given below.
First of all we must consider the House Keeping department, which performs perhaps the most important function of keeping the hotel as well as club premises clean and presentable, because presentability is probably the most important factor in hospitality sector. They are common to all the three functional divisions i.e. Hotel, Banquet and Club.
Secondly we have the Security department, which is another important department of SAYAJI HOTELS LTD., INDORE, which remains in the background but work round the clock to ensure safety and comfort of SAYAJI HOTELS LTD., INDORE property as well as that of the guests.
SAYAJI MARKETING (OPERATION WISE)
POSITIONING
As mentioned before the marketing divisions for Sayaji Hotel & Sayaji Club are different & hence positioning for both the services are also different.
Sayaji Hotel uses a positioning statement- “A world without compromises!” which reflects their attitude where they strongly believe in fulfilling all possible demands of their guests with no compromise on the service quality.
The positioning here is not based on pricing or competition as SAYAJI HOTELS LTD., INDORE enjoys the leading position in the market. However, it is derived completely on the basis of what kinds of services are expected by their guests. Banquet Booking & Front Office are the places where guest feedbacks are collected. On analyzing these suggestions SAYAJI HOTELS LTD., INDORE decided that guests are looking for hotels where they feel at home, discover more than they demand & above all get true worth for their money & accordingly they positioned their services. As far as their other promotional tools are concerned like events, food festivals etc., they have different positioning for each event based on its uniqueness e.g. Valentine, New Year, Christmas etc.
For club the positioning statement is- “It will never cost less!”
This is completely a value based positioning which denotes that Sayaji club strive to enhance the value of membership & not to make it cheaper. It is actually less expensive to have their membership because it retains its value over the years by increasing the facilities & to maintain their quality level they do not shy to increase the prices.
DIFFERENTIATION
In the hospitality sector it is very difficult to differentiate your services from that of other players in the market. But for SAYAJI HOTELS LTD., INDORE this is not a case because there is no such stiff competition faced by them. This scenario provides them with two advantages, first that it is not completely innovation driven business & second there is no threat of idea duplication by competitors.
Whenever a new idea is brought in the organization, may it be related to service production or service delivery or any other process, it is either due to guest feedback or by their internal people (brainstorming). The differentiation strategy is focused on brand building aspect for example when SAYAJI HOTELS LTD., INDORE decided to introduce airport pickup & drop facility for its guests they may have selected any car model but they especially went for Mercedez Benz as their official car. This helps in promoting the Sayaji brand as luxurious as the car itself. Other innovative ideas adopted by the hotel are their poolside restaurants. Every hotel provides a good quality food in its restaurant but a poolside dining experience with an exotic ambience is only available at SAYAJI HOTELS LTD., INDORE.
PRODUCTIVITY
The main question that arises here is how the productivity levels are measured & maintained at SAYAJI HOTELS LTD., INDORE. Regarding productivity measurement hotel & club follow different principles. For the club it is relatively easier to measure productivity by counting on existing membership base & daily attendance records, which provide a clear picture of the level of productivity. Currently there are 1385 members in the club & daily attendance is around 15-20%. Club authorities check that the productivity level does not go below this level throughout the year.
For hotel the measurement criteria is not just number of guests at each floor but they make use of documents provided by the accounts department, which tells them about the productivity level of each section.
For maintaining productivity at a desired level the club uses special schemes/offers to attract new members whenever the membership base goes down. As soon as the membership base reaches a satisfactory level the scheme is immediately withdrawn.
At hotel the accounts document serve the purpose of productivity maintenance also. For example there is a cost v/s revenue sheet for food prepared in the kitchen. This sheet is reviewed everyday to check the level of production & wastages in the kitchen. Similar types of documents are used for other departments also to check their productivity level.
SERVICE QUALITY
Few generic dimensions used by guests to evaluate service output level of an organization are
Communication: listening to guests
Tangibles: appearance of physical facilities
Reliability: ability to perform the promise
Courtesy: politeness & respect
Security: freedom from danger etc.
SAYAJI HOTELS LTD., INDORE takes care of all these & similar factors while attending their guests & make sure that no guest is dissatisfied with any of their service performance may it be the polite behavior of employees with the guests or receiving their complaints/suggestions etc.
For example Sayaji invest a huge amount of its profits in maintenance & improvement of its tangibles like hotel premises, games equipments, swimming pool etc. Similarly to provide security to the guests they have security guards standing right from the entry gate to the lobby. Even for the vehicle parking of visitors they have placed a security official at the parking area though this facility is being provided at owner’s risk.
