Wayside Inns, Inc. is considering expanding one of its existing inns. There are arguments on both sides of the expansion proposal. While the expansion appears to meet the firm's criteria and the existing inn is at capacity, the projected ROI is expected to decrease and there is risk from economic downturn or overbuilding. Drawing a conclusion is difficult. Over the long run, the pro arguments seem more convincing. Additionally, concerns are raised that a 34% increase in property size would only result in a 13.7% increase in compensation, which seems unfair. Performance evaluations could be made more uniform across inns by using travelling inspectors. ROI is an unfair measure since older properties have lower investment bases. As one rises
Wayside Inns, Inc. is considering expanding one of its existing inns. There are arguments on both sides of the expansion proposal. While the expansion appears to meet the firm's criteria and the existing inn is at capacity, the projected ROI is expected to decrease and there is risk from economic downturn or overbuilding. Drawing a conclusion is difficult. Over the long run, the pro arguments seem more convincing. Additionally, concerns are raised that a 34% increase in property size would only result in a 13.7% increase in compensation, which seems unfair. Performance evaluations could be made more uniform across inns by using travelling inspectors. ROI is an unfair measure since older properties have lower investment bases. As one rises
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Wayside Inns, Inc. is considering expanding one of its existing inns. There are arguments on both sides of the expansion proposal. While the expansion appears to meet the firm's criteria and the existing inn is at capacity, the projected ROI is expected to decrease and there is risk from economic downturn or overbuilding. Drawing a conclusion is difficult. Over the long run, the pro arguments seem more convincing. Additionally, concerns are raised that a 34% increase in property size would only result in a 13.7% increase in compensation, which seems unfair. Performance evaluations could be made more uniform across inns by using travelling inspectors. ROI is an unfair measure since older properties have lower investment bases. As one rises
Copyright:
Attribution Non-Commercial (BY-NC)
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Download as DOC, PDF, TXT or read online from Scribd
1. Pro side: The proposed expansion appears to meet the firms stated expansion criteria; The existing inn is clearly operating at or near its practical capacity; The analysis is based on one year only, and it ignores the fact that the management and reservation fees stay within the overall firm. Con side: The ROI is projected to decrease with the investment; The turnover count might be grossly overstated. This depends on how these data are collected. The same person could show up on the turnaway count of several reservation services; There is a risk of being hurt by either a downturn in the economy or overbuilding in the local market. Drawing conclusions whether the proposed investment is likely to be a good one is not easy in this case. However, the pro case would appear to be more convincing over the long run. 2. As shown in Exhibit 6, a 34 percent increase in the size of the property managed would result in only a 13.7 percent increase in compensation. This would appear to be somewhat unfair. However, these data are rough calculations. I.e. the base salary is unlikely to be left untouched from one year to the next. 3. The management couples are directly responsible for such factors as the internal and external appearance of the motel, the cleanliness of the rooms and the attitude of the front desk personnel. They also have some influence over direct costs, administrative and financial costs, and over the volume of business. Therefore the Performance Evaluation Report could be argued to be included as one of the determinants of compensation. The regional general manager has a key role and this might raise the anxiety level of the management couples. To ensure some uniformity of evaluation techniques across the various inns, a travelling inspector could for example be employed to periodically check such things as room cleanliness etc. A ROI-based system is naturally unfair since it is tied to an historical cost measurement system. Older property has a higher ROI since its investment base is somewhat smaller. This will make almost any expansion proposal look less favourable. 4. A few points could be made regarding the case of Wayside Inns, Inc., managerial roles and how they vary as one moves up in the organization: The ability to directly affect the more strategic decisions, such as site selection, market segmentation policies, and the size of the inn to be built, increases as one rises in the organization. The appropriate time period for evaluation tends to lengthen as one rises in the organization. Inn managers can be measured on the short-term results while senior management should be assessed on the basis of long-range objectives.
Department of Management and Engineering SE-581 83 Linkping www.liu.se/iei 1(2)
The immediate supervisor of a particular line manager should be held accountable for those aspects of the line managers behaviour that the supervisor is able to influence.
Department of Management and Engineering SE-581 83 Linkping www.liu.se/iei 2(2)