Introduction
While acknowledging the challenges faced by modern organizations in today’s competitive market environment, many organizational practitioners and management theorists are still critical of utilizing operations management practices as agreeable solutions (Brennan, 2006).
However, operations management is at the very core of the organization. In the 21st century, organizations are increasingly faced by a multiplicity of challenges and unending vagrancies in the macro-environment, whereby survival has become a preserve of organizations that take considerable time and effort to plan and organize their systems and processes to fit customer requirements. Such organization and systematization of business processes is one of the fundamental tenets of operations management. It is against this backdrop that this report aims at critically assessing the operations management’s component of Venetian Macao hotel and casino resort, with a view of evaluating the operations processes of the International Marketing department of the casino
Located on the Cotai Strip, the Venetian Macau is undoubtedly one of the largest luxury hotel and casino resorts in the world (Agoda, 2009). The exquisite and imposing facility is owned by the Sands Corporation, and is home to the world’s largest casino by virtue of its size and gaming equipments. The casino has a total gaming area of 550,000sq ft, which is further sub-divided into four gaming areas, inexorably making it the largest casino in the world (Agoda, 2009).
The gaming area holds over 3,400 slot machines and in excess of 800 gambling tables. At the casino, the preserve of the International Marketing department is to offer quality services to high-end customers, and act as a link between the customers and the casino. The department is responsible for arranging the customers’ requests from the time they arrive at the airport until they depart. The requests must be well prepared during the stay, and includes arranging for air tickets, limo services, casino, restaurant services, and entertainment.
The operation management’s functions of such a big casino are indeed energy-draining. However, with proper organization, the right mix of tools and models of operations management, the casino has been fuelled to success. In this perspective, the operations management of the casino must create the products and services that will keep the customers satisfied, and therefore develop and maintain a strong customer base. According to Slack et al (2004), creating the right mix of products and services is at the very heart of organization’s existence.
Understanding the Clientele of Venetian Macau Casino
Before understanding the clientele of the casino resort, it is imperative to note that Venetian Macau is services-oriented rather than product-oriented. The distinction between the two is essential if operations professionals are to offer services and products that are tailored to fit the requirements of customers (Brennan, 2006). In today’s dynamic business environment, organizations need to constantly evaluate the needs and requirements of their customers, and look for means to modernize and transform business processes with the aim of attaining unchallenged customer satisfaction and higher profitability (Ervolina et al, 2009).
Venetian Macau is no exception. Imbalances between customer requirements and organizational or business processes have been identified as one of the fundamental reasons as to why organizations lose valuable customers, hence missing out on targeted revenue (Slack et al, 2005).
Venetian Macau is a high-end hotel and casino resort. Although the casino is not exclusive to VIPs, celebrities and other important public figures, its clientele borders on the high-end consumer bracket (Agoda, 2009). However, the casino is a profit-making facility, and anyone with the required amount of money is free to check in. Excellence, convenience, comfort, satisfaction, quality and security are the services offered to high-end clientele (Natarajan, at al, 1999; Foster & Ogden, 2008). These attributes are vital in any operation’s process aiming to market the casino resort.
Customer satisfaction must be viewed as the primary goal if the International Marketing team is to achieve success in selling the casino to customers through the services offered. The casino’s capacity to provide high quality customer service is the necessary foundation for it to actively compete in the international arena (Fredendall & Robbins, 1995). It is therefore the function of the operations professionals to identify the criteria used by high-end customers to assess service satisfaction. These criteria can be identified by using Terry Hill’s Order-winning Order-qualifying theoretical framework, described below.
Order-Winning Order-qualifying Model
The above Model “refer to the process of how internal operational capabilities are converted to criteria that may lead to competitive advantage and market success” (Vastag, 2010 para. 1). The concept reveals the close interrelations present between operations management and marketing. According to Terry, the operations professionals must act to supply the ‘order-winning’ and ‘order-qualifying’ criteria, previously identified by marketers, and which invariably enable products and services to “win orders in the marketplace” (Vastag, 2010 para 1).
An ‘order qualifier,’ according to Terry, is an attribute of a product or service that is fundamentally required as a precondition for the items to be considered by a potential customer. This attribute must be identified by a marketer, and hence the link between operations and marketing. A product or service has to completely appeal to the hearts of customers for such an item to be referred as an ‘order winner.’ Consequently, an organization must provide the qualifiers to be sampled by the customer in the hope that it will gain entry into the market.
According to the theory, organizations need to be at par with their competitors if they are to provide the qualifiers (Vastag, 2010; Pycraft, 2000). Non-compliance to this rule may lead to lost sales. However, organizations must provide superior products and services in the marketplace than their competitors if they are to become order winners. In penetrating the high-end customer market, it is the duty of operations in conjunction with the marketers to provide a list of the casino’s services in a way that will attract potential customers to sample them. This is why it is fundamentally important to have accurate information about your customers and their preferences. New customers will only be won after sampling the services on offer and finding them more attractive and appealing than their traditional casinos.
