Ritz Carlton Hotel Company Case Analysis

The Ritz-Carlton Hotel Company

For the first time, the Ritz-Carlton was opening a hotel in a multi-use facility, owned by Millennium Partners, in Washington D.C. James McBride, the general manager, is under pressure from Brian Collins, the Millennium Partners hotel manager, to reexamine the “well-defined hotel-opening process” called the “Seven Day Countdown.” The hotel’s opening process focuses on the development of the property itself and the structure of human resources procedures to get the hotel up and running. The Seven Day Countdown consists of the standardization of the procedures that aligns the worker with the mission and culture of the company in 7 days. Day 1 is the staff orientation, day 2 the departmental vision session, and days 3 to 7 are skill training. The dilemma of the case is the reconsideration of whether or not the company should change this seven-countdown process. The current strategy, according to the case, has proved to be successful in the past and is considered a “hallmark” of the hotels’ opening process. However, this time Ritz-Carlton is opening in a multi-use facility which is a new setting for the company. Thus, new opening processes should be considered. In addition, Brian Collins believes that 7 days is not enough time to properly train the very high quality staff they need and due to this short amount of training time, the ability of the hotel to open at its maximum capacity is limited. Consequently, the current opening process might affect the future relationship with Millennium Partners.

The essence of the Ritz-Carlton experience is its exceptional personalized service which places a high premium on the company’s human resources. Employees are required to strive for excellency in their job. Indeed, the slogan “ We are Ladies and Gentlemen, serving Ladies and Gentlemen” is targeted at employees to make them feel important and proud to provide better service.