HILTON HOTELSMIS CASE STUDY
...e reservations are perfect. Officials also claim that the 2% error rate results from a failure by some customers to successfully complete the full transaction (Wagner, 2000). Hilton is providing its potential guests with a new feature called “Push to Talk technology”, which establishes a voice conversation with a call center representative. This new feature within its Web site does help users that might have trouble navigating through it. It also helps answer questions regarding reservations and/or general information about the resorts (Wagner, 2000). Although is not discussed in the article, all the online bookings must take place with the use of a credit card. For the safety of the guests, Hilton’s web sites are well secured as showed by the small lock appearing on the corner of the browser. Online booking also requires a card authorization and transaction terminal type input/output hardware. Part B Hilton’s web site is user friendly and easy to navigate, if and only if, you are an English speaking person. Hilton has resorts all over the world. Part of their main objective is to be easy to access and reachable from everywhere and everyone. Having their site in multiple languages will help its flexibility and global reach. To do so, the site needs to have certain links that will help non-English speakers find a familiar language to make their reservations with confidence to understand all the terms of the agreement. A good option can be adding a number of flags that represents the language of certain countries such as the flag from Peru for Spanish or the French flag for French. Question 2 Part A Since Hilton started the online reservations in the mid 1990’s, its commitment to improve its online technology hasn’t stopped. Hilton does not only provide the business-to-consumer Internet booking reservation application, but also a business-to-business extranet/intranet application. An intranet is “A network based on TCP/IP protocols (an internet) belonging to an organization, usually a corporation, accessible only by the organization's members, employees, or others with authorization” (webopedia, 2002). An Extranet is “A new buzzword that refers to an intranet that is partially accessible to authorized outsiders. Whereas an intranet resides behind a firewall and is accessible only to people who are members of the same company or organization, an extranet provides various levels of accessibility to outsiders. You can access an extranet only if you have a valid username and password, and your identity determines which parts of the extranet you can view” (webopedia, 2002). The business-to-business extranet/intranet booking reservation application is only for those companies that have an agreement with Hilton to book their business travel reservations via a private extranet. The business-to-business reservations are not offered to the general public. The same information that is offered to the individuals is offered to the businesses. Hilton, through extranets, provides businesses with information on its worldwide resorts, rates, locations, etc. “Hilton’s corporate customers install links to the Hilton Web site on their own intranets, and those links call up Web pages that are customized for the customer, with contractual prices and travel limitations”(Wagner, 2000). For Hilton to allow businesses to access its Intranet, had to design a website that uses EDI (Electronic Data Interchange), which is the direct computer-to-computer exchange between two organizations of standard business transaction documents such as purchase orders. Hilton’s developed an internal XML interface that links its website to is central reservation system. By using business-to-business reservations companies are benefited in several ways as the article mentions, “One of the biggest benefits the extranet provides to Hilton’s corporate customers is that it helps them control spending on travel. Before Internet reservation, employees booked travel on their own, and companies found it difficult to ensure that they were using approved recommendation. By providing bookings over their corporate intranets, many of Hilton’s customers have improved compliance with their travel policies by making it easy for employees to book travel in the approved manner” (Wagner, 2000). It also helps business benefit with some of the business-to-business incentives such as Hilton’s frequent-travel loyalty program. Part B In terms of Hilton’s business-to-business application it could add a list of related companies and/or organizations that have a relation or could be helpful to the business activity. For example, if one of the registered businesses of Hilton is a Law firm, and one of their lawyers is going to travel for a deposition to a certain city, it will be useful for the firm to know the members of the state bar that live in the city, the main law firms, judges, law schools, etc. Also a list of suitable places for conventions and/or meetings will be also very helpful. These features can create added value to Hilton’s Web site and could become a helpful tool. Question 3 Part A Using the Internet is an advantage because it helps reducing procurement costs. Hilton does 30% of its annual procurement ($1 billion) over the web (Wagner, 2000). Hilton, as a large procurer, needs to reduce costs. By procuring through the Internet, companies tend to eliminate the “middle man” and deal directly with the company. As a result, “Cost reductions from indirect materials procurement on the Internet” to be at 7%(Wagner, 2000). Hilton also uses EDI (Electronic Data Interchange) for online procu...