Analysis Of Marriot International And Marketing Management

In this paper, Firm O will provide an analysis of how it’s product portfolio has developed and how their portfolio compares in relation to their competitors in the Sonite market using the BCG model as

2. Situation Analysis – presents relevant background data on sales, costs, the market, competitors and various forces in the macro environment

In order for a business to maintain a competitive edge, they need to be able to understand in real time the needs of their customer base. With the advancement of social media, information that once was a trickle has now become a flood and businesses who want to remain competitive must be able to capitalize on information quickly. By analyzing data, businesses are better able to directly focus their marketing efforts and prices to gain their customers notice and stay ahead of their competitors (Savitz, 2012).

In order to be an effective analytical competitor, Davenport and Harris (2007) assert that firms must meet certain prerequisites. Those prerequisites are at least a moderate amount of quality data about the type of business that analytics will support, hardware and software, the commitment of managers to develop analytics, and executive sponsorship (Davenport and Harris, 2007, p.16). Analytics is about extrapolating new information and

Chapter 4) to gain insights into how our customers are talking about and engaging with our brand. Monitoring competitive market intelligence through the use of competitor analysis (Identifying key competitors; assessing their objectives, strategies, strengths and weaknesses, and reactions patterns; and selecting which competitors to attack or avoid. Chapter 18) will also allow us to make better strategic decisions by understanding the current consumer environment, tracking competitor actions, and providing warnings for potential opportunities.

How to Compete on Analytics    Thomas Davenport describes the prerequisites and the five stages of analytic  competitiveness    By Alison Bolen     Thomas Davenport's article "Competing on Analytics" was the best‐selling Harvard  Business Review reprint in 2006. To write it, Davenport,The President's Distinguished  Professor in Management and Information Technology at Babson College, studied the  characteristics of more than 50 leading organizations that have made a commitment to  quantitative, fact‐based analysis.    Why is the January 2006 Harvard Business Review article so popular? We recently asked  the author and educator that question and discussed further insights from his research  that will be detailed in his new book, Competing

In Competing on Analytics by Thomas Davenport and Jeanne Harris, the pillars of analytic completion are stated as: “(1) analytics supported a strategic, distinctive capability; (2) the approach to and management of analytics was enterprise-wide; (3) senior management was committed to the use of analytics; and (4) the company made a significant strategic bet on analytics-based competition” (Davenport & Harris, 2007, pp. 511-512) . This section will describe Aramark’s position within these pillars.

Comparing internal metrics through the filter of competitive intelligence, helps businesses measure their growth against industry standards. Maintaining a competitive edge is essential to building a successful operation. To acquire that edge, businesses subscribe to a process referred to as “Competitive Intelligence Analytics” (Kaushik, 2007, p.298). The act of acquiring intelligence from your competitors is nothing new. History can trace these activities as far back as 1500 B.C. and a group of maritime traders (Gilad, 2016). However, the methods used to gather intelligence today have changed dramatically and follow a better suited set of recommendations and best practices. A primary component of competitive intelligence would be to identify who your competitors are. Kaushik recommends segmenting and analyzing upstream and downstream traffic coming to and from sites that share the same industry model (2006a). Benchmarking these metrics can help businesses measure and watch trends over time (Kaushik, 2006a). Kaushik also recommends measuring competitors through search engine results that should include key words and phrases, since current statistics show 80% of traffic is generated through search engines (2006b). It is important that top level managers not focus on conversion rate comparisons, as this type of competitive analysis can end up evaluating businesses that follow significantly different

This approach seeks to achieve the best consequences for the majority whilst harming others in the process. Notwithstanding that, the selling of customer data has become a common practice in business this is not what is in question. This principle is only concerned with the action taken by this particular company. Does the selling of this company’s customer data benefit many people? It will benefit other companies who purchase the data once mined to achieve an understanding of possible spending behaviors or brand preferences and the like. Nevertheless, the action does not benefit society as a whole. It solely benefits a segment of society. However, using this ethical model, we must review additional principles to understand whether the decision is ethical.

Stage 5, Analytical Competitors – Analytics have been applied at an enterprise-wide level and have had time to produce big results and a sustainable advantage over intuitively-driven competitors

It proves that marketing is a revenue center and not a cost center. As marketing evolved, so did the analytics to support it, far from simple trial and error practices to a meticulous science. Everything undertaken in marketing analytics is about understanding the customer with a forward looking perspective (Venkatesan, Farris, & Wilcox, 2014). Guiding principles for marketing analytics involve relevance, immediacy, and intimacy (Hauser, 2007). First, the sophisticated and rigorous models must be democratized to convey the relevance of the output so recommendations are put into action. Second, marketers can no longer wait months to assess the effectiveness of their efforts given the 24/7 digital society created by the third industrial revolution. Finally, marketing analytics fundamentally nurtures the intimacy between the company and the

Given the priority of competitiveness in modern companies, practitioners of competitive intelligence need to come to terms with what business and competitive analysis is and also how it works. In order to survive in such a competitive environment, a company must deliver superior customer value over its competitors. Three competitors that CanGo analyzed are Amazon.com, Buy.com, and Overstock.com. We focused on areas like personnel, products, and facilities.

The company that I have conducted a research on is Harrah’s Entertainment, Inc. It is a casino gaming company in America that has been in operation since many decades. The company was founded by Bill Harrah and has an annual revenue of $8.6 billion. Harrah’s has gone on to become the world’s largest gaming company by the use of analytics that has left behind its competitors by a huge margin. Their primary focus is customer loyalty which provides customer satisfaction and would make the customers want to come back again and play more games thereby increasing the overall revenue of the company. They use predictive models to predict the likes and dislikes of the customers and provide loyalty incentive programs to target certain customers.

Part 2. How Business Analytics can be used to gain advantage in a competitive marketplace

“Competing on Analytics” defines an analytical competitor “as an organization that uses analytics extensively and systematically to outthink and out execute the competition.”(1) Business analytics is a new way for companies to separate themselves from their competitors. I recently completed an internship at the firm PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC) and will work there full-time upon completion of this program. PwC uses analytics to help solve complex business issues and to identify opportunities across different industries. PwC is the largest professional service company in the world and is part of the Big Four accounting firms. PwC operates in over 157 countries with more than 750 offices throughout the world.(2) PwC is structured into three service lines, which are Assurance, Advisory and Tax. The assurance practice audits almost 30% of the global fortune 500 companies.(2) The advisory practice is mainly consulting activities that cover strategy, cyber security and privacy, human resources, deals and forensics. (2) These three practices generated $35.4 billion in revenue in 2015. (2)