project management, leadership and skills: planning and ... · 2 contents 1. introduction ......

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Project Management, Leadership and Skills: Planning and Control

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Contents 1. Introduction .................................................................................................................................. 3

1.1 Project Objectives .................................................................................................................... 3

2 Performance Measurement ............................................................................................................ 4

2.1 Return on Investment: .............................................................................................................. 4

2.2 Productivity:............................................................................................................................. 4

2.3 Cost of Quality: ........................................................................................................................ 5

2.4 Customer Satisfaction: ............................................................................................................. 5

2.5 Alignment of Strategic Business Goals: ..................................................................................... 5

3. Stakeholder Analysis ...................................................................................................................... 5

3.1 Customers: ............................................................................................................................... 6

3.2 Employees: .............................................................................................................................. 6

3.3 Providers: ................................................................................................................................. 6

3.4 Government: ............................................................................................................................ 6

4.0 Schedule of activities (Gantt Chart) .............................................................................................. 7

5.0 Project Budget ............................................................................................................................. 7

6.0 Constraints and Risks ................................................................................................................... 8

7.0 Communications to be used ........................................................................................................ 9

8.0 Possible success/ failure factors for this project ......................................................................... 10

9.0 Recommendations for future operations ................................................................................... 13

Conclusion ....................................................................................................................................... 13

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1. Introduction

The Yang Sing Oriental is a luxury hotel situated in central Manchester. The hotel has 48 suites

and bedrooms inspired and based on the themes of Japan, China, India and Thailand cultures.

The hotel offered unprecedented levels of service in the city, which enabled guests to adapt,

make their service with the Online Booking System, select complimentary bathroom products

from the extensive personalized menus from pillows and Japanese silk duvets, and even which

fragrance fills your room. Unfortunately, the hotel had to shut down due to various issues it

faced. The hotel was facing economy crisis, also, according to the Managing Director of the

hotel, Gerry Yeung, the hotel was opened at a wrong time when there was global economic

crisis all around, moreover the world was going through worst recession since 1930’s (News,

2019). With the identified issue it can be analysed and predicted that there was a lack of proper

planning, which resulted in the failure of the project. In spite if the team would have properly

planned, discussed and analysed the situations around, the project would not have faced

economic crisis. Another identified issue with the hotel was the business sustainability

problem. The room rates that were offered to the customers were massively reduced across the

luxury hotel market and the business is just not sustainable without end to the recession in

sight. Offering low prices to the customers was an advantage for the Hotel at times, but the

factor such as loss of money proved to overburden the situation and made the hotel to suffer a

great loss.

The report therefore focuses at considering the case study of Yang Sing Hotel located in

Manchester, which has been provided to a liquidator, referring to which the report provides a

detailed business and project plan with recommendations for the new hotel which is to replace

Yang Sing hotel.

1.1 Project Objectives

Incorporate project management concepts and theory in facilities driven hotel operations.

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Consider Project Management aspects such as risk management, project planning,

budgetary control and not meeting performance requirements as the key primary aspects

and apply these principles on the relaunch of Yang Sing Hotel.

Developing a detailed business case and project plan for the new hotel.

2 Performance Measurement

According to Buckingham and Goodall (2015), Performance management was initially

concerned with the human resources discipline focussing on individuals. While, in the last two

decades, however, it has been more frequent that performance evaluation is also being used on

other three levels in the organizational context: strategic, operational and individual. It also

includes procedures, measurements, processes, software tools and systems that control the

organization's output. Thus, performance measurement is considered as a tool to identify the

success or failure of any organisational project or sometimes an individual (Kerzner 2017).

There are various measures to measure the performance of a project. In case of the rebranding

or relaunch of Yang Sing Hotel, following performance measurement factors will be

considered:

2.1 Return on Investment: Most appropriate method for assessing project investments and the

associated benefits are by calculating net benefits divided by cost. One significant performance

measurement methodology is to take into account all sources of benefit resulting from a range

of measures, including income contributions, cost savings, increased output translated to dollar

value, improvement in quality that are made and so on (Irfan and Hassan 2018). ROI for the

new hotel must be regularly calculated in order to measure the performance, efficiency and

yield after relaunching Yang Sing Hotel.

