International Business-Argentina Suites
International Management
Case Analysis: Argentina Suites
What are some of the major problems facing Argentina Suites? Argentina Suites faced many problems from the beginning idea to convert a 75,000-square foot building into a hotel. The owner, Abraham Sinclair decided to enter the hotel business with no market research, no hospitality experience, and rough financial projections. The decision to enter a market without knowing what ones getting into, led to major problems facing Argentina Suites. Some major problems include inefficiency, lack of technology, threat of new entrants, unethical behavior and transferring of information. Max, a person very familiar with Argentina Suites took responsibility to manage the hotel and to make it a better place to stay. In doing so he went around the hotel to start asking questions. Max quickly discovered many flaws in the hotel, one being how inefficient the hotel is overall. Observing the work processes and procedures, he noted that reservations were taken by telephone and written in duplicate using carbon paper. This problem caused different companies and different individuals within companies to receive different rates. He found that the guest history system consisted of individual registration cards that were stapled to the reservation sheet. These cards were often lost. There was no interface between handling room inventory and handling guest information. There was no computer program that kept track of information about hotel statistics such as a profile of the hotel’s primary customer base. For keeping track of the amount of cash, credit card slips, and checks that entered or left the front office, Osvaldo, head of accounting agreed how it will be much easier and efficient to install computer systems. Technology plays a big role in solving major problems for Argentina Suites. Being able to keep track of information by using computer programs will help the hotel become more efficient. Most of the new
Case Analysis: Argentina Suites
What are some of the major problems facing Argentina Suites? Argentina Suites faced many problems from the beginning idea to convert a 75,000-square foot building into a hotel. The owner, Abraham Sinclair decided to enter the hotel business with no market research, no hospitality experience, and rough financial projections. The decision to enter a market without knowing what ones getting into, led to major problems facing Argentina Suites. Some major problems include inefficiency, lack of technology, threat of new entrants, unethical behavior and transferring of information. Max, a person very familiar with Argentina Suites took responsibility to manage the hotel and to make it a better place to stay. In doing so he went around the hotel to start asking questions. Max quickly discovered many flaws in the hotel, one being how inefficient the hotel is overall. Observing the work processes and procedures, he noted that reservations were taken by telephone and written in duplicate using carbon paper. This problem caused different companies and different individuals within companies to receive different rates. He found that the guest history system consisted of individual registration cards that were stapled to the reservation sheet. These cards were often lost. There was no interface between handling room inventory and handling guest information. There was no computer program that kept track of information about hotel statistics such as a profile of the hotel’s primary customer base. For keeping track of the amount of cash, credit card slips, and checks that entered or left the front office, Osvaldo, head of accounting agreed how it will be much easier and efficient to install computer systems. Technology plays a big role in solving major problems for Argentina Suites. Being able to keep track of information by using computer programs will help the hotel become more efficient. Most of the new