Roger Martin: observation

Transcript context

…At home. Yeah. Dominantly at home, for their segment, which was high-end business travelers. They've traveled, they've stayed in one luxury hotel too many 20 years ago. And so, we're going to have luxury defined as not grand architecture and decor and [inaudible 00:55:38] service, but rather, we're going to define it as a service that makes up for what you left at home or at the office. Because people would rather be, if they have to not be at home, they'd rather be at the office than in a hotel because they can be more productive. So, we need capabilities, we need staff that can deliver on that capability. What's the problem, for that? The problem is turnover in the hotel industry globally is 80% a year, which means that the average person you meet, the average staff person you meet in the average hotel, is on their way to a 16-month career at that hotel chain. So, how do you deliver that really cool special kind of service with that? The answer is... And now I'm skipping ahead to enabling management systems. You have to have a different way of recruiting, a different way of onboarding, a different way of career development. And if you do all of those things, you end up with a 10% turnover rate, so that your people are there 10 years on average, and you can then get them trained up to deliver that kind of service. So, that's the capability that you build, and the people, to be able to take more decision-making at a lower level, and treat the guests in a customized way that makes them feel that this wasn't by the book, some rule book, that this person just said, no, this is a good solution for my guest. It's interesting that these capabilities and even the management systems, which is step five, relate to your moat. Which is the thing you need to achieve, also, ideally is the thing that other people, it'll make it hard for them to do.…

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