Innovative Measures and Methods of Hilton Hotels & Resorts

Innovation remains an important factor in the establishment and the development of any business today. Many companies are putting measures of innovation in order to boost their performance and to create competitive advantage in the market. However, many individuals confuse the innovation process with invention although the last has a relatively different meaning. Therefore, innovation has been defined as the process of coming up with new ideas and more importantly, implementing them. It is through this that the Hilton Hotels & Resorts has managed to dominate the market since its invention in the early 20th century. The creativity that always accompanies innovation has also been the main reason behind the higher profits gained by Hilton (Withiam 2016, p.15). However, regarding the innovative measures and methods implemented by Hilton Hotels, a number of big leaps and breakthroughs have defined it. Hence, this paper will focus on analysing various aspects of innovation, including the radical and incremental types.

Innovation as Applied by Hilton Hotels

Innovation is an aspect that has risen to be a major determinant in the progress of a Hilton Hotels, especially as means of securing its competitive advantage. A question is therefore posed: innovation is about big leaps forward, 'eureka' moments and radical breakthroughs -or is it? This question needs to be looked upon critically because misunderstanding it might bring several challenges to the business or organisation.

From the recent and even earlier success realisations by companies like Hilton Hotels & Resorts, innovation has been seen to play a greater role. This section will break the question down so that it can be handled focusing on specific ideas and not just as a whole.

Big Leaps Forward

This aspect means that, a business company makes a greater step from its current position and achieves more success. Innovation plays a central role in the success of an organisation despite it being considered as an expensive change. As a result, Hilton Hotels & Resorts have benefitted from this strategy in one way or the other during the course of its activities across the globe. The company has been able to change its innovation techniques and this has boosted it competitive advantage over its opponents such as Hyatt Hotel Corporations (Noone, Enz and Glassmire 2017, p.14). Through application of the current technological advancements, Hilton has been able to adapt some of the leaps forward measures in its operations helping it to hit greater heights in the competitive word market. Being a bigger company that supports a variety of activities worldwide, it has decided to raise the standards of both its activities and services in order to increase the profit margins and fulfill the needs of its customers (Withiam 2016, p.28).

In addition, the analysis of the business environment framework is one the key strategy applied by Hilton Hotels that has innovatively improved the profitability of the company. This has been applied in the proper analysis of its market through technological edge, diversity of its branches, and tax laws. Furthermore, the application of strategies such as SWOT has ensured the strengths, opportunities, weaknesses, and threats are innovatively analysed in bid to maximise the domination of the market (Noone, Enz and Glassmire 2017, p.19).

Online booking and receipting of the hotel services at ones comfort is one of the technological improvement posed by Hilton Hotels. As a result, this has saved the time customers would line on arrival.

Also, the application of Fun Finder which has helped to transform the lives and experiences of customers in the hotels. It improves the general management of the hotel by providing real time responses from the management team. The feature, which can easily be accessed through the company's downloadable app, is aimed at providing a vast experience to the guests that are both within the premises and out of it (Noone, Enz and Glassmire 2017, p.18)

'Eureka' Moments

This involves coming up with an abrupt idea within the activities or processes of an organisation bringing a change to the competing market. Although some have openly come out and disagreed with this innovation strategy, it comes along with its benefits. A sudden introduction of some product into the market that is currently experiencing stiff competition will tend to change the general direction of the business wave. An abrupt introduction of a product seems to cause a ripple effect because the competitors will first be affected before the effect spreads out (Noone, Enz and Glassmire 2017, p.29).

Therefore, Roper (2017, p.1) suggested that technology is driving the world to greater heights where big experience is witnessed on daily basis. Hilton Hotels & Resorts has taken advantage of the eureka moments to come up with surprise innovations hence keeping off competition. Through this, the hotel has recently unveiled a Connectivity Station and a Valet. These two features have been introduced to outperform the traditional ones owned by other competing hotels and more importantly, to provide customers with vast experiences on given factors (Withiam 2016, p.12). The Valet has several other features in it like uniquely developed HDS. Although several hotels own this feature or have enacted the measure, Hilton has come up with some uniqueness in it subdividing the section into various segments (Bogetić, Antić and Lekić 2015, p.90).