After checkout of a guest if any property is found left in the hotel room it is kept with the front office officials with a record of the owner for 6 months. In this way a person can recollect his valuables even after 6 months from the date of his checkout from the hotel. This reflects their trustworthiness.
GUEST RELATIONSHIP MANAGEMENT
This is nothing but the Hotel Industry version of CRM. The GRM is carried out separately for Hotel, Banquet and Club.
The Front Office is the forefront department, which continually interacts with the Hotel guests. Although prima-fecea their job appears to be one of conducting guests to their respective accommodation, record entry and check-out of guests, but their chief function is that of GRM. They welcome guests on the behalf of SAYAJI HOTELS LTD., INDORE and are hence the very first representatives of SAYAJI HOTELS LTD., INDORE to come in contact with the guests. They frequently inquire about the comfort of the guests and lend them an interested ear whenever the guests have something so say about SAYAJI HOTELS LTD., INDORE, all in all they make the guests feel at-home and taken care of. Further they maintain profiles of all the important guests for future reference.
For Banquet Services the Banquet Booking employees act as the interface between the guests and the SAYAJI HOTELS LTD., INDORE. The importance of their GRM increases due to the fact that the guests at the banquet are either Corporate or of very high social status and both these categories are critical for the smooth revenue generation for SAYAJI HOTELS LTD., INDORE. Guests at Banquet are usually regular ones and thus they demand special and personalized treatment. As such the Banquet Booking employees maintain individualized relations with guests and also maintain their detailed profiles for preferences. They provide many a facilities to their guests, which are not generally available elsewhere in SAYAJI HOTELS LTD., INDORE, e.g. They give personal discounts during negotiations, complimentary gifts, extra cuisines, floral welcome, complimentary snacks and most specially credit facilities for regular or corporate guests. Over all this, they keep in regular touch with their guests even when they are not having any direct business and even with them on special occasions.
There is no specialized department in Club for practicing GRM. Instead they specifically recruit and train all their employees such that to practice GRM. While talking to the employees at Club we gathered that the most important point there was, they had members instead of guests, which means that the same members would turn up everyday and that too to shed their worldly worries and tiredness and get a fresh feel. Thus the members have to be very good listeners and polite advisors. They must appease each member with out compromising on the comfort of other members. For example they have to be very polite, humble and adjusting in normal cases, but if any member misbehaves, say in the bar, then they have to take strict action to reassert the comfort of other members. And this is what makes GRM at the club so tough, since each member of their club is financially strong and highly resourceful which makes any action against them very difficult, and invites ill publicity.
SUGGESTIONS
In the end of this project report, we would like to put forward some suggestions in front of the management of SAYAJI HOTELS LTD., INDORE, which we think can help them to improve their operations.
- At SAYAJI HOTELS LTD., INDORE (in the backroom) materials are handled quite inefficiently which results in wastage of a lot of time & efforts. Also it makes their operations accident prone & inconvenient for the workers. Though a very little change is possible from the infrastructure point of view, as the passages in basement can’t be changed without disturbing hotel operations considerably. But small changes like increasing lift areas or changing the shape of trolleys, using walled trolleys are definitely possible.
- In the House Keeping department most of the log entry work is done manually by the desk incharge & using telephone for communication. This makes the job highly error prone because of human error as well as low reliability of telephone communication.
Here they can replace the existing system with a computerized card entry system, which will not only reduce efforts but also increase system reliability. This move would initially cost high but in the long run will be helpful for maintaining cost effectiveness.
- The Marketing Department at SAYAJI HOTELS LTD., INDORE does not conduct any marketing research for formulation of marketing strategies. This has no adverse effect on their functioning till now because they are operating without any close competitors in the vicinity. But what they are neglecting is that they can have added revenues over what they are having now by using research techniques. And anyhow they would have to use the same in near future when more competitors prop up in the city of Indore.
- Another important point which does not feel much important normally but effects consumer satisfaction considerably is that if the guest comes to SAYAJI HOTELS LTD., INDORE in a car he is allowed in all the way to the Hotel entrance in his car. But if the guest arrives by a two-wheeler, he has to park it outside and walk all the way to the Hotel entrance. This differential attitude might hurt the feelings of the guest and make him feel less important even before he starts business with SAYAJI HOTELS LTD., INDORE. After all, the vehicle used by the guest is no measure of how potential the guest is.
