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Starwood: Competitive Weapon

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Starwood: Operations as a Competitive Weapon Before 2002, meeting and event planning among Starwood properties lacked consistency (Krajewski, Ritzman, & Malhotra, 2010). Each individual property had its own unique approach to event planning, paperwork requirements, and available technology and resources (Krajewski, Ritzman, & Malhotra, 2010). Starwood realized that meetings and events were critical for the continued success and growth of the brand, as a large volume of the hotels’ business derives from this segment (Krajewski, Ritzman, & Malhotra, 2010). For this reason, Starwood must build and maintain successful relationships with event planners (Krajewski, Ritzman, & Malhotra, 2010). In order to determine how best to …show more content…

To this end, the company developed a tool to help with the development of their meeting and event planning, which is a survey given to all Starwood Preferred Planner members after each event (Krajewski, Ritzman, & Malhotra, Video, 2010). Planners receive the survey electronically and rate their experience on a 5 point scale, answering questions regarding their “overall experience, pre-event planning, Star meeting concierge services, hotel staff, audio-visual, problem resolution, and the property manager’s involvement” (Krajewski, Ritzman, & Malhotra, Video, 2010). Within the first year of implementing the Starwood Preferred Planner program, overall scores on the survey increased from an average of 4.55 to 4.66 (Krajewski, Ritzman, & Malhotra, Video, 2010). Not long after the new survey process was rolled out, scores had exceeded corporate benchmarks among all Starwood brands (Krajewski, Ritzman, & Malhotra, Video, 2010). Results, however, are not expected to be the same at each property, as expectations for different types of properties and meetings cannot be held to the same standard (Krajewski, Ritzman, & Malhotra, 2010). Expected results range from 4.25 at a Four Points location, to 4.3 at Sheraton, 4.35 at Westin and W properties, and 4.55 at the Luxury Collection and St. Regis (Krajewski, Ritzman, & Malhotra, 2010). The area in which scores increased the most was in the pre-planning process,

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