Part IV Signature Assignment

Proposal of a New Division

The purpose of the following paper is to offer a proposal of a new division in Club Sportif MAA in order to market a different service. It is intended to allow the club generate more interest, increase sales and enrich client engagement across all its segments. Again, this proposal for a new division will allow the club to develop a competitive market advantage and expand without modifying its existing corporate structure. Club Sportif MAA is a unique combination of state-of-the-art health and fitness center with an upscale social hub that is built on the Montreal athletic club’s historic lineage. It serves as a place to train, exercise, and play sports for professionals and fitness hub. Therefore, it is often regarded as a home away from home by many customers (Wiethaeuper et al. 2017).

Proposal of a New Service for the New Company Division

According to Wiethaeuper et al., (2017), the fact that Club Sportif MAA is voted the best fitness club in Canada and regarded as a second home away from home by many customers is still questioned by a few customers who are keen to detail. For example, when a client is done with his or her health and fitness training, he or she gets exhausted and may want a bite to regain energy lost. Therefore, the club can consider introducing a hospitality service division offering affordable catering services. This way, customers who come out from normal training and exercises can enjoy catering services including foods and drinks.

Therefore, the club will qualify as a second home away from home. The emphasis on an all-inclusive club will be realized since members who come with different needs will be satisfied under one roof. The introduction of a hospitality service division targets other aspects of a member’s health and well-being apart from health and fitness alone.

Attending Customer Needs

According to Venkatesh (2017), the introduction of affordable catering services requires Club Sportif MAA to look for perfect decorations, a venue with well-trained, friendly and efficient servers. This way, customers will feel comfortable as well as providing entertainment which is engaging. When finding the right caterer, the division will use the following tips to take care of clients’ needs. First, before offering catering services, it will take time to discover a caterer that satisfies demands and needs of clients. In addition, it will focus on high-quality, availability, and flexibility. For instance, with regards to flexibility, it will ensure that customized catering services based on clients’ specifications are provided.

In regards to the MAA’s brand positioning, the new division will remain consistent with a personalized culture and emphasis on family. For example, it will provide customized offerings and give personalized attention that extends authentic relationships with prospective clients. Notably, the added value of the MAA’s authentic relationships among caterers and customers will automatically make it stand out.

Gaining Competitive Advantage

The consistency of authenticity in the MAA’s health and fitness service offerings can be extended to the hospitality service division to set it apart from its competitors in the market. For example, its reliance on the idea that; the maintenance of authentic quality in product and service delivery accompanied with genuine care for clients takes precedence over the business desire for immediate profits. As asserted by Venkatesh (2017), this kind of brand positioning strategy is long sighted since it seeks to attract prospective customers and retain the club’s members for a long time. This way, both the new division and the club will gain a competitive advantage relative to its competitors by accomplishing three objectives namely brand relevance, differentiation and credibility in the sight of all its customers.

Vision and Business Model

As pointed by Wiethaeuper et al. (2017), the club’s current priority is placed on health and fitness services and this makes it as full service for health. As an integral part of its modernization, the vision for the incorporating the hospitality service division into the club is stated as; to become a world-class and inclusive sports club that meets the ever changing customers’ needs. For certain, it is difficult to find this kind of arrangement anywhere in the city. Therefore, catering services will make the club to stand out and adding to its accessibility, authentic caring and personalized offerings, there is a high likelihood of increased sales courtesy of increased demand for health and fitness services. It is driven by the decision to introduce the hospitality service division as a new division.

Inclusive Business Model

The expectation for unending or all-inclusive and accessibility to designated catering services for one set fee among consumers is expanding every day. According to Morecroft (2015), putting in place all-inclusive catering services can build brand loyalty, perceived value and attract attention from potential customers. Therefore, the hospitality service division will create awareness about the just introduced affordable catering services with the help of all-inclusive business model below.

