The latter half of the twentieth century has been marked with amazing changes in technology, transportation, and communication and, in varying degrees, a spread of geo-political stability that has accompanied economic affluence for many citizens in industrialized and developing countries throughout the world. These changes have triggered the development of a number of new industries and the substantial evolution of existing industries to address the needs of increasingly prosperous, educated, and sophisticated post-industrial societies. One of these industries, tourism, has quietly emerged to become an important force in many societies and economies in various parts of the world.
Worldwide employment in tourism, including the hospitality industry, stands at 192.2 million, and by 2010 is expected to have grown to 256.1 million jobs, accounting for one in 11 jobs in the formal economy (World Travel and Tourism Council (WTTC) 2000). Hospitality industry in the United Kingdom alone is continuously growing in the 21st century. This industry encompasses hotels and other accommodations, restaurants, fast food retail, bars, and catering. Basically, tourism is classified as a small and medium-sized industry that offers employment opportunities for people (Lucas 2003). It has been characterised in recent decades by the development of an increasing range of highly segmented products and services. Overlapping tourism and leisure services, with a growing business services component, it is a highly competitive global industry (Rowley et al. 2003, 9).
Majority of UK hotels are employing Total Quality Management (TQM) on their operational systems. TQM is concerned with quality and its continuous improvement; the external customer, or person affected by outputs is the ultimate source of quality judgments; the system or subsystem leading to productive outputs, and considering resource inputs, is the focus of attention; the organization is studied and portrayed as systems; besides ultimate clientele or consumers of outputs, all persons in the stream of production are considered to be customers; groups of employees and managers work on problem solving; every person is to be a process manager; employees are trained in problem solving techniques, including process analysis and statistical quality control (Siegle 1996).
The industry which is exploiting the TQM is the service industry for obvious reason: to satisfy the customer. In today’s business world, the value and importance of customers is not something that should be set aside by companies. Marketing plans and strategies would be incomplete without paying much consideration to the customers. Customers will and should always be a part of the agenda in any marketing plan of any company. Because of the implications for profitability and growth, customer retention is potentially one of the most powerful weapons that companies can employ in their fight to gain a strategic advantage and survive in today's ever increasing competitive environment (Lindenmann 1999).
Strategic Planning in Small and Medium Scale Enterprises
Because of the growing awareness of tourism as an activity, an industry, and a catalyst for economic growth and development, competition for the tourist and for tourism expenditures has been significant in recent decades. One result has been market segmentation and a considerable broadening of the perceived and actual opportunities available for potential tourists. Thus tourists can choose from "sun and sand" holidays, "adventure travel," "theatre tours," "shopping sprees," summer or winter sports vacations, cultural immersion, historic re-enactments, and various other tourism experiences.
Most companies find it impossible to create any kind of sustainable competitive advantage based on product alone. It is common knowledge that every one of the successful companies sought and found a precise understanding of how it could create a customer-centered competitive advantage. Hessan and Whitely (1996) emphasized the idea to take advantage of the competitive situation not just by being better in how that product gets sold, serviced, and marketed at the customer interface. It requires that companies create breakthroughs in how they interact with customers, and design a way of interacting that makes an indelible impression on customers, one that so utterly distinguishes them from others that it becomes a brand in itself.
Understanding the dynamics of the competitors in the industry helps assess the potential opportunities of every business venture by differentiating the similar products or services offered by the company against other business organizations. According to David (2003), there are at least four types of resources which the company can use to achieve its objectives: financial, tangible, human and technological resources. As such, it is necessary to realistically assess potential levels of profitability, opportunity and risk based on five key factors within an industry so as to determine the long-term profitability of a market or market segment.
Critical success factors (CSFs) in business, are the limited number of areas in which results, if they are satisfactory can ensure that successful competitive advantage for the company (Thierauf 2001). Determining these factors is an old concept in business because there were great leaders throughout history who have identified and addressed key factors to achieve their successes. There is no one definition of CSF but it is considered that these are the areas which the company needs to concentrate on to flourish. Therefore, the activities should be carefully monitored and guided by the management.
