International Food and Beverage Management

2208 HSL

Individual Written Assignment

Semester 1, 2009

Food and Beverage Management within the hotel industry has changed dramatically over the years. This can be seen through a number of measures, although only in more recent years, particularly in outsourcing. This essay will discuss the implications of outsourcing various elements of hotels’ food and beverage operations. It will go into further detail on the certain theories based around the decision making for whether to outsource or to produce goods and services on one’s own. It will then discuss past research and implications outsourcing has on the hotel …show more content…

Core competencies is something a firm does well, including providing consumer benefits, ability to leverage widely to many products and markets, and making sure it is not easy for competitors to imitate (Espino-Rodriguez, TF & Padron-Robaina, V 2004). When focusing on the core competencies it often becomes a more meaningful job for the employees. This is achieved by having the non-core activities outsourced, allowing the hotel to increase managerial attention and resource allocation to those tasks that it does best. It is possible for many companies to then create a wage incentive program, which automatically boosts customer service and staff moral. Furthermore, with leaner organisational structures coming through it can allow the employee with more responsibilities in other areas and can create job satisfaction.

Differentiating one’s hotel from another is a vital element in standing out among the rest. The tendency to outsource a hotel’s activities can then diminish its ability to create differentiation. This can be seen through, resources loosing the ex post limits to competition by being easier to imitate and substitute, as any competitor can acquire,