Figure 1. All-inclusive business model

Customer

Focused

Marketing

Accessibility

Cater to all

needs

Pay attention to all clients

Walk the

Talk

Training &

Development

Be courteous

High-quality

Review &

Improve

Personalized services

Vision: To become a special place and all-clients-inclusive division that meets the ever changing customers’ needs. This forms an integral part of modernization strategy and maintaining authentic quality offerings that takes precedence over the club’s desire for immediate profits.

Mission: To provide 24-hours, seven-days a week affordable catering services to clients with helpful caterers and supported by a friendly management. It is aimed at building authentic customer relationships and ensuring an environment where quality services and continuous improvement are encouraged and rewarded.

Values Alignment: In order to fulfill the vision and mission statements, the new division will commit to delivering affordable catering services to clients with consistency, reliability and efficiency. Again, to remain the most preferred division within the club, it will anticipate and meet the quality expectations of clients by engaging in a periodic review of the quality objective.

In line with Schweizer & He (2017), marketing has become increasingly customer-driven and it calls for marketers to communicate their brands in a way that clients prefer in order to leave a memorable effect. Again, with the rising of social media marketing, the new division needs to position catering services so that they communicate directly with target customers and thus helping the club to develop products and offer services that sell. This way, customers become co-creators with the club in providing services that satisfy their needs and maintains their identity Schweizer & He (2017). Therefore, the division is set to consider the following are key strategic directions.

Authenticity and Genuine Personality

Firstly, it needs to be authentic: today, consumers want authentic communication and thus the club should maintain an authentic tone when interacting with clients. For example, alongside tracking and analyzing, it should focus on providing meaning instead of making superficial promises. Also, the new division should strive at showing genuine personality: As asserted by Armstrong et al., (2014), delighted customers often talk positively about a particular brand and thus there is a need to cultivate a voice and a tone that delights them.

Finally, with the introduction of hospitality service division offering affordable catering services, the MAA will be well-positioned to achieving authentic and humanized brand voice by heightening digital marketing and social media presence. Social media plays an important role in the club’s effort to implement the proposed affordable catering services. This way, it will succeed in getting clients raving about the club to getting their families and friends. Therefore, it gets the opportunity to create lasting client relations anchored on genuine care and trust to gain a competitive advantage.

Strategic Plan Part 2: SWOTT Analysis – Internal and External Environmental Analysis; Primary Internal Considerations for the Development of a Strategic Plan. [Week 3]

Apart from offering fitness and training services to its customers, the new hospitality division is created to offer an additional service: food and drinks. Many customers enjoy the services offered by the fitness and training center nut lack the energy refilling component. Located in a busy town, the new hospitality division will not only attract more customers but also improve the revenues generated by the company. More importantly, it will provide a one-stop shop for trainers and those coming for fitness at MAA.

One major aspect of fitness is diet and nutrition. Experts maintain that while most people take exercise and fitness lessons, their diets betray their quests to achieve the perfect body shapes and sizes. The new hospitality department therefore comes in handy because it will provide appropriate foods and drinks that match with the dietary requirements for people talking physical fitness and training exercises. The business model of the new division will match any hotel or restaurant in the hospitality industry.

External Environment Forces

The external forces that will affect the operations of the new hospitality department are characteristic of hotel and hospitality industry, since the new division will largely borrow from the business model of a hotel or restaurant (Fraj, Matute, & Melero, 2015). While the fitness services and equipment will be maintained, MAA will diversify its services in the hospitality division to match a hotel. It therefore means that apart from offering eatery joints and a place where people can drink and relax, the new division will also offer accommodation services to Canadian locals and internationals services. In fact, tourists will be heavily and largely targeted since they will form a large chunk of the target customers.

Economic Forces.

Major economic forces or factors will shape the direction and operations of the new division are: stable economic growth of Canada and United States, ongoing economic turmoil in Europe, and decreasing unemployment in Canada and United States. These three economic factors present opportunities and threats to the new hospitality division. Firstly, the stable economic growth of Canada and United States is an opportunity for the new division. Canada and United States almost have a similar system of business, and the currency exchange rate is not as high as compared with other countries ( 1 Canadian dollar =0.80 US dollar) (Fraj, Matute, & Melero, 2015). Because of the two countries’ stable economies, it means that the purchasing power of locals and Americans is high, implying better returns for the new division.

