Topic: The impact of internal marketing on improving business performance in terms of sales in the hospitality industry: a case study of Hilton Hotel, UK
Internal marketing is an integrated approach of business organizations by which employees are considered with utmost importance. Through this strategy motivation and well being of employees are ensured by firms to confirm that both employees and consumers are satisfied believing that satisfied and motivated team of employees can perform towards the achievement of consumers’ satisfaction (Ver?i?, Ver?i?, and Sriramesh, 2012). Service quality is most essential in today’s business segments and the satisfaction of employees reflects through high-quality service for customers. In the hospitality sector, the relevance of this is beyond all doubts since the industry is dependent on customers’ service which depends on employees in this industry and their level of satisfaction defines the service quality for customers in the hospitality industry in UK (GUMMESSON, 2012).
Therefore internal marketing as a strategy has been embraced by many firms in the UK considering the nature of the industry that is defined as labour intensive. Thus it is needless to say that employees’ motivation is the foremost factor and employers or management of hotels in the UK must try to ensure. This causes hotels in the United Kingdom to adopt customer service orientation and this needs the support of internal marketing to boost up motivation and confidence among employees to serve needs of customers to utmost level (Belz and Schmidt?Riediger, 2010). Needless to say that, strategies are important for implementing internal marketing and with increasing level of focus on this firms are always attentive to ensure that employees are facilitated to perform better which requires support like better working relationships and working culture under perfect leadership in their organizations. Moreover, hospitality firms always look to ensure that employees feel honored in their firms and this can increase the level of engagement leading to better performance and hotels remain benefitted (Baker, 2014). Therefore internal marketing is a planning to keep employees motivated and satisfied for ensuring that customers are always satisfied out of service quality and more repeat businesses are possible to achieve.
A case study of the Hilton Hotel of United Kingdom will be followed in this research which will help to understand the significance or impact of internal marketing on the business performance of the hotel. The research framework will, therefore, have different chapters that are an introduction, literature review, research methodology along with data analysis process followed by conclusion for understanding the significance of the study in relation to set objective and the research questions according to the selected research topic (Neuman, 2013).
The concept of internal marketing is ever emerging and organizations irrespective of the nature of industry they function in are persistent to see that their employees along with customers are satisfied. This research is thus set to understand the importance of internal marketing on business performance. A selected case study of Hilton hotel will shed more knowledge about industry-specific importance of internal marketing on business performance in terms of sales and profitability. The objective of the study is likely to be supported by the research questions and set hypothesis which will form the expected knowledge base for understanding the importance of internal marketing in the hospitality sector and on business performance particularly sales in light of case study of Hilton Hotel in the United Kingdom (Mackey and Gass, 2015).
The study will be conducted based on the aim of finding the importance of internal marketing on improving business performance in the hospitality industry.
The study is going to be conducted taking into account some objectives which are mentioned below.
The research questions are the following:
H1: internal marketing influences performance of the business in terms of sales.
H0: internal marketing does not influence business performance in terms of sales
Inter-relationships among employees and internal marketing
Employees are the main resources which help organizations to improve business performance. Their level of motivation is vital which is also supported by the quality of inter-relationships among them to perform as a team for achieving the highest level of satisfaction among customers. Better working and interrelationships are part of initiatives by management for creating a better working atmosphere which is an aspect of internal marketing for increasing motivation of employees so that customers are delighted by availing best services delivered by employees in the hospitality industry (Ahmed and Rafiq, 2013).
With the growth of organizations, human resource management of organizations considers of strategies for motivating employees for causing them to work as per performance standards. Another important purpose is to retain talented employees in business for achieving consistency in business performance. Organizations such as hospitality firms believe that employees are the only resources organizations can depend on to increase service quality for customers in the service industry (Shiu and Yu, 2010).
Accordingly, it has become imperative for the hospitality firms to treat employees better for motivating them to such extent so that customers are satisfied with services delivered by them. The concept of internal marketing starts from the approach of considering employees as the vital internal stakeholders (Cronin et al, 2011).
Internal marketing as a strategy becomes successful when employees are considered as a foremost factor for strengthening service related perception among customers (Taylor, Bogdan, and DeVault, 2015). In other words, they are important to justify customer-centric values practiced by the management of their firms. Better and positive experiences of customers are largely shaped by service delivery and soft skills presented by employees in hotels (Chen and Lin, 2013). Inadequate service delivery, lack of service quality and dissatisfaction among customers are often associated with an element such as poor level of motivation among employees who are entrusted to look after service quality.
The need for internal marketing arises in these situations and hotels could achieve better outcomes depending on better strategies on internal marketing. Hospitality industry always finds employee-customer relations as vital factors of increasing sales and business performance. Customers draw an initial impression of services based on the attitude and skills of employees and their level of satisfaction is directly proportionate to the satisfaction level of employees (Winston and Cahill, 2012).
