Reflective account Quiz and Essay

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Value Chain Model

Value chain refers to an appropriate combination of several activities that a firm performs about the delivery of particular products as well as services within the marketplace. Moreover, this aspect is very much necessary to appropriately and effectively create value within the company. The reason for this is that it directly reflects upon the success of the firm, as higher value enhances the productivity and profitability of the organization. Moreover, the value chain of a firm also helps the company in building a strong and sustainable competitive advantage (Albert and Grzeda, 2015).

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In this context, one of the most effective and essential contributions was made by Michael Porter in 1985, when the concept of value chain was first introduced. In the Value Chain Model described by Porter, all the systems and their input towards the output (performance objectives) were taken into consideration rather than the departments and functional units of the company. A rather homogeneous display has been provided within this model of activities that are common within businesses, regardless of the sector in which they operate. Moreover, these tasks are further divided into primary and supporting activities. In terms of the former, activities like inbound logistics, operations, outbound logistics, marketing and sales, as well as service, are included. However, the tasks that are directed towards the primary activities are inclusive of procurement, human resource management, technological development, as well as infrastructure. A combination of all these activities is adopted and performed by an organization consistently and effectively, which enhances the scope of achieving objectives appropriately.

One of the biggest strengths of the value chain model by Porter is the approach, which is followed by its concept. This is because a linkage is established within the systems of the company, which showcases a prominent impact on the cost as well as the profit. This clarifies the sources within the firm that are generating value for the organization as well as the resources that are negatively impacted through the current performance of organizations on these grounds. Hence, a value chain model is an effective form of analysis that explores the workings of an organization along with factors that could help the company create effective value (De Jong et. al., 2017).

Intercontinental Hotels Group

Intercontinental Hotels Group, or IHG, is an international organization that deals in accommodation, food, and beverage operations within the UK's hospitality sector. In addition to this, the firm has an effective presence in almost 100 nations, where it owns several brands that contribute to enhancing the success of the enterprise. Founded in 2003, the firm has made its goodwill and reputation all over the UK and beyond as an organization that gives effective food items and accommodation services, as well as essentially marketing its services to the public.

As per the firm's mission and vision, the value within the company is very much created through delivering its hospitality services, which include the food items they provide, the quality of accommodation, additional services such as internet and lodging facilities, and so forth. Moreover, since the firm has a global reach, the firm includes flexible systems that are associated with catering to guests from different cultural origins and different social backgrounds. Furthermore, a prominent approach that the company includes within its systems is innovation and differentiation. This could be reflected by the fact that the firm introduced several concepts within the US, such as the inclusion of boutiques within their hotels. Such additional inputs made sure that the firm's sales rose to a substantial and effective level (Waithanji et. al., 2015).

In addition to this, the company has been a pioneer in marketing its services to its target market and attracting the same through ensuring consistency in its systems. For instance, all the primary activities associated with logistics, marketing, and sales, as well as services, are improvised and modified regularly so that the firm can operate on a fair scale and effective services are provided to the customers appropriately. Moreover, the infrastructure, human resources, and technological development are very appropriate to support the primary tasks of the organization.

Internal Environment

The internal environment of an organization must be evaluated using a value chain model, as it covers appropriate systems and operations of the company that are necessary to achieve its objectives, which primarily are sales and profitability. Hence, in the context of Intercontinental Hotels Group, the value chain model appropriately includes the primary as well as supporting activities of the company (Bi, Davison, and Smyrnios, 2017).

Primary Activities

Inbound Logistics

In these activities, firms tend to build up effective and stronger relationships with the suppliers, as their support is very important for a company like Intercontinental Hotels Group to acquire, store, and deliver their offerings. In terms of this company, the firm has contractual suppliers all over the UK for its multiple hotels, which are responsible for delivering beverages, raw vegetables, and fruits, as well as laundry services for the company. Furthermore, the firm has house storage as well as distribution functions within the departments of the company, along with systems inclusive of stock requisitions and inventory control.

Operations

The operations within Intercontinental Hotels Group involve activities like assembly, food production, packaging, testing, and product delivery. Moreover, another key operational activity within the organization is related to the maintenance and repair of machines and equipment. The firm has been appropriately and effectively managing these operations to control its operations through the acquisition of equipment that helps the firm innovate as well as conduct these operations with minimal waste and maximum output.

