Marketing analysis of Baderman Island Resort.

by karan0909 (student)

University Degree Business and Administrative studies

In order to survive, business organizations have to focus on profit maximization. In maximizing profits, the management in business organizations has four strategies at its disposal: differentiation, cost leadership, focus and best cost (cited in Jeston & Johan, 2008). These are generic competitive strategies that Baderman Island Resort can adopt in order to maximize its market share. Maximization of market share will lead to maximization of profits. However, before the resort can effectively and efficiently implement these strategies, it has to ensure the quality of its internal processes. This is where the strategies of cost leadership and best cost become relevant. The process of differentiation ensures that the products and services offered by Baderman Island Resort are unique so that customers will be more willing to spend money on Baderman rather than on its competitors. Companies also develop niche positions in the market in following the focus strategy. Baderman however is not currently following the focus strategy because it is trying to attract the market regardless of the geographic or the demographic or the behavioral or the psychographic segment involved. However the resort is definitely implementing strategies of differentiation and cost leadership in combination in offering unique products and services at an affordable price.

All internal processes in an organization are interconnected. Therefore when business process reengineering takes place, the management has to focus on not only the specific work process which is being reengineered but also on other work processes likely to be impacted by changes in the reengineered process. The concept of total quality management emphasizes this interconnectedness between different process chains in an organization. The focus of total quality management is to promote quality in all areas of the organization. The rationale behind this conceptual framework is that business organizations have to cater to the needs of a variety of stakeholders before they can attain their goals and objectives of profit maximization. Businesses formulate strategies to attain the objective of profit maximization because their ultimate goal is maximizing shareholder wealth. Therefore shareholders are one of the stakeholders to business organizations. The situation is exactly similar for Baderman Island Resort. The resort is implementing process improvement plans in order to maximize its shareholder wealth. However the management of the resort realizes that the objective of maximizing shareholder wealth cannot be reached unless it manages to satisfy the needs of its other stakeholders the most important of which are customers and employees. The importance of keeping these stakeholders satisfied cannot be overemphasized. Unless customers like the resort, there will not be a source of revenue for the resort. Unless employees like working for the company, its products and services will not meet industry standards. In order to meet the needs of all these stakeholders, Baderman is implementing total quality management as part of its process improvement plan.

The success of total quality management is ensured at Baderman Island Resort because the management there realizes that when it comes to keeping everyone satisfied, the central issue to keep in mind is quality control. Therefore the management at Baderman is looking into each of its organizational processes in order to ensure that measurable standards of quality are adhered to in all work processes leading to the delivery of the final products and services to the end consumer. Total quality management is the process of ensuring quality in all organizational processes and for this reason it is at the heart ...

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The balanced scorecard is one of the practical implications of total quality management. The balanced scorecard is a way of ensuring that quality control is embedded in all the organizational processes. To this end, the balanced scorecard views an organization from four perspectives: financial, customers, learning and growth, internal business processes (cited in Jeston & Nelis, 2008). The process improvement that can result from the implementation of this strategy is organization-wide because all four perspectives are interconnected. The financial aspects in the balanced scorecard are related to the traditional measures of sales and profit. In this respect, the balanced scorecard retains its connections to the past when it comes to measuring performance. However the industry in which Baderman Island Resort is offering its products and services is constantly changing in terms of competitiveness. Therefore the resort must implement a performance measurement system which looks to the future as well. This is where the other three perspectives of customer, learning and growth and internal business processes become relevant. The financial measures of profit and sales maximization reflect the past and there is no guarantee that the resort will continue to meet its profit objectives just because it has met its profit objectives in the past. Maintaining the status quo based on success in the past will be a mistake because as mentioned before, industry dynamics are in a constant process of change. Therefore the resort must implement a continuous improvement program a critical aspect of which is customer relationship management. In this respect, the resort must constantly monitor the changing tastes and preferences of different consumer segments and differentiate its products and services accordingly. However it has been mentioned before that this process of differentiation cannot be implemented successfully unless employees have an opportunity for learning and growth. The management must undertake training and development programs from time to time in order for the employees to have the skills and qualifications necessary to meet the challenges of changing customer expectations and escalating competitiveness. Internal business processes must also be changed for the better for more efficient and effective resource allocation. In the four perspectives, the island resort has to set objectives, measures, targets and initiatives (cited in Jeston & Nelis, 2008).

Baderman Island Resort cannot afford to be a static organization because the industry in which it operates is not static. Therefore, the resort must constantly formulate process improvement plans and implement those plans. Total quality management via the balanced scorecard is one of the plans that the company is currently executing. By executing this plan, Baderman Island resort ensures that not only is quality control an organization-wide concern, but that its performance measurement system continues to evolve in response to changing industry dynamics. By building the performance measurement system around the balanced scorecard, the resort island ensures that all major external and internal stakeholders to Baderman have their needs met. The resort ensures this by improving its processes based on performance measurement results obtained from the balanced scorecard.

References

Jeston, John and Johan Nelis. (2008). Business Process Management: Practical

Guidelines to Successful Implementations. McGraw Hill/Irwin.