The first step of implementing internal marketing is the feeling of urgency to initiate better employee relations for improving their motivation. Customer-oriented attitude is the basic ground which creates a plan of internal marketing in organizations. Hotels if realize the importance of employees in determining the experience level among customers then the internal marketing starts forming. Apart from service quality, it is important to know the behavioral aspects employees have for motivating customers to stick to the hospitality brand (Tiago and Veríssimo, 2014). Soft skill among employees is a focused aspect of behaviors in the hospitality sector for customers who perceive service qualities from the service approach and attitudes of employees of hotels (Christopher, Payne and Ballantyne, 2013). Along with customer orientation, employee-centric consideration is also pivotal for hotels to justify the needs and demands among customers in the hotel industry. Adoption of a suitable culture is the first stage that supports motivational strategies for successful implementation of internal marketing (Ferrell and Hartline, 2012).
Organizational vision and culture have adequate focus on the motivation of staffs to create the way of better performance of the business. This accordingly includes some factors like employee motivation and their better working opportunities and working atmosphere for imparting a fitting level of performance for customers (Best, 2012). In a broad sense, internal marketing starts getting developed and customers are the ultimate beneficiaries due to internal marketing approaches taken by hotels. Role of employees are instrumental for delivery of services while the most important factors for the development of better perception out of the services are satisfactory performance of employees and without the implementation of internal marketing the possibility of better performance of employees are minimum and customers cannot be better satisfied due to inadequate service quality (Sharma et al, 2010).
Research method denotes research process which determines stages and structure of study with several important considerations incorporated into it. Selection of better methodology of study remains crucial as long as the possibility of achievement of study objectives is dependent on the success of study and overall effectiveness of the research process is most vital. Research methodology for this particular study will focus on stages which will be streamlined during research (Lewis, 2015). In addition to this, for this research, the research methods will show a planned way of arriving at study conclusion to support the achievement of set objectives. In simple word, research method is a logical process of carrying out the intended research based on aim and objective.
This study would be a primary research study keeping in consideration the significance of the aspect of internal marketing in boosting performance in the hospitality sector of UK. Based on aim and objectives of the study the proposed study is to be based on deductive approach so that a simplified pattern depending on general view could be achieved to support conclusion based knowledge related to the objective of the study. Some existing theories will be also incorporated for understanding the progress of study in accordance with the selected hypotheses and research problem (Silverman, 2016). Positivism research philosophy could be more suitable in focusing on the need for scientific reasoning for arriving at the research conclusion and anticipated knowledge base. The descriptive pattern of study will additionally help the researcher to explain the research issue and interpretation of knowledge relating to research issue and research topic. Among several strategies of research, case study strategy for doing research is the most fitting type of doing this study (Flick, 2015).
Data collection will hold significance for the study as expected knowledge could be achieved based on the collected data. Therefore the researcher needs to be highly attentive in the selection of the data collection process. According to the nature of the research, this study will require qualitative and quantitative data for attaining the research objective and aim. In this purpose, the researcher will need to select respondents for collecting feedbacks from them (Panneerselvam, 2014). Five managers of hotel Hilton will be interviewed to understand their ideas and opinions regarding internal marketing. Based on the questionnaire, feedbacks of 50 customers of the hotel will be collected to understand if they feel that their experiences are better and positive based on their staying in the Hilton hotel. These feedbacks could be helpful for understanding the focus of management of the company on internal marketing and overall effectiveness of it on the performance of the hotel. Non-probability, as well as convenience sampling, will be implemented by a researcher in course of selecting respondents required for the study (Smith, 2015).
Data analysis measures will be different due to differences in types of data in the research. Feedbacks of 5 managers of the hotel will be descriptive in nature due to formulation of close-ended questions. Therefore the better mode of analysis of the qualitative feedbacks will be thematic in nature for arriving at a better conclusion. On the other hand, quantitative feedbacks from 50 customers of the Hilton hotel will be analyzed with the help of analytical tools followed by a tabular presentation of the same (Jonker and Pennink, 2010).
The study must be ethically fit so that data protection will be ensured all through the research. Data collection will not be a forceful act of researcher and prior permission would be taken from respondents. All the respondents would be assured that their feedbacks will not be disclosed to anyone. Their prior consent would be taken by the researcher before collecting their feedbacks through interviews and questionnaire (Matthews and Ross, 2010). The researcher would ensure that their feedbacks or data are utilised only for this study and not for any other purposes. The purpose of the study would not be commercial and the respondents would be given due assurance by the researcher in the course of collection of feedbacks from them.