2.2 Productivity: Productivity metrics suggest that the company receives money from its

workers and other inputs. The services are typically people-related. A continuous check must

be made in order to check the productivity and thus the revenue generation.

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2.3 Cost of Quality: The cost of quality is the amount of money that a company loses due to

poor product or service provided to the customers (Schuster et al. 2017). It includes total labour

and overhead costs due to imperfections in processes which provide products or services which

do not comply with requirements or expectations.

2.4 Customer Satisfaction: As stated by Yusof et al. (2017) Customer Satisfaction means

meeting customer expectations. And further the performance is measured or evaluated on the

basis of customer satisfaction. More the customer will be satisfied and contented and hence it

will directly impact the performance of the business. The previous business of the Yang Sing

hotels faced the issue of satisfying the customer but they provided extra benefits to the

customers which led to economic failure of the hotel, thus regarding the new business, it must

be kept into consideration that these factors are kept into consideration.

2.5 Alignment of Strategic Business Goals: Some metrics of project management calculate the

performance of project management and the approaches that are used correctly. The projects

also need a test to assess whether the entire team operates on the correct tasks or not. It is such

a factor that programs are consistent with strategic business priorities. The relaunch of Yang

Sin hotel must also aim at aligning the strategic business goals and try to avoid the mistakes

that were previously committed by the Yang Sin Hotel.

3. Stakeholder Analysis

The stakeholder analysis is regarded as the best way to conduct an internal investigation for a

business. It helps determine the needs and obligations of the shareholders of the organization

in relation to the business (Cooper, 2017). It is possible to easily infer the relative importance

of each party's stakeholder, collective forces and interests. by using this analytical technology,

the relaunch of Yang Sing can expand its market affiliation with international and national

firms quickly. The analysis of stakeholders is considered to be an important way to analyse the

new hotel's inner factors.

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Clients or Customers, vendors, employees and the government are the key players involved in

the relaunch of Yang Sing Hotel.

3.1 Customers: Customers are known as leading players in the industry that have a significant

effect on the new hotel's competitiveness and stability. The main customer needs regarding a

hotel are qualitative or conditioned services. The hotel will aim at offering customized products

to customers in order to satisfy their requirements. The hotel's relationship with consumers is

to be made good enough to make customers loyal. It will also provide the customers

with responsive services.

3.2 Employees: The new hotel employees represent a high turnover for the company. The hotel

focuses on several training programmes, to improve the motivation of the worker, but there has

been a contact gap at the Yang Sing Hotel between the higher and lower levels earlier. The

relaunch will change some interaction shortcomings, due to a number of scheduling and

implementation issues. All employee-related considerations are taken into account (Hair et al.,

2019).

3.3 Providers: Suppliers and retailers should be paid on time to ensure the adequate supply of

the raw material and food in the hotel. Good communication between the hotel and the dealer

should also take place, so that the Organization never faces any supply problem.

3.4 Government: A tax is also charged by the government of the country to the new hotel in

which it works. The Government of that country must be aware of all the financial transactions

of the company. The government, which will allow a new hotel to maintain good relations with

the government of every nation wherever it operates must pay the taxes correctly and on time.

The government is closely managed by the organization according to the stakeholder analysis.

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4.0 Schedule of activities (Gantt Chart)

In order to make the task easy, work breakdown has been performed to divide the complete

project into groups of smaller works. A detailed work flow process/activities or the time frame

of the scheduled project has been provided below.

Chart 1: Gantt Chart; Source: Self (2019)

5.0 Project Budget

Budget item Number of items Cost of each item

(million)

Total cost (million)

Property Acquisition $21.6 $21.6

Planning $0.04 $0.04

Architectural blueprint design

$0.1 $0.1

License and legal compliance

$0.3 $0.3

Plumbing, carpentry and electrification

48 Rooms $0.2/room $9.6

Interior decoration 48Rooms+Lawn $0.05 $2.4

Equipment installation $1.7 $1.7

Labour cost 50 $0.08/person $4

Staff hiring and training

30 $0.24 $7.2

Advertising $0.7 $0.7

Total Budget $47.64

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6.0 Constraints and Risks

In this era of globalised economy, nothing can be assumed to be certain. With the rapid

evolution in technology, market requirements, consumer expectations and regulations, the

hospitality sector is in direct exposure to some of the biggest concern faced by businesses.