Chung (1987) defined critical success factors as managerial factors that create a competitive edge for a company in its respective industry. There is no specific process in identifying and executing critical success factors in strategic management planning. This is the reason why Thierauf (2001) asserts that different companies which have similar structure can conduct its market entry forming different strategies which lead to the development of various critical factors. As the primary means for an organization to achieve its strategy, critical success factors must take into account the differences in the environment and organization that exists.
The Emergence of Contemporary Business Environment
Hotels are turning to the Internet to increase sales, thus a raise in the demand. As such, the tourism industry is one of the industries that exploit the convenience benefits of the Internet (Domke-Damonte & Levsen 2002). Moreover, according to Jupiter Communications Market Research (1999), Fiona Stadtler Swerdlow, an industry analyst, concluded that travel is one of the fastest growing sectors on the Internet, accounting for 50% of all WWW transactions in 1996. With the evolution of tourism industry, comes the commercialisation of tourism (Urry 1990).
Bacchus and Molina (2001) state that the increasing demands of customers in availing hotel or airline reservations are being addressed by the tourism industry through the online Internet reservation system. This reservation system enables travellers to find schedules and fares, seat and room availability, car hire tariffs and make reservations directly (Bacchus & Molina 2001). Today travellers can book a room from almost anywhere in the world as many hotel websites allow online booking with a confirmation being given instantly (Kasavana & Brooks 2001).
An advantage to Internet usage for the hospitality industry falls in the marketing realm (Lovelock 1992). Almost 9% of all Internet users made travel reservations through the Internet in 1998 (Domke-Damonte & Levsen 2002). By having an interactive website online, hotels are offering their services to a global market at an inexpensive rate (Domke-Damonte & Levsen 2002). Through this, they can empathize their individual services and competencies, a capability not available within a cooperative marketing plan; thus, this could increase competitive moves by offering niche services the industry does not usually provide (Domke-Damonte & Levsen 2002).
According to Violino (1998), Synapse Group Inc., hired by Hilton Hotels Corporation to design and maintain Hilton websites, indicated that an average of two million dollars worth of room reservations a month came from Hilton hotel websites worldwide. Hilton expects this number to rise significantly as an increasing number of people become comfortable booking hotel rooms through the Internet (Violino 1998).
As noted by Aksu and Tarcan (2002), websites have now become a popular medium for advertising and reaching a large group of people. Therefore, implementing OIRS is an effective tool for increasing demand. Higley (2003) further states that big chain hotel companies are aiming to improve their websites to increase bookings. At Marriott International hotels, 85% of the online reservations came from Marriott International’s own website (Higley 2003). From the literature, it can be concluded that usage of OIRS is rapidly increasing and that OIRS offer great potential for increasing reservations and consequently increasing room sales.
According to Domke-Damonte and Levsen (2002), the Internet has been widely used by hotels and travel agencies to make up for the loss brought about by economic downturn. Domke-Damonte and Levsen (2002) stress that the Internet has had a major impact on society in general and on hotel industry specifically as, but add that, as a result, the implementation of online reservation system greatly increases competition within a service industry.
Effective Implementation of Strategic Plans
Most of the successful business endeavors depend greatly on good interpersonal communication and relationship between the service or product providers and their clients. Persuading customers on trying the offered services and products is only a start on putting up a successful entrepreneurial activity. Gaining the trust of the clients and maintaining patrons is very important to ideal business transaction flows. Making business transactions and communication within business organizations to promote good working relationships through enhanced knowledge and skills among employees will definitely put a business endeavor into a success wherever the location may be.
The success of the business organization entails detailed understanding and examination of political, social and economic factors that influence the growth and continuous operations of the company. Studying the important consideration relevant to the organization to serve the purpose and objectives of the company will determine its success. Consequently, decision-makers of the company should be sensitive of the general trends and changes that are taking place in their industry. This will include efforts to maximize the opportunities available while reducing the risks that confront the business organization.