A stable economy is an opportunity for the new division is an opportunity since it encourages business growth. Secondly, the ongoing economic turmoil in Europe coupled with slow economic growth of China is a threat to the new division. The economic stability of Europe is important to any business model. For the new hospitality model, economic crisis in the European Union means less tourists will be visiting Canada and therefore reduced business for the hotel and restaurant (Jones, Hillier, & Comfort, 2016). Lastly, decreasing unemployment in Canada and United States increases the buying power of potential customers and hence the new division is likely to entertain more guests.

Legal and Regulatory Forces.

Operating under the hotels and hospitality industry, the new division will be subjected to requirements of the law and regulations, especially within the context of Quebec provincial administration and the federal administration of Canada. Some of the legal and regulatory requirements are: food safety regulations, tax law reforms, and employment regulations. Food safety regulations may seem like a threat, but is actually an opportunity for the new hospitality division (Jones, Hillier, & Comfort, 2016).

Why? Because taking serious food safety regulations can be used in improving the quality standards of the foods and drinks offered in the new division and hence increase its competitiveness. Employment regulations are aimed at ensuring that only qualified staff are hired by the company to prepare the meals and work in the hospitality department. Employment regulations should also be used as an opportunity by enhancing the human resource management practices to improve diversity, professionalism, and improved standards. However tax law reform is a potential threat to the new division especially if it leads to higher taxes.

Technology and Innovation.

Being a new division created and administrated on the foundation of technology and innovation, there are many technological and innovative forces that will shape the new division. Technological forces that are likely to shape the business model are: increasing usage of mobile devices in the hotel industry, self-check-in, online marketing and promotions; internet enabled communication including live chat, and door opening technology. All these technological forces present massive opportunities to the business model. Increasing use of mobile devices such as tablets and smart phones is an opportunity to enhance communication, embrace mobile booking, ordering foods and drinks, and enhancing the guest experience.

Since the hospitality division has a vision of offering accommodation to some of its guests, both local and international, mobile bookings present a real opportunity for business growth. Millennial travellers are overly dependent on their smartphones and hence hotel’s booking engine optimized for mobile viewing offers the perfect booking option (Legrand, Sloan, & Chen, 2016). Tablets can be used to enhance guest experience in front desk operations and WI-FI enabled rooms. Through the self-check in technology, guests will have improved convenience instead of burdening front desk staff.

Internal Forces.

The internal forces characterizes the strengths and weaknesses of the newly created division. Major internal forces are worth exploring here; structures and leadership, processes and systems, technologies and innovations, and resources.

Leadership and Structures.

The leadership and structures at MAA are encouraging and should be used in strengthening the newly created hospitality division. Being a fitness club, the leadership of the company or business have heavily invested in processes and systems that work. More significantly, the organizational structure at MAA is a hybrid functional and departmental structures. The leadership and structures at the business are aimed at serving customers with dignity, promoting transparency and openness, inclusivity in decision making and better communication.

Effective leadership at MAA is characterized by the following: honesty and integrity, shared organizational vision, proper team building, effective communication, and inclusive decision making processes. Structures put in place by the fitness club are aimed at improving customer service, offering the best products, and treating customers with dignity.

Technologies and Innovations.

The company has invested in modern technological innovations as a way of staying ahead of the competition. The fitness club has state of the art equipment for training and physical exercises, and the same is set to be extended to the newly created hospitality department. The aim of leveraging the best technological innovations is to improve the efficiency of service delivery, improve communication promptness between the division and customers, and enhance marketing platforms across the digital space. There are five technological innovations already being used at the eatery to improve service delivery: advanced payment forms, point-of-sale technology, automated services, more consumer data, and restaurant tech-integrated dining experience (Mo Kwon, Bae, & Blum, 2013).

Processes and Systems.