They have been subdivided into eight segments; each of them serves a specific purpose to the company. The Arrival sector is the first place and this is where the hotel’s host welcomes the guest. The second one is the Location Gallery, which is a section consisting of sculptures and artwork that the guests can study. Welcoming and Check-in is a section defined for all transactions that are termed private (Hargadon 2015, p.17). The Library, which is used for information collection by the guests, is also available. Gathering is another section set aside next to the Check-in, which provides a suitable environment for the guests to rest and relax their minds after travelling for long. After that is Salon, where snacks are sold and the guests can meet up with one another. In addition, the Refreshment is a section which serves coffee during the day but then turns to be a bar at night. Finally, the Shop is the last segment where then beverages and food are sold to the guests who are either entering or exiting the hotel. Additionally, the Connectivity Station is another feature that comes along with the Valet. It provides the guests with digital connectivity and access to the internet, where a room is also available for conduction of meetings (Montargot 2016, p.64).

Radical Breakthroughs

These are sometimes used as an option when a company finds out that the chances of surviving the pressure are becoming limited. In addition, they can be applied by an organisation to bring supplementary products, which remains to be another way of countering competition. The design of a certain product or even activity is fully molded and changed so that its significance can be felt in the normal progress and operations of the company. Hence, these breakthroughs usually emerge in the middle of the operations hence throwing out other aspects, or even co-exist with the rest but portraying totally different picture. Over the past decades, these issues have dominated the hospitality industry due to the changes and advancement made in technology across the world. Therefore, entering a new component in a company's activities changes the structure of its performance (Wind and Rhodes 2017, 249).

Hilton Hotels & Resorts comes out to be one of the premium companies that have succeeded using the radical breakthroughs, which entail fundamental innovations. Due to the high rate of competition in the hospitality sector currently, hotels are coming up with new developments. Hilton has decided to make surprises in this department by investing on the field of technology, which also seems to be controlling the current population in the world. Every bit of the earth is currently performing under technological developments and so the hotels will be no exception to this trend (Roper 2017, p.3).

Therefore, one of the radical breakthroughs that have been enacted by Hilton is the changing of design of its lobby. The management does applies these strategies in bid to perfect the experience of customers, who come in both for leisure and office work like conducting conferences. In addition, the hotel has come up with a newer advancement in its operations where it has developed a multifunctional room designated to hold plays for children. The room has also been made to the ability of holding creative meetings. Developments of these new projects have enabled Hilton Hotels & Resorts to challenge their customers in a manner that everything is available hence leaving no room for complains. These massive developments have raised the hotel to greater heights making it to be a threat to the competitors across the borders (Artič 2013, p.22).

The significance of Incremental Innovation

Besides the radical one, incremental is another type of innovation that seems to be the most preferred in the market industry. This type of improvement focuses on perfecting on what the company or business organisation already has in place. This process often involves carrying out a cleaning process on a given product or service hence setting it free from errors. It can also be added that, the efficiency of the products increases with time as compared to the other type. This means that, when a product is modified repeatedly, it will grow to near perfectness compared to the one that is abruptly introduced for the first time. Taking an instance of Hilton Hotels & Resorts, this hospitality company has been using the incremental innovation strategy beside the radical one. The company has been upgrading the state of its building structures on regular basis to fit on the current generation that is driven by technology. The process of perfecting these products has already seen the company perform well in the international standards, making it to maintain its top position worldwide (Hargadon 2015, p.29).

