Quality Management in Hospitality PGD in Hospitality Management

Quality Management
In
Hospitality

Assignment 1

Group DDr

Yogesh Patil
Jacob Mathew
Vibhor Ahuja

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 Quality Management in Hospitality PGD in Hospitality Management

Quality management theories and models

Definition of Quality

According to business dictionary, “Quality is a Strict and consistent adherence to

measurable and verifiable standards to achieve uniformity of output that satisfies
specific customer or user requirements.”
Ref -http://www.businessdictionary.com/definition/quality.html

Every quality Gurus have their different perceptions hence there are different
definitions of quality. But majority of them consider that “Customer is always right”.
However following are some theories mentioned by Gurus and my understanding on their
perception.

Peter F Drucker,
“Quality in a product or service is not what the supplier puts in. It is what the customer gets
out and is willing to pay for.” Peter F Drucker(1973)
Here Peter F Drucker explained that any product or service can not be decided by
manufacturer or supplier that it is top quality, but only the customers. Customers are good
judge of product or service quality. Therefore quality for particular product or service may
differ from customer to customer.
For example, some guests liked the meat in the Beef Wellington while some others
liked the pastry around the meat even though all Beef Wellington are made the same.

W. Edward Deming
Like Peter F Drucker, Deming (1950) strongly stated that customers or consumers
have good judgment of quality. He also stated that if an organisation improves standard,
improve management and redefining processes, then quality also improves.

But we defined quality as follows: Every product or service is designed for a specific
purpose, and if it meets the expectations by fulfilling the purpose, then it is quality.

For example,
Dominos is best in delivering the food in 2-5 minutes to customer consistently, as they set
their quality in terms of time and delivery of fast food, but the same would not be
acceptable for a fine dining restaurant.

Differentiation between product quality and service quality

Product Quality Service Quality

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Ease of control and customization: Difficulty to Control:

It is easy to control as it can be Service is being highly
modified as customers need it. intangible, it is very difficult to
control, judge and measure.
For example, the food served in the For example, butlers have a very
restaurant can be made more spicy or close interaction with the guest. But
less spicy, less oily etc. these interactions can rarely be
measured or judged.

Every Product is unique in its own Differences in service style:

way: Although there are standards and
Every business trying to procedures set for service quality,
manufacture a product which has got they are difficult to follow every
its own unique function to stand time consistently.
strong in the market. For example, The room orientation
for a GRE escorting the guest the
For example, pen and white board room would be different for a
marker. business traveller and a leisure
Even though both are made for traveller.
writing, the pen is not meant to write
on white board.

 Product can be mass  Service quality cannot be

produced:
Product can be produced in mass
quantity.
For example Cell phones companies
such as Nokia, apple can make a lot
of units in a particular time and store
them for future.
manufactured in large quantities
and stored:
Service quality is differs from
individual to individual hence it is
difficult to manufacture.
For example, if occupancy is only
55% in a hotel, then the revenue
from 45% room is lost. And the
room inventory is always fixed.

 Product Quality  Service Quality cannot

is materialistic: be owned:

Any product is made out of different As service is highly intangible, it

materials or component and the
products can exchange hands.
For example nicely designed dining
set can be owned and taken home by
the consumer for use.
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can not be owned or transferred. It
can only be experienced.
For example the service of the
butler cannot be taken home, it can
only be experienced
 Quality Management in Hospitality PGD in Hospitality Management

Quality model

Ritz-Carlton Hotel Company L.L.C.

Ritz-Carlton is a chain of 73 luxury hotels all round the world. It is spread across 24
countries with a strength of 38,000 people. Ritz Carlton is the only the company in service
sector that has won the ‘Malcolm Baldrige National Quality Award’ in 1992 and 1999.

(Ref- http://www.baldrige21.com/Baldrige%20Criteria.htm)

Ritz- Carlton and the Malcolm Baldrige Award

The Ritz Pyramid

The purpose of having a pyramid concept is to establish a clear aim for continuous quality
improvement and also to align the work and operation at all levels. The pyramid consists of
the following: -

• The Ritz Mission Statement (On the top of the Pyramid)

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 Quality Management in Hospitality PGD in Hospitality Management

“To be the premium worldwide provider of luxury travel and hospitality products and
services” (http://www.nist.gov/public_affairs/bald99/ritz.htm)

• The Ten Year Plans

According to Simon F Cooper (President of the Ritz Carlton Hotel Company), “At Ritz
Carlton, we want to set trends and not follow them.” The Ritz spends a lot of its resources
into studying market. They research the market for luxury products and goods and services.
They can identify an upcoming trend by studying the data and analyzing the researchers’
conclusion.
Ritz wants to establish itself as a lifestyle brand. As a lifestyle brand Ritz can offer its
unique life style products in different ways. In the long term perspective they believe that
in order to build a growing customer base it is essential to align itself into a brand.