In this particular study also, the researcher would take utmost care to ensure that the research will be reliable and at the same time in synergy with the established study methods. Time limitation and budget constrain are the factors that could limit the possibility of the study from becoming a perfect knowledge base but the researcher with help of adopting a suitable and logical research method could justify the nature and purpose of the study. Primary data and their analysis in the line of research purpose could be most logical according to study purpose (Matthews and Ross, 2010). With a focus on ethical aspects by the researcher, the pattern and overall aspects of the study are anticipated to meet the expected knowledge basis to find the achievement of study objectives.
For conducting the primary study, the requirement of resources is inevitable and researcher in relation to research has identified some resources that will be required to fulfill the study with success. Time requirement, skill to conduct study and data availability is the requirements for this study to fulfill the research objective (Matthews and Ross, 2010).
The entire research will be completed within a maximum time of 6 weeks so that the budget, as well as time limitation, will be met.
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Introduction to study |
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Decide the objectives and aim. |
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Secondary data collection |
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secondary data consideration |
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Methodology Of Research |
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Attainment of primary data. |
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Primary data analysis. |
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Linking the objectives to recommending strategies. |
Conclusion
The aim and objectives of the study have been decided with utmost rationality. The rationale of study and research issue has been mentioned in a logical manner. The selected research topic is most important in study and researcher anticipates reaching to research objectives with logical conclusion relating to set the aim of the study (Matthews and Ross, 2010). Based on primary and secondary data of the research the researcher is hopeful to attain the desirable knowledge regarding the importance of internal marketing on business performance in terms of sales in the hospitality industry.
References
Ahmed, P.K. and Rafiq, M., 2013. Internal marketing. Routledge.
Baker, M.J., 2014. Marketing strategy and management. Macmillan International Higher Education.
Belz, F.M. and Schmidt?Riediger, B., 2010. Marketing strategies in the age of sustainable development: evidence from the food industry. Business Strategy and the Environment, 19(7), pp.401-416.
Best, R., 2012. Market-based management. Pearson Higher Ed.
Brinkmann, S., 2014. Interview. In Encyclopedia of critical psychology (pp. 1008-1010). Springer New York.
Chen, Y.C. and Lin, S., 2013. Applying importance-performance analysis for improving internal marketing of hospital management in Taiwan. International Business Research, 6(4), p.45.
Christopher, M., Payne, A. and Ballantyne, D., 2013. Relationship marketing. Routledge.
Cronin, J.J., Smith, J.S., Gleim, M.R., Ramirez, E. and Martinez, J.D., 2011. Green marketing strategies: an examination of stakeholders and the opportunities they present. Journal of the Academy of Marketing Science, 39(1), pp.158-174.
Ferrell, O.C. and Hartline, M., 2012. Marketing strategy, text and cases. Nelson Education.
Flick, U., 2015. Introducing research methodology: A beginner’s guide to doing a research project. Sage.
GUMMESSON, E.R., 2012. Internal marketing in the light of relationship marketing and network organizations. In Internal marketing: Directions for management (pp. 45-60). Routledge.
Jonker, J. and Pennink, B., 2010. The essence of research methodology: A concise guide for master and PhD students in management science. Springer Science & Business Media.
Lewis, S., 2015. Qualitative inquiry and research design: Choosing among five approaches. Health promotion practice, 16(4), pp.473-475.
Mackey, A. and Gass, S.M., 2015. Second language research: Methodology and design. Routledge.
Matthews, B. and Ross, L., 2010. Research methods. Longman/Pearson Education.
Neuman, W.L., 2013. Social research methods: Qualitative and quantitative approaches. Pearson education.
Panneerselvam, R., 2014. Research methodology. PHI Learning Pvt. Ltd..
Sharma, A., Iyer, G.R., Mehrotra, A. and Krishnan, R., 2010. Sustainability and business-to-business marketing: A framework and implications. Industrial Marketing Management, 39(2), pp.330-341.
Shiu, Y.M. and Yu, T.W., 2010. Internal marketing, organisational culture, job satisfaction, and organisational performance in non-life insurance. The Service Industries Journal, 30(6), pp.793-809.
Silverman, D. ed., 2016. Qualitative research. Sage.
Smith, J.A. ed., 2015. Qualitative psychology: A practical guide to research methods. Sage.
Taylor, S.J., Bogdan, R. and DeVault, M., 2015. Introduction to qualitative research methods: A guidebook and resource. John Wiley & Sons.
Tiago, M.T.P.M.B. and Veríssimo, J.M.C., 2014. Digital marketing and social media: Why bother?. Business Horizons, 57(6), pp.703-708.
Ver?i?, A.T., Ver?i?, D. and Sriramesh, K., 2012. Internal communication: Definition, parameters, and the future. Public relations review, 38(2), pp.223-230.
Winston, W. and Cahill, D.J., 2012. Internal marketing: Your company’s next stage of growth. Routledge
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