Today, it is over-burdened with higher turnover rates and shortages of skilled labourers. There

are indeed a range of factors which impacts the performance in hospitality sector, and hotels

need to look for new ways of attracting customers and keeping them loyal with its brand. Below

are some of the biggest risks/constraints which can be faced by “New Yang Sing Hotel”:

Evolving technology and Sharing economy: The rapid advancement in technology

has provided a platform and introduced some new players into hospital sector. These

new players are utilizing the advanced features of internet based web and mobile

applications to provide their services (Salvioni 2016). The new age travellers (youth)

are also tech-savvy and largely depends on apps and websites to locate hotels and using

them as per their convenience. Thus, due to experiential travel and sharing economy, it

may pose some unique threats to the hotel industry even if they are strong at their terms.

Debt-Funding: Most of the sources providing funds to hospitality sector charges

higher rate of interest and even the payback period is also kept minimum. Since the

hotel was initially closed and had a huge financial debt. (Nunes and Serrasqueiro 2017)

Thus, it needs a huge funding for a considerable period so that instead of putting more

equity in debt. it can repay them from the operational cash-flow itself.

Licensing Issue: It is a well-known fact that hospitality is a difficult segment to start

business. The path to hospitality business passes through a bunch of regulations and

licensing procedure (Sutrisno and Jazilah 2019). Starting with land acquisition it

proceeds with environmental clearance, fire safety permits, labour norms, water,

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electricity, food standardization et cetera. Thus, it involves a bureaucratic blockage

which hampers the overall performance and leads to cost and time overrun.

Uncertain economic environment: It is the recession in global market which has

closed this hotel previously. Thus, global economy is one such factor which puts the

most risk to this business. Shrinkage or slowdown in economy directly impacts the

revenue (Williams and Balaz 2015).

Poor communication: It has the potential to kill the project. Any form of

misunderstanding subjected to scope of the project, activities involved, schedule or

essentials can vanish the whole idea of project and can lead it another project failure.

In such an increasingly competitive globalised world, hotels which do not look forward will

undoubtedly be left behind. In such scenario, project risk management becomes increasingly

important. It defines, evaluates and reacts to the risk by scheduling, risk assessment, monitoring

as well as control in its management and responses. As per Liung et al. (2015) Risk assessment,

testing of assumptions and analysis of decision-making bodies are the major assessment tools

in this direction. As discussed above, the magnitude and effect of risk is determined by the

level of complexity which certainly goes beyond conventional hotel scenarios (Abid et al.

2015). It, in turn, defines the optimal solution to scheduling and performing tasks in terms of

versatile alternatives and flexibility.

Despite the increased market competition, these strategies have become much more beneficial

in hotel operations. In addition, risk analysis offers a range of tools that are valuable for

managing changes and assessing the impacts of internal risks.

7.0 Communications to be used

Management of Project communication seeks to produce, compile, distribute, store and

eventually dispose of project data in a prompt and effective manner. It presents the vital links

between individuals, ideas, and data needed for a project's success in this role (Hernandez et

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al. 2019). It involves everyone involved with the project to share relevant ideas and

comprehend how it affects the entire project. While operational staff of the hostel possess

excellent skills for people, they are typically designed to meet consumer needs. Also when

dealing with requests from visitors, hotel staff still rely on a computer based system that only

works if critical information is submitted in a timely manner. It requires a certain level of

awareness, accessibility, and expertise that suit the requirements of the project (Ziek and

Anderson 2015). For example, a free-flowing communications network is common in multi-

functional project teams, might facilitate group collaboration across functional lines. Thus,

below are some of the ways by which communication can be effectively optimized to ensure

the accomplishment of project objectives.