According to Romana Morda (2004), leadership is a very critical factor that contributes to the success or failure of business in the hospitality industry. Morda has mentioned two types of leadership. These are transactional leadership and transformational leadership. Transactional leadership is said to focus on the present situation rather than on future ones. Moreover, they use the techniques of rewards and punishment to influence and affect their subordinates’ behaviors and gear them towards productivity. Transformational leaders on the other hand are futuristic and have the ability to inspire followers to make sacrifices for the organization. They are often regarded by their members as charismatic, trustworthy, dependable, have visionary attributes and perform behaviors consistent with their personalities and the things they preach. Leaders who practice such kind of leadership are able to inspire, motivate and encourage members to perform over and above their usual quotas and to think more creatively in their field of expertise. In addition, members perceive these leaders as responsive to their needs. (Morda 2004)
Research revealed that transformational leadership is much more essential in the hospitality industry than merely transactional leadership. According to surveys made by Cichy et al. (1992), the qualities of a leader that are deemed important for hospitality industries are vision, a strong personal value or belief system, flexibility, and ability to make desired outcomes tangible, encouragement of risk taking and listening skills. Moreover, another study of effective characteristics of a good leader in hospitality industries showed findings consistent with transformational leadership. According to Cichy and Schmidgall (1996), these included flexibility, vision, a strong personal belief system, an ability to accomplish desired outcomes and to inspire and empower employees to achieve excellence.
The same results were found among respondents who are lodging operators. Greger and Peterson (2000) found a great weight placed on a leader’s vision and his ability to communicate and realize this among his employees. In addition, there is also the strong need employee empowerment and a positive culture around the organization. Furthermore, it was also emphasized that it is not only the needs of employees that should be met; there is also a great need for guest satisfaction and investor’s needs.
Based on previous researches, it is evident that the transformational type of leadership is preferred and considered favorable for hospitality industry businesses. These results have actually confirmed the assertions in the first few paragraphs that the challenge of hospitality businesses is to help hospitality professionals find genuine meaningfulness in their work. Overall, the most important dimensions that have been consistent throughout the studies are the possession of a vision, ideal influence on the members, inspiration and encouragement, and proper consideration granted to individual employees.
However, Morda asserts, that although such form of leadership is highly appreciated by the workers, it is still important to consider that an organization also needs transactional processes to enforce discipline and rewards to its members. Morda suggests that a combination of the two forms of leadership would be most effective in obtaining success for the hospitality industry (Morda 2004).
Suitability of Formal Strategic Planning
Strategic management is a process used in an organisation so as to develop essential goals and resources. It is a combination of impure, mixed and interactive process loaded with difficulty, both politically and intellectually. Strategic management and human resource are very much related to each other. Through the combined efforts of these two practices, several improvements can be attained, however, without an effective human resources, implementation of strategic management will not be possible (Boxall & Purcell 2003; Pearce & Robinson 2000).
In addition, strategic management is a three way process (choice, analysis and implementation), hence, if one of the three processes does not meet the company’s expectations, then it will affect other process which can make the use of strategic management a failure for the organisation. It is important note, that in order to gain success through strategic management, the company must be strategic from the very beginning up to the last. When, one does not become successful, all other functions and operations within the organisation will be affected; hence can make the business to face its major downturn (Pearce & Robinson 2000).
It is said that each of the three key elements of strategic management is essential and that the used of these elements must be integrated with each other. If such elements will be treated as a discrete element or if one is separated from the other, it can be concluded that the organisation may not be able to achieve the main objective of using the concept of strategic management. It is said that strategic analysis, strategic choice and strategic implementation activities occur at three hierarchical levels in a large organisation: corporate, divisional or strategic business unit and functional. By using these three as interdependent with each other will make any business organisation have the competitive edge in the business arena (Hax & Majluf 1996).
References
Aksu, AA & Tarcan, E 2002, ‘The Internet and five-star hotels: a case study from the Antalya region in Turkey’, International Journal of Contemporary Hospitality Management, vol. 14, no. 30, MCB University Press, Source: Emerald Full text.
Bacchus, L & Molina, A 2001, ‘Internet-based tourism services: Business Issues and trends’, Futures, vol. 33.
Boxall, P & Purcell, J 2000, ‘Strategic Human Resource Management: Where have we come from and where should we be going’, International Journal of Management Review, vol. 2, no. 2, 183-185.
