The Galaxy Hotel Group owns and operates a number of mid-level boutique hotels mostly in regional Australia. Galaxy is structured around regions with a regional general manager usually given the responsibility of working closely with the managers of the hotels within their region. Commonly, a regional general manager is responsible for around six to eight hotels. Within Australia, Galaxy has six regional general managers who report to the CEO, Angelo Vellma. Galaxy’s strategy has focused on meeting the needs of business and holiday travellers seeking 3 to 3.5 star accommodation for relatively short stays that are affordable but comfortable. One thing Galaxy enforces is its objective of having the same high-level service at each hotel.

The CFO of Galaxy, Caitlin Zhang, has raised the idea of introducing a balanced scorecard. At this stage it has only been discussed at board level, but most of the board members are in favour of its implementation. As Zhang points out, ‘it will focus the attention of employees on our key priorities as well as provide the opportunity to reinforce our strategy throughout the company’.

Zhang’s first draft balanced scorecard developed for use at the individual hotel level is provided below. To date, Zhang has constructed the first draft alone, without consulting others.

Another board member, Patrick Ryan, wonders about using the balanced scorecard a little differently. ‘Perhaps we could use the scorecard to facilitate discussion with our regional managers and individual hotel managers. Not all are the same and they obviously face different challenges. The scorecard could be used by senior management to meet with regional managers and discuss the performance of hotels in the region, and perhaps re-work part of the scorecard and set different priorities as the regions work to meet local challenges.’ 

Required

(a) Angelo Vellma is a little concerned about the draft scorecard. He had recently attended a seminar on balanced scorecards and is worried about the lack of measures relating to what he thinks are important issues at the individual hotel level. He is particularly concerned at the lack of an internal business process perspective and a learning and growth perspective in the scorecard. Identify two measures relevant at the individual hotel level at Galaxy for the internal business process perspective and the learning and growth perspective. Provide a brief justification for each measure.

(b) Comment on the implementation process of the balanced scorecard at Galaxy to date.

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Perspective Objective Measures Financial Maximise revenue Revenue per available room Customer Improve customer Guest customer cards – overall satisfaction score orientation Team member survey – overall satisfaction score from a comprehensive survey of hotel staff Mystery shopper results – average of scores from random visits Internal business Improve operational Earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortisation (EBITDA) Month-end reporting cycle time process effectiveness Reputation/quality management Meet all quality and star-rating Standards compliance (a measure based on a hotel's compliance with quality standards) benchmarks