Creating Value and Competitive Advantage in the Hospitality Industry

Evaluate strategic alternatives and leverage the firm’s internal resources and capabilities to create value and sustainable competitive advantage.

Description

Long-term success in the hospitality industry requires a competitive advantage that can be leveraged to deliver superior results. This course focuses on the overall process of creating value within a firm and how managers can create sustainable competitive advantage by utilizing key internal resources and capabilities.

Successful hospitality managers and leaders have a thorough understanding of the process of creating value and the role of the value proposition in developing the best strategy to create a unique, sustainable competitive advantage. This course develops the skills necessary to evaluate strategic alternatives such as cost advantage and differentiation strategies, as well as the strategies of competitors, where they generate value, and their positioning. Participants learn to assess business-level strategies designed to create value at the property level; and corporate strategies, which deal with the strategic direction of the firm, the markets in which it will compete, and managing a portfolio of properties. Participants develop the skills to assess the ability of a variety of strategic alternatives to create value and competitive advantage as well as how to perform value-chain and competitor analyses to inform strategic decision-making.

Who Should Take This Course?

This course is designed for senior leadership at hotel properties, including current and aspiring GMs and executive team members, and mid-to-senior-level management at corporate offices.

Course Format

All eCornell courses are delivered online and are self-paced. An eCornell instructor leads the online discussions, grades any course projects, and is available to answer specific questions about the course content.

This course contains the following modules:

• Business-Level Strategies
• Value and the value proposition
• Cost advantage and differentiation strategies
• Best-value strategy
• Sustainable Competitive Advantage
• The components of competitive advantage
• Value chain analysis
• Competitor analysis
• Corporate-Level Strategies
• Corporate growth strategies
• Strategy selection criteria

Benefits to the Learner

After completing this course, participants will be able to:

• Create value and sustainable competitive advantage at their hotel
• Recommend strategies for competitive positioning appropriate to their hotel

Authoring Faculty

Cathy A. Enz, Ph.D., Professor

Sponsoring School

Cornell University's School of Hotel Administration

Total Learning Time

Approximately six hours over a period of two weeks.

Certificate Information

This course can be applied toward the following certificate:

• Strategic Hospitality Management