The Carlson Company is one of the most successful international corporations providing services related to traveling and hotel accommodation. The latter has a long history, including many highs and lows, as it was established prior to the beginning of the Second World War. Also, the discussed corporation has been engaged in a variety of activities such as the development and implementation of different loyalty programs aimed at motivating customers to consume the particular products and give pride of place to the particular services.
To achieve the discussed goal, the specialists from the company introduced a range of schemes allowing to reward customers for their appreciation; the methods applied to increase the popularity of services and products, including the use of special stamps that could be exchanged for prizes or discounts. Despite the initial success that the company achieved with the help of the discussed innovation, the popularity of the stamps provided by Carlson decreased in the second half of the twentieth century.
Nowadays, this international corporation owns a great number of hotels and restaurants, and it is difficult to overestimate Carlson’s success in the given field. Another important detail that defines the Carlson Company is that the business is run by the members of a particular family. Considering the type of business, it is obvious that the post of Chief Executive Officer should be taken up by representatives of different generations of the family.
Despite that, the board of the company had to face a difficult situation described in the case that occurred due to the unwillingness of Marilyn Carlson Nelson to entrust the role of CEO to her son. Nevertheless, the board has managed to find an alternative, and, therefore, the corporation can also be defined as the business run by qualified specialists focused on the best final results. As is clear from the case, the latter may involve significant risks, but those people related to the decision have managed to demonstrate their professionalism.
Although the Carlson Company is a business that brings a substantial profit to engagement parties and it is able to measure swords with any other company in the field, it is necessary to state that it also has internal challenges which contributed to the difficult situation that could decrease the performance of the corporation ten years ago.
It is common knowledge that doing business with relatives is a difficult task as work-related conflicts between family members involve worse consequences; apart from that, family ties often act as the factor encouraging authoritative people to be less objective while making important decisions. In connection with the case of the Carlson Company, it needs to be said that one of its CEOs, Marilyn Carlson Nelson was able to stay objective and acknowledge that her son did not meet the requirements related to the post.
In fact, every person possesses his or her own features that cannot be changed, and this is why it is a great risk to entrust companies only to CEO’s relatives. Trying to focus on the outcomes for the corporation, Marilyn decided that it was a person outside of her family who had to become the new CEO. Due to the help of experienced specialists from the corporation and the third parties that were supposed to help to resolve the conflict, the person possessing both experience and required personality traits were found within a short period of time.
Therefore, the main internal challenges of the Carlson Company are conflicts between family members, problems caused by the type of business (a family-owned corporation). More than that, it is important to take into account possible losses associated with standard succession plans in family-run businesses.
Business intelligence protocols serve as one of the most important tools that can be utilized by companies to enhance their performance and excel as the largest business players related to the field. Considering the success of the Carlson Company, it is clear that a lot of companies would be interested in gaining a competitive advantage over this corporation, and this is why the latter should use such reports to be able to hold its leading positions.
If I were supposed to complete a special report devoted to Carlson’s competitor, it would be necessary to collect as much data about both the Carlson Company and other companies (for instance, Amazon) as possible. The next stage would be to define the degree to which the competitor’s activity diminishes Carlson’s chances for success. Then, I would make a list of products and services offered by the Carlson Company and compare them to the ones provided by their competitor, paying special attention to the pricing policy and customer feedback. Apart from that, it would be important to analyze the internal situation of the competitor as it would help to summarize the data collected and define the strengths and weaknesses of the Carlson Company.
The first step can be regarded as the preparatory one as it is closely interconnected with data collection. Indeed, the discussed stage is extremely important for the outcomes as different kinds of information concerning the company define the applicability of the conclusions outlined in the report. Fulfilling the given task, I would consider the following information concerning the activity of Amazon and the Carlson Companies: the number of employees and the countries where their businesses are run, services provided, annual profit the corporations get, the number and the properties of sales outlets of the companies, etc.
Apart from that, it is extremely important to define and evaluate the threat posed by a business rival. The given stage has to be paid increased attention to due to the fact that the services of certain companies that are regarded as the leading competitors may, in fact, be targeted at different customers. For instance, when it comes to the discussed corporations, it is necessary to state that their fields of activity are quite different as the Carlson Company is closely associated with the travel services whereas Amazon Corporation specializes in E-commerce; despite that, both corporations are known as important investors, and this is why the growing success of one of the corporations could potentially decrease the number of companies ready to collaborate with the second one.
Also, the report would contain the comparison of products and services provided by the companies, and it would be important to consider customer satisfaction rates. As for the internal situation, the report would also focus on strategies used to manage the workforce as they define the competitive ability of a corporation as well. In particular, it could be important to compare the working conditions the companies create for the staff (for instance, Amazon is widely criticized for the use of inappropriate working practices and careless attitude to employees).
In the end, trying to predict further moves of Carlson’s competitors, I would focus on the most recent financial figures reported by them, services and the feedback they receive, features of target customers, and the experience of their employees.