Most of the processes and systems of the new division are aimed at improving service delivery. Three types of processes are important: primary processes, support processes, and management processes. Primary processes include physical creation of services and products, marketing the products, and distribution of the resources to the customers through direct selling and after-sales services. Since the division is newly created, it is expected to face challenges in effective implementation of the primary process such as production (cooking and making drinks), marketing of its services and distribution of the food products.

Support processes include; management of infrastructure or capacity, information technology management, and management of human resources (Kandampully, Zhang, & Bilgihan, 2015). The new organization is likely to face challenges in optimizing services and process because of inferior infrastructure capacity management, poor management of human resources, and inadequate implementation information technology management.

SWOTT Table:

As pointed by Wiethaeuper et al. (2017), the club's current priority is placed on health and fitness services, and this makes it as full service for health. As an integral part of its modernization, the vision for the incorporating the hospitality service division into the club is stated as: to become a world-class and inclusive sports club that meets the ever-changing customers' needs. It is difficult to find this kind of arrangement anywhere in the city. Therefore, catering services will make the club to stand out and adding to its accessibility, authentic caring, and personalized offerings, there is a high likelihood of increased sales courtesy of increased demand for health and fitness services. It is driven by the decision to introduce the hospitality service division as a new division.

The company wishes to retain the customers it acquired over time; the best avenue for this is increasing customer satisfaction through provision of the introduction of affordable catering services requires Club Sport if MAA to look for perfect decorations, a venue with well-trained, friendly and efficient servers. This way, customers will feel comfortable enjoy provide entertainment that is engaging. When finding the right caterer, the division will use the following tips to take care of clients' needs. First, before offering catering services, it will take time and discover a caterer that satisfies demands and needs of clients. In addition, it will focus on high quality, availability and flexibility.

In regards to the MAA's brand positioning, the new division will remain consistent with a personalized culture and emphasis on family. For example, it will provide customized offerings and give personalized attention that extends authentic relationships with prospective clients. Notably, the benefit of the MAA's genuine relationships among caterers and customers will automatically make it stand out

There are several solutions to mitigate the potential risks of the MAA Golf organization. In this, the main solution to mitigate the effect of competition is the innovative and quality implementation in the development of the products. The other solution for the potential risk, such duplicity of the various products is to monitoring the products in the market and take help of legal authority (Bidgoli, 2010). Now, this company can form a panel of experts to analyze the business policy and political environment of a country to take strategic decision to mitigate their effects on the business.

On the other side, stakeholders, such as investors, customers, employees, and government also create challenges for the company. Therefore, to mitigate their challenges, some contingency strategies can be adopted in which company can create an information system to provide all relevant data concerned to the problems (Bidgoli, 2010). However, there would be ethical implications in the solutions of the selection in the form of increasing financial costs to maintain the potential risks.

Financial

The metric to measure increase market share regularly can be considered as increasing percentage. The target of increasing market share would be by 3% for each of the next five years to achieve its vision, mission, and values. Further, the metric of the improving revenues and reducing the costs would be making a proper balance sheet every year (Kaplan & Norton, 2013). In this, the target would be increasing revenue by 5-10 percent with reducing costs by 1% per annum. Moreover, the metric to measure the profitability would be in the unit. It can be targeted as millions of benefits to be competitive in the market.

Customer Value

The metric of retaining customers with the company for a long time is the increasing demand for the products. The target of the retaining customers can be considered as increasing production of the products and demand by 5% in the market every year. Further, the metric of increasing customer satisfaction is the giving priority to the products (Kaplan & Norton, 2013). In this, it can be targeted through assuring the specific products sales in a number by 3% every year. Now, there would be appreciation as a metric for customer value that can be targeted through giving prizes.

Process

The metric to measure the increasing ability performance in the supply chain could be efficiency. However, it can be a target through reducing extra expenses by 3% for each of the next three years. The metric of increasing productivity of diversifying products can be increasing percentage. This increasing productivity can be targeted by 10% for each of the next five years (Sanghera, 2008). Further, the metric of strategic objective reducing the adverse impact of change can be determined though reducing the number. It can be targeted by 5-10 for each of the next three years.