Cichy, R & Schmidgall, RS 1996, 'Leadership qualities of financial executives in the U.S lodging industry’, Cornell Hotel and Restaurant Administration Quarterly, vol. 37, no. 2, 56-62.
Cichy, R., Sciarini, M, & Patton, ME 1992, ‘Food service leadership: Could Attila run a restaurant?’, Corner Hotel and Restaurant Administration Quarterly, vol. 33, no. 1, 46-56.
Chung, KH 1987, Management: Critical success factors, Allyn & Bacon, Boston, MA.
David, FR 2003, Strategic Management, Pearson Education, Upper Saddle River, New Jersey
Domke-Damonte, D & Levsen, VB 2002, ‘The effect of Internet usage on cooperation and performance in small hotels’, Advanced Management Journal, vol. 67, 9-10.
Greger, KR & Peterson, JS 2000, ‘Leadership profiles for the new millennium’, Cornell Hotel and Restaurant Administration Quarterly, vol. 41, no. 1, 16-29.
Hax, AC & Majluf, NS 1996, The Strategy Concept and Process, 2nd ed. Prentice-Hall, New Jersey.
Hessan, D & Whiteley, R 1996, Customer Centered Growth: Five Proven Strategies for Building Competitive Advantage, Perseus Books, Cambridge, MA.
Higley, J 2003, ‘Internet bookings retain priority status’, viewed 18 January 2006,.
Kasavana, ML & Brooks, RM 2001, Managing front office operations, 6th ed, Educational Institute of America, USA.
Lindenmann, W 1998, ‘Measuring relationships is key to successful public relations’, Public Relations Quarterly, vol. 43, no. 4,18+.
Lovelock, CH 1992, A basic toolkit for service management, In Managing services: marketing, operations, and human resources, 2nd ed. Prentice-Hall, Englewood Cliffs, NJ.
Lucas, RE 2003, Employment Relations in the Hospitality and Tourism
Industries, Routledge, New York.
Morda, R 2004, ‘Leadership in the hospitality industry: Boadecia vs. Attila--bring it on!’, Journal of Hospitality and Tourism Management, 18+.
Pearce, JA & Robinson, RB 2000, Strategic Management: Formulation, Implementation and Control, Irwin/McGraw Hill, Boston, MA.
Rowley, G et al. 2003, ‘Employers skill survey: Case study-Local and central government’, Employment Studies Research Unit, Bristol Business School, University of the West of England, Coldharbour Lane, Bristol.
Siegel, GB 1996, ‘Job analysis in the TQM environment’, Public Personnel Management, vol. 25, 485+.
Thierauf, RJ 2001, Effective business intelligence systems, Quorum Books, Westport, CT.
Urry, J 1990, The tourist gaze: leisure and travel in contemporary societies, Sage, London.
Violino, B 1998, ‘Reservations online’, Information Week no. 679, 84 in Business Source Corporate.
World Travel and Tourism Council (WTTC) 2000, Tourism Satellite Accounting
Research, Estimates and Forecasts for Government and Industry, Year 2000, CD-ROM, WTTC, London.
Worldwide employment in tourism, including the hospitality industry, stands at 192.2 million, and by 2010 is expected to have grown to 256.1 million jobs, accounting for one in 11 jobs in the formal economy (World Travel and Tourism Council (WTTC) 2000). Hospitality industry in the United Kingdom alone is continuously growing in the 21st century. This industry encompasses hotels and other accommodations, restaurants, fast food retail, bars, and catering. Basically, tourism is classified as a small and medium-sized industry that offers employment opportunities for people (Lucas 2003). It has been characterised in recent decades by the development of an increasing range of highly segmented products and services. Overlapping tourism and leisure services, with a growing business services component, it is a highly competitive global industry (Rowley et al. 2003, 9).