Outbound Logistics

These activities are inclusive of processing the order, report preparation, as well as storage of food. Since the firm has a daily acquisition of food items, the storage facilities of the company are quite effective and temperature controlled to keep the food quite fresh as well as provide the best quality food items to customers. As for order processing, the organization has digitally transformed and automated systems for its websites and mobile applications, which helps the firm track orders and process them prominently and effectively (Folmer, 2016).

Marketing And Sales

These activities are inclusive of communicating the services of the hotel to its customers in a prominent manner. About Intercontinental Hotels Group, the firm focuses on marketing differentiated products and services to the customers, which are available at an affordable cost as well as high quality. To conduct the same, the firm uses advertising through social media and promotions, sales agents, building effective relationships with prominent channel members, and so forth. These allow the firm to market its food items and accommodation services, along with selling the same to its target customers.

Service

This is inclusive of the pre-sale as well as post-sale services for the customers. In terms of the former, the firm grabs the attention of the customer by engaging in communication about the kind of services expected from the company, as well as acquiring information about all the queries and requirements of the customers based on which the firm acts upon at the time of sales. Moreover, for post-sales services, the customer relationship management of the firm is directed towards acquiring feedback from customers along with providing offers and discounts on prominent locations to ensure their engagement with the company.

Secondary Activities

Infrastructure

About the infrastructure, the firm acts appropriately to manage its financing accounting, legal matters, as well as planning activities. For these purposes, technical, financial, and human resources are hired by the organization to develop strategies as to how best the infrastructure of the company can be improved and help the firm gain a competitive edge.

Human Resource Management

This activity is primarily concerned with appropriate and effective management of the employees and workforce of the company. There are several techniques through which Intercontinental Hotels Group ensures this management. For instance, the firm trains its employees on professional grounds, which allows them to deliver the services in an enhanced and competitive manner. Moreover, to retain and engage its clients, the firm improvises its reward mechanisms and policies to motivate the workforce (Jordan and Kapoor, 2016).

Technological Development

In hospitality, it is required that technological development be included within organizations as a key activity to support the operations and systems of the firm. In context with the company, artificial intelligence has been used by the firm for tracking, measuring, and reducing the wastage of food. The usage of technologies like Winnow Vision AI helped the firm reduce 30% of food waste, which is quite effective in supporting its logistics and operations (Award-winning AI technology helps IHG, 2019).

Procurement

This reflects the procedures that are included in the purchasing of raw materials, supplies, and equipment that are required to produce the food items within the company. Strategic plans and supply chain management are adopted by the firm to successfully procure the resources as per the requirements.

Reflection on the Value Chain Model

It is required that appropriate reflection is provided on the above display and analysis of the internal environment of the organization using the value chain model. This would allow the development of an effective insight into the usefulness of the model to serve the purpose effectively (Kolk, 2016).

The value model helped me in the context of getting an effective insight about appropriately analyzing how Intercontinental Hotels Group could gain a competitive advantage. The reason for the same is that it helped me in analyzing the current operations of the organization, which is associated with providing the firm with an effective and competitive advantage.

Furthermore, it also allowed me to evaluate the value that is created by the operations of the company. For example, it is evident from the display below that Intercontinental Hotels Group is quite appropriate in the creation of value, as its logistics, operations, services, and marketing activities are very effective in the context of providing value that exceeds the cost appropriately.

In addition to this, the value model of Intercontinental Hotels Group has also been very much contributing to the analysis of the internal environment, as the supporting activities reflected the aspects that are internally included by the company to ensure procurement and supply chain management of the organization. In addition to this, while the internal environment of the firm is inclusive of the management of resources and core capabilities, the value chain model helped me realize all the elements of human resource management, along with logistics functions, which the firm performs to accomplish its business performance. Hence, there is a prominent contribution of the value chain model in helping me understand the internal environment of the Intercontinental Hotels Group.

CONCLUSION

Hence, it is concluded from the report above that reflective accounting helps individuals understand the experiences and workings of companies, which enhances the knowledge of people about organizations and their functioning. A chain model is an effective framework that is inclusive of appropriate and effective evaluation of systems within a company and their linkages that help allow the firm to create value and effectively ensure the accomplishment of business objectives. Lastly, reflection upon this model could help individuals get an insight into the internal environment of an organization.

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