Operations Objectives
Venetian Macau casino deals with high-end customers, and the preserve of the International Marketing team is to offer high quality services to the customers. Every organization must have its own plan; but it is the operation’s component of the organization which puts it into practice (Huckman, 2009). Taking the high-end customer preferences into consideration, the operations objectives that have been critically fundamental in the design and development of the casino’s processes include:
Quality
According to Slack et al (2004), quality has two attributes – the external affect and the internal affect. Externally, customers who use the operations products and services must have little on no complains about the items used. Customers are presumably happy with the operations products and services if they don’t complain, hence are likely to use them again. This scenario brings more profits for the organization and satisfaction to the clients. Internally, the operations objective necessitates the operations processes to run smoothly, making few mistakes if any, and therefore saving on operating costs, in addition to enhancing dependability (Slack et al, 2004; Greasley, 2008). Speed of response is also enhanced.
Flexibility
Flexibility as an operations objective has external and internal affects (Slack et al, 2004). In the external affect, the diverse type of flexibility permits operations process to generate an assortment of items in the marketplace in any way. The second type, mix flexibility, permits an operations process to generate a broad range of items to give clients an opportunity to choose their preference. The third type – product/service flexibility – permits the operations process to come up with fresh and exiting items that integrates new ideas, technology and concepts in the hope of attracting the end-users. Lastly, Volume and delivery flexibility permits operations processes to regulate its output intensities and delivery procedures in the hope of coping with unanticipated changes in the marketplace. Internally, flexibility hastens response, saves time, and assists in maintaining dependability (Slack et al, 2004).
Dependability
According to Slack et al (2004), customers must take delivery of their products or services on timely bases. As an operations objective, dependability has both external and internal influences. Externally, dependability is a virtue to customers as late delivery of products or services is often irritating. Dependability hastens the chances that customers will definitely return with more business, and hence more profit. Internally, dependability influences cost by saving time and money, while offering the organization the stability needed to progress its efficiencies (Slack et al, 2004). Dependability is also known to enhance speed performance, a key attribute in operations management.
Speed
Slack et al (2004) posits that speed entails the duration between an order placement for particular product or service and the time the customer gets to receive the order. This is particularly important for high-end casinos as customers are highly time-sensitive. The speed objective has internal and external influences. Externally, speed is essential because it assists organizations to respond quickly to customer requests, motivating customers to return again with more business. Internally, speed enables organizations to cut on costs due to enhanced throughput of information, an attribute that is most likely to find favour in high-end customers. Depending on the above operations objectives that are commensurate to the needs and requirements of the high-end customers, the ‘Distribute Products and Services to Customers’ process ought to be operating at Venetian Macao Casino (Kaplan & Norton, 2004).
The ‘Distribute Products and Services to Customers’ (DPSC) Process
It is the function of operating processes to produce and deliver products and services to customers in a way that satisfies their requirements. While operational brilliance alone is not the foundation for sustainable business strategy, managing operations processes remains a priority for effective business entities. In the above named process, “the typical objectives for distribution processes encompass the company’s cost, quality, and time performance” (Kaplan & Norton, 2004 p. 72). The table below reveals the dynamics of the process
Table 1: The Dynamics of the DPSC Process.
The first objective, Lower cost-to-serve, may not be applicable in a service sector setting. However, the other two objectives are fundamentally important if service providers are to satisfy the needs and preferences of the customers, a basic prerequisite for success and profitability.
In quality, the operations processes engaged by the International Marketing team, of which I’m a member, ensure that customers are accorded quality services during their stay at Venetian Macau Casino. TQM processes are employed in all our dealings with customers, which include air ticketing, limo services, casino services, restaurant services, and other related duties, to ensure accurate service delivery. This ensures that our services has no defects, and therefore enhances customer satisfaction (Reid & Sanders, 2001).
The process of securing and maintaining a strong relationship with our customers through customer feedback is the basic keystone on which the casino expands. Through the feedback process, we are able to know whether the customers were satisfied with our services, inline with the DPSC process of measuring client complaints. Our philosophy – to provide customer service that surpasses expectations – has worked well to enhance customer satisfaction. In addition, our team has always engaged focused discipline, constant inspection, and documentation of all the processes that affects our customers. The model below reveals the operations processes involved in ensuring quality of service at the casino.
In flexibility, the International Marketing team is at the heart of making travel, boarding, casino, and entertainment arrangements for high-end customers. Flexibility is therefore a factor that shapes our daily activities as most VIPs often keep tight schedules that often changes in a split second. Some of the operations processes involved in enabling the team keep up with the flexibility required of the high-end customers include carefully planning the work schedule in time and working with the laid down plan that make provisions for change adjustments. In the DPSC model, the above can be measured by lead times (Kaplan & Norton, 2004).
