Vogue Retreat: Business Analysis

Bob Hope once said: “A bank is a place that will lend you money if you can prove that you don't need it.” This may sound amusing, but in reality, banks give to those that have a business plan. A business plan that has a vision and can prove to the bank that the money that they will loan you will be given back. This essay will address concepts in business that have been proven to be effective. Do not overexpand, have capital reserves, and connections matter.

The hotel chain, Astor Lodge and Suites, Inc., operates 250 properties in 10 western and Rocky Mountain states. The company’s customer base primarily comprises business travelers. In addition, the locations of the properties surround airports, large regional shopping centers, and major highways close to suburban industrial sites as well as office complexes. Projections of 2005 fiscal year forecast a fifth consecutive year of a gross loss for the firm. The estimates include an anticipated $422.6 million in company lodging revenues but a net loss of $15.7 million for 2005. As a result, Joseph James, president and CEO of Astor Lodge and Suites, Inc., initiated a challenging goal for executive management to devise a strategy achieving net profits in two years and sustaining positive growth in the future.

In this section of my coursework I am going to be discussing how functional areas such as the marketing department work with different departments in order to run efficiently. I will discuss how different departments support the marketing department’s activities in order to operate efficiently.

Terri’s Girls Only organization is an upcoming charity group home for young teenage girls. Terri’s Girls only focuses on supporting the community with mentoring and helping are young teenage girls. I selected this organization to discuss because I believe that I can make a difference for our youngster. I have confidence that my purpose, value, vision and mission are able to services and lead are young girls to be able to build and conquer their fears and goals.

Business that adapt and change to better themselves and their employees are referred to as learning organizations. A learning organization is “organizations where people continually expand their capacity to create the results they truly desire, where new and expansive patterns of thinking are nurtured, where collective aspiration is set free, where people are continually learning to see the whole together” (Peter Senge). In the Mondy (2012) text it spoke about a company named Keller-Globe. Keller Globe was replacing it’s punch presses with a feeding system that would double production. The manager became worried but Keller-Globe had a plan. They would train their employees and allow them to see the new production taking hand, the company’s

Four Seasons Hotels and Resorts have a worldwide presence running more than 60 properties in over 25 countries. Among them are luxurious hotels and top destination spots, making Four Seasons a leading player in the hospitality industry. Its unique management style has enabled it to clinch the top position and becoming a world-renowned brand. The company has geared its efforts towards creative innovative ways to address the needs of their guests while maintaining a high ethical code in all aspects of the business (Hallowell, 2003). Four Seasons Hotel and Regent Hotel brands are the managers of most of the properties. The brand originates from Toronto, Canada where Lsadore Sharp opened the first hotel in 1961. His vision was to develop a chain of luxurious hotels providing quality services and facilities.

An assessment of the business’ current situation and goals is critical. The types of legal and business issues involved in deciding whether to do business internationally include:

This is a manufacturing company and there are multiple departments that support the organization strategies and objectives. Mainly, they are the Product, Equipment and Production

Organizations today all consist of three main functions. These functions include marketing, operations, and financial accountability. Marketing generates the demand through the promotion or sale of a product or service. The operations are the backbone of any organization, which involves the creation of the product, the movement of the product, and final delivery of the product. The financial accountability is, ultimately, how the organization is doing financially concerning accounts receivable and accounts payable. The business world has evolved greatly in the last two decades from factors related to communications surrounding Y2K, global presence, e-commerce, and technological advancements.

The function also has the freedom to be any part of the business process, it can be a major control process, it can contain more sub functions, can be performed in multiple or single area, can be performed by individual or a group of people and can have dependent or independent activities. A business function has two main categories based on the level where it’s acting – business and administrative, support or overhead. The business category is where the activities which are directly involved in producing the product or providing services or which generate the revenue to the firm are classified. The operational functions which come under the business are called as the line functions. Administrative, support functions are one which are carried out for the day today wellbeing and the firm as legal entity.

18. In the context of service operations managing day to day activities, which of the following statement is true – 1. Functions are logical concept covering people and technology to perform tasks from a defined process on an ongoing basis, 2. Departments are the formal organization formed to perform task from predefined process on an ongoing basis

In this contemporary era, it is very important for the hospitality industry that its HR department come up with strategic techniques of retaining the employees and not lonely that but also find the qualified workforce which will boost up the organization in the longer run. As we all know the facts that the hospitality industry is operating in a competitive market and in order to gain competitive market. So better workforce and skilled staff would help them to increase their value in the market in the long run.

Staff: - the staff for their business should be experienced and also should have good knowledge related to their work so that they can do work easily. It is very difficult to find such a staff that will be suitable for business.

Management functions are defined as “the ways that managers are grouped within an organisation to achieve specialist tasks” and refer to specific areas of practice that involve only a small group of managers who, usually, need particular training or experience and belong to relevant professional organisations. There are five major functions in most organisations known as “big five” (Smith, 2011): marketing, concerned with promoting and distributing products; operations, which involves the transformation of inputs into outputs; human resource management, which deals with people within the organisation in terms of recruitment, development and deployment; finance, responsible for managing money and lastly the 'recently ' introduced information management, which manages all the information technology resources used to collect, store and transmit data. In addition to these, other functions can be identified such as research and development, quality, distribution and logistics among others. All of them can be divided into three main groups: line functions, which play a key role in producing goods or services (marketing, R&D, operations); enabling functions providing services to other functions in order to help them operate more effectively (finance, HR, IT, technical and secretarial services); controlling functions, whose task is to make sure that standards and regulations are respected (quality assurance, quality control and legal and administrative functions).

According to Hill T. (2005 pp.4-5), every business is managed through three major functions: finance, marketing, and operations management. Other business functions—such as accounting, purchasing, human resources, and engineering—support these three major functions. Finance is the function responsible for managing cash flow, current assets, and capital investments. Marketing is responsible for sales, generating customer demand, and understanding customer wants and needs.