Majority of UK hotels are employing Total Quality Management (TQM) on their operational systems. TQM is concerned with quality and its continuous improvement; the external customer, or person affected by outputs is the ultimate source of quality judgments; the system or subsystem leading to productive outputs, and considering resource inputs, is the focus of attention; the organization is studied and portrayed as systems; besides ultimate clientele or consumers of outputs, all persons in the stream of production are considered to be customers; groups of employees and managers work on problem solving; every person is to be a process manager; employees are trained in problem solving techniques, including process analysis and statistical quality control (Siegle 1996).
The industry which is exploiting the TQM is the service industry for obvious reason: to satisfy the customer. In today’s business world, the value and importance of customers is not something that should be set aside by companies. Marketing plans and strategies would be incomplete without paying much consideration to the customers. Customers will and should always be a part of the agenda in any marketing plan of any company. Because of the implications for profitability and growth, customer retention is potentially one of the most powerful weapons that companies can employ in their fight to gain a strategic advantage and survive in today's ever increasing competitive environment (Lindenmann 1999).
Strategic Planning in Small and Medium Scale Enterprises
Because of the growing awareness of tourism as an activity, an industry, and a catalyst for economic growth and development, competition for the tourist and for tourism expenditures has been significant in recent decades. One result has been market segmentation and a considerable broadening of the perceived and actual opportunities available for potential tourists. Thus tourists can choose from "sun and sand" holidays, "adventure travel," "theatre tours," "shopping sprees," summer or winter sports vacations, cultural immersion, historic re-enactments, and various other tourism experiences.
Most companies find it impossible to create any kind of sustainable competitive advantage based on product alone. It is common knowledge that every one of the successful companies sought and found a precise understanding of how it could create a customer-centered competitive advantage. Hessan and Whitely (1996) emphasized the idea to take advantage of the competitive situation not just by being better in how that product gets sold, serviced, and marketed at the customer interface. It requires that companies create breakthroughs in how they interact with customers, and design a way of interacting that makes an indelible impression on customers, one that so utterly distinguishes them from others that it becomes a brand in itself.
Understanding the dynamics of the competitors in the industry helps assess the potential opportunities of every business venture by differentiating the similar products or services offered by the company against other business organizations. According to David (2003), there are at least four types of resources which the company can use to achieve its objectives: financial, tangible, human and technological resources. As such, it is necessary to realistically assess potential levels of profitability, opportunity and risk based on five key factors within an industry so as to determine the long-term profitability of a market or market segment.
Critical success factors (CSFs) in business, are the limited number of areas in which results, if they are satisfactory can ensure that successful competitive advantage for the company (Thierauf 2001). Determining these factors is an old concept in business because there were great leaders throughout history who have identified and addressed key factors to achieve their successes. There is no one definition of CSF but it is considered that these are the areas which the company needs to concentrate on to flourish. Therefore, the activities should be carefully monitored and guided by the management.
Chung (1987) defined critical success factors as managerial factors that create a competitive edge for a company in its respective industry. There is no specific process in identifying and executing critical success factors in strategic management planning. This is the reason why Thierauf (2001) asserts that different companies which have similar structure can conduct its market entry forming different strategies which lead to the development of various critical factors. As the primary means for an organization to achieve its strategy, critical success factors must take into account the differences in the environment and organization that exists.
The Emergence of Contemporary Business Environment
Hotels are turning to the Internet to increase sales, thus a raise in the demand. As such, the tourism industry is one of the industries that exploit the convenience benefits of the Internet (Domke-Damonte & Levsen 2002). Moreover, according to Jupiter Communications Market Research (1999), Fiona Stadtler Swerdlow, an industry analyst, concluded that travel is one of the fastest growing sectors on the Internet, accounting for 50% of all WWW transactions in 1996. With the evolution of tourism industry, comes the commercialisation of tourism (Urry 1990).
Bacchus and Molina (2001) state that the increasing demands of customers in availing hotel or airline reservations are being addressed by the tourism industry through the online Internet reservation system. This reservation system enables travellers to find schedules and fares, seat and room availability, car hire tariffs and make reservations directly (Bacchus & Molina 2001). Today travellers can book a room from almost anywhere in the world as many hotel websites allow online booking with a confirmation being given instantly (Kasavana & Brooks 2001).