Adaptability has been incorporated in the operations processes by locating our representatives in major cities around the world to conduct on-time delivery of services to our customers no matter their geographical location. According to Bertrand (n.d.), the capacity to adapt to any given scenario is critical in maintaining a strong customer base. Use of innovative strategies has also assisted the casino in dealing with sudden change of plans. Lastly, the Macau casino has invested heavily in information and communication technology, which undoubtedly assist the International Marketing team to exercise flexibility to unforeseen changes.
Dependability shares the same measures with flexibility. On-time delivery of services is crucial for our high-end customers to continue depending on us. We always strive to offer fast lead times as this will increase customers’ satisfaction and competitive advantage, hence more profit (Porter, 1998). The International Marketing team at the casino has developed resilient operations processes to safeguard our ‘always dependable’ status from compromise.
One of the operations processes used is to frequently change the designs of the services on offer to assure our customers that they can always depend on us for new and exiting services. Our level of innovation ensures our dependability to customers. According to Pycraft (2000), innovation leads to dependability since organizations are able to deal with any particular situation through effective innovative measures. Customers take pride in such organizations, and Venetian Macau casino is one of them.
Lastly, the International Marketing team has always ensured that services are offered with speed, in line with the preferences of high-end customers. To be competitive, we have tailored our services to have the shortest lead times in the market due to the realization that high-end customers have a string of engagements, and therefore need to be served with speed. We have always strived to maintain our on-time delivery of services to near perfection (Kaplan & Norton, 2004). Below is a sample operations system that reflects the nature of operations processes at the casino.
Improvements
Operations process aims to produce and deliver products and services to customers in the hope of satisfying their needs (Kaplan & Norton, 2004). The International Marketing team at Macao casino has been able to achieve this fundamental goal by streamlining operations to meet customer requirements. However, the management needs to take advantage of the expanding horizons in technology to further cut on its operation costs. High-end customers are presumably connected online and technology savvy, and therefore the management can utilize such avenue instead of having representatives in foreign countries (Cortada, 1997).
All operations objectives are commenced with a view of increasing customer satisfaction, and therefore more profit. As such, it is only prudent to harness technology that is faster, reliable and effective in customer-based interactions.
The operations objectives are met better when all the processes are harmonized and run smoothly in an interrelated way. Although, this is not a problem at the present in the International Marketing team, concerted efforts need to be made to make sure that the processes are changed to fit modern market trends. We must improve our operations processes to produce services, not only to the high-end consumer, but also to the present-day sophisticated high-end consumer (Bernardes & Hanna, 2009). The reason behind the concern rests on the fact that lifestyles are changing fast. Today, we have high-end youngsters, and their needs and preferences must be included in our operations strategy.
Conclusions
It is the function of operations management to develop the resources and capabilities needed to permit the organization accomplish its goals (Emmerichs, 2004). In the 21st century, the function is increasingly faced with a multiplicity of factors, key among them the need to globalize products and services, introduce new inventions, mass customization, and use of supplier partnering (Vastag, 2010). In modern organizational dynamics, operations management is at the very core of the organization. It is against this backdrop that this business report purposed to critically assess the operation management’s component of Venetian Macao hotel and casino resort, with a view of evaluating the operations processes of the International Marketing department of the casino.
It has been revealed that the hotel and casino are service-oriented establishments, interested in serving high-end customers. Excellence, convenience, comfort, satisfaction, quality, and security are some of the criteria that these category of customers use to evaluate satisfaction. Accordingly, customer satisfaction must be viewed as the primary goal if the International Marketing team is to achieve success in selling the casino to customers through the services offered.
The paper has made extensive use of theory and practice, trying to connect the two in the hope of evaluating how operations processes can be used to enhance customer satisfaction in the casino. Of particular, Terry Hill’s Order-winning Order-qualifying theory has been used to serve as criteria in the identification of customer preferences. The operations objectives of quality, dependability, flexibility, and speed have been found to satisfy the preferences of high-end customers (Vastag, 2010). Depending on these operations objectives, the paper have made use of the ‘Distribute Products and Services to Customers’ dispensation as the process that ought to be operating at the Venetian Macao casino (Kaplan & Norton, 2004).
The above process share immense features with the operations objectives of high-end customers, namely quality, dependability, flexibility, and speed. The objectives of the process include ‘lower cost-to-serve,’ ‘responsive delivery to customers,’ and ‘enhancement of quality.’ However, it is the last two objectives that has the measures needed to evaluate customer satisfaction, and includes lead times, duration for completion of tasks, on-time delivery percentage, percentage of services delivered with no defects, and the number and frequency of client complaints (Kaplan & Norton, 2004). These measures have been used, in conjunction with the operations objectives mentioned above to evaluate the International Marketing team’s operations processes in its attempt to enhance customer satisfaction at the casino.
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