Wonderland Hotel Quality Management Case Study Essay Example for Free

Wonderland Hotel Quality Management Case Study Essay John Chan, Wonderland Hotel’s general manager, has a major public relations problem related to a banquet for TC International that was a complete disaster. The Vice President of TC International is extremely disappointed and upset about the entire banquet. The Vice President felt that every aspect of the banquet from the cocktail reception, to the table setup and flowers, to the food and drinks, to the sound system and photographer were filled with problems and that the Wonderland Hotel had let TC International down badly. After speaking with internal and external players, John Chan discovered that a comedy of errors and miscommunications occurred to render the banquet a failure. First, the technical manager of the PA system was not given enough time to wire the tables because he had to wait for the hotel staff to clear the tables for them. The hotel services manager claimed that he was never told about the type of flowers TC International requested and that the technical group moved the flowers near a heat outlet, virtually destroying the flowers. The conference manager claimed a conference checklist was not supplied to him; therefore he was unaware of the need for video equipment. The head chef and waiter felt the entire evening schedule ran late and that they were both unable to produce adequate food and service due to delays caused by other vendors such as the electricians. Finally, the photographer claimed the conference manager had only booked him for half an hour at 10pm and that he had another booking shortly after. When the photographer arrived, TC International was still in the middle of the meal and the photographer had to leave to attend the other engagement. Had the photographer been aware of the situation, he could have arranged for a partner to stay later. The TC International banquet was a disaster due to lack of leadership, organization, and communication. Also contributing to the failure was a lack of accepting responsibility by the customers and suppliers involved. The external customer is TC International, who is paying a large fee to have a superior banquet executed by Wonderland Hotel. The external supplier is the photographer, who need to be kept informed about time changes in the event scheduling and who should have let the conference manager know of his time limitations due to other engagements. The internal suppliers are the technical manager, hotel services manager, conference manager, and the head chef and waiter. Each of the internal suppliers needs to have time scheduled appropriately to manage each individual responsibility. The internal suppliers each claimed to have been restricted by another internal supplier who infringed on the time each supplier needed to provide superior service. Due to lack of communication and leadership, each internal and external supplier was unaware of the overall affect of time delays and therefore no action was taken to correct the long line of mistakes that contributed to the banquet failure. To prevent similar disasters from occurring in the future, Wonderland Hotel should formulate a Total Quality Management (TQM) strategy. TQM is a management strategy in which an awareness of quality is known in all organizational processes that will lead to increased customer satisfaction (wikipedia, 2007). A key component of TQM is that there is an accountability standard in which every player in the organization holds and understands responsibility to do their part in attaining superior customer satisfaction. In Wonderland Hotel’s case, internal suppliers would understand the need to step up and efficiently organize large events. Each supplier would understand the need for timely delivery of services and quality that would ensure event success. Through increased communication, external suppliers and customers would be educated in their own responsibilities to make the event run smoothly. For example, TC International would be help accountable for communicating all their needs and desires for the event and the photographer would be expected to be available even in the event of a delay in the schedule. All event customers and suppliers would feel a sense of inward responsibility to make the event a success instead of focusing external blame for any problems that occur. Reference http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Total_Quality_Management