An advantage to Internet usage for the hospitality industry falls in the marketing realm (Lovelock 1992). Almost 9% of all Internet users made travel reservations through the Internet in 1998 (Domke-Damonte & Levsen 2002). By having an interactive website online, hotels are offering their services to a global market at an inexpensive rate (Domke-Damonte & Levsen 2002). Through this, they can empathize their individual services and competencies, a capability not available within a cooperative marketing plan; thus, this could increase competitive moves by offering niche services the industry does not usually provide (Domke-Damonte & Levsen 2002).
According to Violino (1998), Synapse Group Inc., hired by Hilton Hotels Corporation to design and maintain Hilton websites, indicated that an average of two million dollars worth of room reservations a month came from Hilton hotel websites worldwide. Hilton expects this number to rise significantly as an increasing number of people become comfortable booking hotel rooms through the Internet (Violino 1998).
As noted by Aksu and Tarcan (2002), websites have now become a popular medium for advertising and reaching a large group of people. Therefore, implementing OIRS is an effective tool for increasing demand. Higley (2003) further states that big chain hotel companies are aiming to improve their websites to increase bookings. At Marriott International hotels, 85% of the online reservations came from Marriott International’s own website (Higley 2003). From the literature, it can be concluded that usage of OIRS is rapidly increasing and that OIRS offer great potential for increasing reservations and consequently increasing room sales.
According to Domke-Damonte and Levsen (2002), the Internet has been widely used by hotels and travel agencies to make up for the loss brought about by economic downturn. Domke-Damonte and Levsen (2002) stress that the Internet has had a major impact on society in general and on hotel industry specifically as, but add that, as a result, the implementation of online reservation system greatly increases competition within a service industry.
Effective Implementation of Strategic Plans
Most of the successful business endeavors depend greatly on good interpersonal communication and relationship between the service or product providers and their clients. Persuading customers on trying the offered services and products is only a start on putting up a successful entrepreneurial activity. Gaining the trust of the clients and maintaining patrons is very important to ideal business transaction flows. Making business transactions and communication within business organizations to promote good working relationships through enhanced knowledge and skills among employees will definitely put a business endeavor into a success wherever the location may be.
The success of the business organization entails detailed understanding and examination of political, social and economic factors that influence the growth and continuous operations of the company. Studying the important consideration relevant to the organization to serve the purpose and objectives of the company will determine its success. Consequently, decision-makers of the company should be sensitive of the general trends and changes that are taking place in their industry. This will include efforts to maximize the opportunities available while reducing the risks that confront the business organization.
According to Romana Morda (2004), leadership is a very critical factor that contributes to the success or failure of business in the hospitality industry. Morda has mentioned two types of leadership. These are transactional leadership and transformational leadership. Transactional leadership is said to focus on the present situation rather than on future ones. Moreover, they use the techniques of rewards and punishment to influence and affect their subordinates’ behaviors and gear them towards productivity. Transformational leaders on the other hand are futuristic and have the ability to inspire followers to make sacrifices for the organization. They are often regarded by their members as charismatic, trustworthy, dependable, have visionary attributes and perform behaviors consistent with their personalities and the things they preach. Leaders who practice such kind of leadership are able to inspire, motivate and encourage members to perform over and above their usual quotas and to think more creatively in their field of expertise. In addition, members perceive these leaders as responsive to their needs. (Morda 2004)
Research revealed that transformational leadership is much more essential in the hospitality industry than merely transactional leadership. According to surveys made by Cichy et al. (1992), the qualities of a leader that are deemed important for hospitality industries are vision, a strong personal value or belief system, flexibility, and ability to make desired outcomes tangible, encouragement of risk taking and listening skills. Moreover, another study of effective characteristics of a good leader in hospitality industries showed findings consistent with transformational leadership. According to Cichy and Schmidgall (1996), these included flexibility, vision, a strong personal belief system, an ability to accomplish desired outcomes and to inspire and empower employees to achieve excellence.
The same results were found among respondents who are lodging operators. Greger and Peterson (2000) found a great weight placed on a leader’s vision and his ability to communicate and realize this among his employees. In addition, there is also the strong need employee empowerment and a positive culture around the organization. Furthermore, it was also emphasized that it is not only the needs of employees that should be met; there is also a great need for guest satisfaction and investor’s needs.