Incremental innovation is advantageous to the company because it does not require large amounts of investments or cash to be facilitated. Improvements on a product are done slowly by slowly because doing it hurriedly can increase the mistakes in it instead of eliminating. In this regard, the company has been working on improving the products it offers to the public through matching the demands and the market dynamics. Hence, unlike the radical type of innovation which requires more funds to be achieved, incremental innovation does not involve the use of much resources for it to be realised. The reason for this is that improvements are made on specific sections until the whole task gets accomplished at the end (Bogetić, Antić and Lekić 2015, p.97). Hilton Hotels & Resorts provide a good example for this benefit. The company conducts meetings on weekly bases to find out the regions within it that require urgent improvement. Funds are then set aside and the work after a particular timeline is set. Thus, it has managed to maintain its higher profits over time since its establishment back in the beginning of the 20th century (Noone, En and Glassmire 2017, p.18).

Additionally, incremental innovation brings about equilibrium to the operations of the company. This is simply the stability that any company requires to remain fit in terms of competence. A stable organisation will be able to manage all its activities, including paying its employees good salaries at the right time (Artič 2013, p.20). Therefore, using radical innovation alongside will help the company balance its financial power hence remaining to be favorable competitors. However, this balance should be nearly compared to the market share. The company should ensure that it improves in terms of the number of customers it gets because they are the reason for all the developments being made. With a higher market share, the company will then be able to boast of higher profit margins making it successful in the industry. Hilton Hotels & Resorts are utilising this benefit to its maximum. The company often merges its radical and incremental innovations in an attempt to see into it that it achieves internal balance. The firm has been able to balance its inputs and outputs over time making it more competent. This has made the company to control the industry over time because it has also achieved to manage what it has in the savings and hence avoid bankruptcy (Noone, Enz and Glassmire 2017, p.30).

Finally, the services or activities covered through incremental innovation enhance mass adoption. This has a meaning that, when a product of a company is improvised over time, the general outlook of the product will finally change and many people will be already used to it. This is opposed to the radical approach where a product introduced abruptly giving the customers little time to learn about it. Incremental innovation moves step-by-step giving the customer a clear view of whatever is going on within (Withiam 2016, p.24). This will then be able to increase the loyalty of the customers to the company making it move to greater levels and achieve more success. Mass adoption will finally have a positive impact on the activities of the organisation because it will be able to lure a large number of individuals making it keep off the competition. Hilton Hotels performs most of improvements with the customers having the full idea of the ongoing process. For that reason, it remains to be more advantageous because of its ease of access website and a mobile application for the customers. All the details of the operations going on in the company are posted in the sites making the customers aware of them. This has attracted many customers to the company, which always makes its products and services simple but directed to the point. This has made the company to beat the wave in the market at last hence better results being realised (Hargadon 2015, p.21).

Conclusion

Basing on a number of strategies being applied by Hilton Hotels, innovation is key in ensuring that the company boosts its competitive advantage and manages all its branches efficiently and effectively. As a result, the application of modern technological measures in the market has harnessed the company much profit and made it stay above its competitors at all times. In addition, the changes in the market due to economic downturn have been overcome by the company without much effect on its profitability. Therefore, innovation is about big leaps forward, radical breakthroughs, and eureka moments.

References

Artič, N., 2013. Open innovation as a chance to overcome economic crisis in hotel industry. 2nd International Scientific Conference Tourism in South East Europe.

Bogetić, S., Antić, Z. and Lekić, N., 2015. Analysis of hotel enterprises competitiveness aspects in modern business. Journal of Engineering Management and Competitiveness (JEMC), 5(2), pp.90-101.

Hargadon, A., 2015. Sustainable innovation: build your company’s capacity to change the world. Stanford University Press.

Montargot, N., 2016. Digitalisation advances and hospitality service encounters. Symphonya, (1), p.64.

Noone, B.M., Enz, C.A. and Glassmire, J., 2017. Total hotel revenue management: a strategic profit perspective. Cornell University.

Roper, A., 2017. Vertical disintegration in the corporate hotel industry. Current Issues in Tourism, 20(1), pp.1-6.

Wind, J. and Rhodes, K., 2017. The revolution in innovation management: the challenge for legacy firms. In Revolution of Innovation Management (pp. 221-257). Palgrave Macmillan, London.

Withiam, G. ed., 2016. Achieving success through innovation: cases and insights from the hospitality, travel, and tourism industry. Business Expert Press.