Regular communication with guests:

Maintaining consistency in customer service

Positive attitude and body language towards customer

Keeping open line communication with visitors

Maintaining easy accessibility to all

Apart from all the above strategies and methods to implement effective communication, Gao

et al. (2016) have further advocated to use some unique approach. It can be in the form of

collecting real time data about hotel services used by guests to incorporate a "personal touch"

to the service. For example, when confronted with an unusual question, the concierge asks

about some of the recent experience of the visitor in a hotel.

8.0 Possible success/ failure factors for this project

Accomplishing success in terms of project management could take many forms; thus, success

can be defined to be a sustainable as well as performance of ongoing projects from in terms

of time and cost perspective where project performance goals are linked with its scheduling as

well as controlled flow of activities related to project in a well-coordinated, time- cost

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effectiveness, so that performance of the project can be achieved within the pre-planned

objectives (Juneja and Dubey 2018). However, most researchers describe comprehensively

influential factors contributing to project failure. It includes inadequate project basis,

incompetent project manager, inadequately specified talks, lacking technical project

management, lack of project commitment, time, cost and customer satisfaction, and specifically

the management model (Taherdoost and Keshavarzsaleh 2016). Figure 1 portrays the process

determining success/failure of any project.

Figure 1: Project success/failure factor; Source:

https://core.ac.uk/download/pdf/82098133.pdf

Thus, in actual sense, project success or failure are the two different sides of the same coin,

Nishant et al. (2019) collectively highlights the connection in the use of project management

processes and the success of the project. This is why it has been defined that project

management is substantially quantifiable in terms of money, time, quality and services. Thus,

based upon the evidences observed from above studies, factors which generally contributes for

the failure/success are as follows:

Factor Dimension

Complexity Higher technical complexity

Customization of requirements

Integration of technology

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Uncertain business environment

Financial Hidden expenditures

Lack of funding sources

Exchange fluctuation in currency

Legal Inadequacy in protecting

intellectual property

Instability in Socio-Political

environment

Trade barriers

Requirements and Scope Conflicting requirements

Ill-defined objectives

Inadequate requirements

Lack of clarity in business idea

Planning and Control Lower visibility in project process

Poor Project governance

Incompetency in change

management

Poor auditing

Contract Specification of appropriate

measures

Less flexibility

Project implementation Incompatible choice of

development

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Negligence in compliance with

standard methodologies

Inadequate addressing of change

management

Logistic complication

Table 1: Failure/Success factors; Source: Self (2019)

9.0 Recommendations for future operations

Based upon the analysis of given case scenario, here are some of the ways which can be helpful

in making this relaunch a grand success.

New Yang Sing hotel needs to be responsive to its guest requirements in order to

sustain a competitive business strategy. Knowing about the diverse and varied

preferences of its customers is essential for providing world-class services.

Adopting appropriate technical platforms to expand its capability horizons will help in

attracting new age travellers. Including next generation Property Management System

ill further help in optimising its services for achieving a higher performance level.

21st century is the age of digital technology thus, improved digital marketing strategy

and practices needs to be implemented within its marketing practice.

Right pricing at right time strategy should be practiced. It should be based on the data

related to its customer and competitors

Tying hotel staff incentives with customer satisfaction

Feedback analysis to improve guest experience.

Conclusion

Project management is not only about installing, remodelling or upgrading the hospitality/hotel

industry; it is primarily about its culture. Although adjustments or innovations may come from

the middle of the establishment, cultural change has to come from the very top commitment

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from concerned authorities. Based upon a given situation, this report incorporates project

management strategies to help the investment firm in making this relaunching a huge success.

Consequently, a tactical shift in management and organisational priorities will be needed to

maintain the hotel life cycle as an ongoing project. Thus, the given situation has been analysed

and based upon that, we have analysed what went wrong with the previous hotel as well as

what needs to be done for its success. Though project managers can involve or locate changes,

but, it is the top leadership that requires to permeate the entire organisation with the new

culture. Whereupon, the organisation may attain versatility instead of having a single business-

oriented culture through some kind of complementary cultural mix in service and project

management.

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