Based on previous researches, it is evident that the transformational type of leadership is preferred and considered favorable for hospitality industry businesses. These results have actually confirmed the assertions in the first few paragraphs that the challenge of hospitality businesses is to help hospitality professionals find genuine meaningfulness in their work. Overall, the most important dimensions that have been consistent throughout the studies are the possession of a vision, ideal influence on the members, inspiration and encouragement, and proper consideration granted to individual employees.
However, Morda asserts, that although such form of leadership is highly appreciated by the workers, it is still important to consider that an organization also needs transactional processes to enforce discipline and rewards to its members. Morda suggests that a combination of the two forms of leadership would be most effective in obtaining success for the hospitality industry (Morda 2004).
Suitability of Formal Strategic Planning
Strategic management is a process used in an organisation so as to develop essential goals and resources. It is a combination of impure, mixed and interactive process loaded with difficulty, both politically and intellectually. Strategic management and human resource are very much related to each other. Through the combined efforts of these two practices, several improvements can be attained, however, without an effective human resources, implementation of strategic management will not be possible (Boxall & Purcell 2003; Pearce & Robinson 2000).
In addition, strategic management is a three way process (choice, analysis and implementation), hence, if one of the three processes does not meet the company’s expectations, then it will affect other process which can make the use of strategic management a failure for the organisation. It is important note, that in order to gain success through strategic management, the company must be strategic from the very beginning up to the last. When, one does not become successful, all other functions and operations within the organisation will be affected; hence can make the business to face its major downturn (Pearce & Robinson 2000).
It is said that each of the three key elements of strategic management is essential and that the used of these elements must be integrated with each other. If such elements will be treated as a discrete element or if one is separated from the other, it can be concluded that the organisation may not be able to achieve the main objective of using the concept of strategic management. It is said that strategic analysis, strategic choice and strategic implementation activities occur at three hierarchical levels in a large organisation: corporate, divisional or strategic business unit and functional. By using these three as interdependent with each other will make any business organisation have the competitive edge in the business arena (Hax & Majluf 1996).
References
Aksu, AA & Tarcan, E 2002, ‘The Internet and five-star hotels: a case study from the Antalya region in Turkey’, International Journal of Contemporary Hospitality Management, vol. 14, no. 30, MCB University Press, Source: Emerald Full text.
Bacchus, L & Molina, A 2001, ‘Internet-based tourism services: Business Issues and trends’, Futures, vol. 33.
Boxall, P & Purcell, J 2000, ‘Strategic Human Resource Management: Where have we come from and where should we be going’, International Journal of Management Review, vol. 2, no. 2, 183-185.
Cichy, R & Schmidgall, RS 1996, 'Leadership qualities of financial executives in the U.S lodging industry’, Cornell Hotel and Restaurant Administration Quarterly, vol. 37, no. 2, 56-62.
Cichy, R., Sciarini, M, & Patton, ME 1992, ‘Food service leadership: Could Attila run a restaurant?’, Corner Hotel and Restaurant Administration Quarterly, vol. 33, no. 1, 46-56.
Chung, KH 1987, Management: Critical success factors, Allyn & Bacon, Boston, MA.
David, FR 2003, Strategic Management, Pearson Education, Upper Saddle River, New Jersey
Domke-Damonte, D & Levsen, VB 2002, ‘The effect of Internet usage on cooperation and performance in small hotels’, Advanced Management Journal, vol. 67, 9-10.
Greger, KR & Peterson, JS 2000, ‘Leadership profiles for the new millennium’, Cornell Hotel and Restaurant Administration Quarterly, vol. 41, no. 1, 16-29.
Hax, AC & Majluf, NS 1996, The Strategy Concept and Process, 2nd ed. Prentice-Hall, New Jersey.
Hessan, D & Whiteley, R 1996, Customer Centered Growth: Five Proven Strategies for Building Competitive Advantage, Perseus Books, Cambridge, MA.
Higley, J 2003, ‘Internet bookings retain priority status’, viewed 18 January 2006,
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