Learning and Growth

The metric of the strategic objective increasing employee satisfaction in the company is the performance of the work. It can be targeted through analyzing increasing productivity of the employees by increasing salary or position. Further, the metric to measure increasing employee turnover is increasing percentage of company sales (Sanghera, 2008). Therefore, the target of the increasing employees' turnover is by 5% for every five years. The metric to measure a global level of organizational capability is the implementation of technology. It can be targeted through increasing modern machinery in case of needs.

The communication plan in the organization would be conducted through an implementation of the latest information system and devices, such as landlines, Internet connectivity, mobile phones, computer system and Intranet to connect employees and top management. The company's strategic objectives would be communicated through conducting a meeting with the employees to inform them in a group (Sorensen, 2012). Thus, the purpose of the communication plan is the concern with making a productive relationship with the employees in the P&G Organization. Further, it can be stated that employees, top management executives, shareholders, and customers are the part of the company that can participate as the audience in the communication plan.

Channel of Communication

The channel of communication for effective conversation and to complete the various tasks within P&G can be considered as face-to-face, mobile, electronic, and written format. These communication channels are very effective in the present business environment for better connectivity between the employees (Sorensen, 2012). These communication channels are cost effective and convenient to use.

Week 2

Armstrong, G., Adam, S., Denize, S., & Kotler, P. (2014). Principles of marketing. Pearson Australia.

Morecroft, J. D. (2015). Strategic modeling and business dynamics: a feedback systems approach. John Wiley & Sons.

Schweizer, L., & He, J. (2017). Guiding principles of value creation through collaborative innovation in pharmaceutical research. Drug Discovery Today.

Venkatesh, A. (2017). Market 3 Value of Diversity. Contemporary Consumer Culture Theory, 33.

Wiethaeuper, D., Oliveira, L. P. D., Peixoto, E. M., Balbinotti, M. A. A., & Castillo, R. D. A. (2017). Balbinotti Scale of Future Perspectives of Motivation for Athletes (EBMPFA-15): Evidence of Validity based on the Internal Structure of the Construct and Reliability. Journal of Physical Education, 28.

Week 3

Fraj, E., Matute, J., & Melero, I. (2015). Environmental strategies and organizational competitiveness in the hotel industry: The role of learning and innovation as determinants of environmental success. Tourism Management, 46, 30-42.

Jones, P., Jones, P., Hillier, D., Hillier, D., Comfort, D., & Comfort, D. (2016). Sustainability in the hospitality industry: some personal reflections on corporate challenges and research agendas. International Journal of Contemporary Hospitality Management, 28(1), 36-67.

Kandampully, J., Zhang, T., & Bilgihan, A. (2015). Customer loyalty: a review and future directions with a special focus on the hospitality industry. International Journal of Contemporary Hospitality Management, 27(3), 379-414.

Legrand, W., Sloan, P., & Chen, J. S. (2016). Sustainability in the hospitality industry: Principles of sustainable operations. Routledge.

Mo Kwon, J., Bae, J. I., & Blum, S. C. (2013). Mobile applications in the hospitality industry. Journal of Hospitality and Tourism Technology, 4(1), 81-92.

Week 4

Bidgoli, H. (2010). The Handbook of Technology Management, Supply Chain Management, Marketing and Advertising, and Global Management. USA: John Wiley & Sons.

Burlikowska, M.D. & Szewieczek, D. (2007). Quality estimation of sale process with the usage of quality methods in the chosen company. Journal of Achievements in Materials and Manufacturing Engineering, 20(1-2), 531-534.

Chapman, R.J. (2011). Simple Tools and Techniques for Enterprise Risk Management. USA: John Wiley & Sons.

Kaplan, R. & Norton, D.P. (2013). The Strategy-Focused Organization: How Balanced Scorecard Companies Thrive in the New Business Environment. USA: Harvard Business Press.

Sanghera, P. (2008). Fundamentals of Effective Program Management: A Process Approach Based on the Global Standard. USA: J. Ross Publishing.

Sorensen, E. (2012). Business Development: A Market-Oriented Perspective. USA: John Wiley & Son

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