• The Five Year Plans (The Ritz Model)

According to Simon F Cooper (President of the Ritz Carlton Hotel Company), the
company focuses on three fundamentals that are:-
1. The Location: - Ritz ensures that it goes into the best location. It invests in locations
where its target customers would like to go.

2. The Physical Product: - Ritz ensures that they make the right physical product. The
product that their customers want today, tomorrow and in the future. The Ritz
invests between $5, 00,000 to $1 Million per room.

3. The People: - In Ritz they have “Ladies and Gentlemen serving Ladies and
Gentlemen”. For Ritz, employees are their most important resource. Every employee
is given 100 hour training on customer service annually (250 hours for front-line,
first year employees).

• Gold Standards (Base of the Pyramid)

The Gold Standards are the foundation of the Ritz- Carlton Hotel Company which has all
the values and philosophies by which they operate and include:-
• Credo

• Motto

• The Three Steps of Service

• Service Values

• The 6th Diamond

• The employee promise

These are included in wallet size book and given to all the staff.
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 Quality Management in Hospitality PGD in Hospitality Management

Every staff of the company can spent up to $2000 per incident for the guest. The amount
can even increase with the permission of the General Manager. This explains the amount of
trust the company has on the staff.

The Quality Management Process

The goal of the Ritz- Carlton is to eliminate all problems. The hotel has identified the
procedures for problem solving and improving the quality. These are very well
documented. The collected information is analysed by a third party expert and a
standardised process is established. The processes are further broken up to establish the
point at which errors may occur. For example the hotel has identified that there are 970
instances during interactions with the overnight guests that has the potential for a problem.

Customer Customisation
The hotel heavily depends on gathering customer information and preferences. This is
possible by exploiting the information technology resources. For example, responses to the
service request by overnight guests or reviews given to meeting planners after the event are
all systematically entered into a database which holds more than a million files which is
accessible to all Ritz hotels. This information can be used to personalize the service on the
arrival of the guest in any Ritz hotel on the next visit.

Measuring the Success

The hotel exploits the expertise of Gallup for phone interviews with the guests after the
stay. There are two types of questions, functional and emotional.

Conclusion (Success always comes with a price)

The success of Ritz- Carlton is not a story of success over the night. Ritz has always aimed
for the being a benchmark in the field of hospitality. In their long history, it had to sacrifice
many things and often went through troubled water in order to maintain its high standards
of quality. As Mahatma Gandhi says,” Strength does not come from physical capacity. It
comes from an indomitable will.” The will has always persisted for the Ritz Carlton to be
the best in the field of hospitality in the present and in the future. As Walter Russell says,”
Mediocrity is self-inflicted. Genius is self bestowed.”

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 Quality Management in Hospitality PGD in Hospitality Management

Bibliography

Quality,

Edwards Deming (1986) Out of the Crisis. Massachusetts: Massachusetts Institute of

Technology,1st Edition, MIT press United States.

Mark Graham Brown (2006) Baldrige Award Winning Quality 15th edition, Productivity
press, New York

Peter Drucker (1995) Innovation and entrepreneurship 5th Edition, Elsevier.ltd UK

Ritz Cartlon,
• 1999 Baldrige Award Recipient, Ritz-Carlton Hotel company,
http://www.nist.gov/public_affairs/bald99/ritz.htm, Last updated 15th Feb,2000; Date accessed 29th
January 2010

• Baldridge Award-BlogCatalog, http://www.blogcatalog.com/search/frame?term=baldridge

%20award&id=f03a64d581411202811ba455831dcc2c Last updated 26th Jan 2009, Last visited
27th January 2010

• Baldridge model, http://www.baldrige21.com/Baldrige%20Criteria.htm, Last updated Jan 2010,

Last visited 29th January 2010

• Malcolm Baldrige award, http://www.nist.gov/public_affairs/factsheet/mbnqa.htm,

Date created:3/01/01, Last updated: 12/07/09 and Visited 29th January, 10.

• Quality definition, http://www.businessdictionary.com/definition/quality.html Last accessed

27th January 2010.

• Ritz Cartlon Gold Awards http://corporate.ritzcarlton.com/en/About/GoldStandards.htm#top Last

updated Jan 2010, Last visited 29th January 2010

• Ritz cartlon hotel company, http://www.answers.com/topic/the-ritz-carlton-hotel-company-l-l-c

Last updated Jan 2010, Last visited 29th January 2010

• The Malcolm Baldrige National Quality Award, The Ritz-Carlton

Hotels,http://corporate.ritzcarlton.com/en/Press/Kits/Baldrige.htm Last updated Jan 2010, Last
visited 28th January 2010

• Willpower quotes, http://thinkexist.com/quotations/willpower/ Last updated Jan 2010, Last visited

29th January 2010

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