The Grizzly Bear Lodge Business Review

The Grizzly Bear Lodge is a small lodge outside Yellowstone National Park. The business runs from May through September which is its busy season. The lodge currently has 15 rooms and offers continental breakfast on weekdays and a full breakfast on weekends. The Conrads has few but effective employees, including housekeepers, groundskeeper, and receptionist. The Conrads are been offered the opportunity to buy the property next door and are considering expanding their business. The change includes building 20 additional rooms and also expanding their food service.

Ultimately, the Conrads are planning to be open year-round and offer outdoors activities the whole year. Applying the approaches to bureaucratic control, feedforward, concurrent, and feedback, the Conrads will ensure their guest satisfaction. Feedforward control is “the control process used before operations begin, including policies, procedures, and rules designed to ensure the planned activities are carried out properly” (Bateman and Snell 555).

The Conrads at this time are applying the feedforward control because they already have a vision of what their future business expansion is going to be like.

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By purchasing the property next door, they will start to expand their business and by doing this, there will be need to hire more employees that can take care of the bigger business. The Conrads are also planning to increase their food facility by offering meal services in the busy season, in which they are not currently offering this service. They also want to work with local businesses to offer guided rafting, fishing, hiking, and horse-back riding trips (Bateman and Snell 555).

In the other hand, the Conrads need to evaluate the property next door and the raw materials they are going to use in the expansion. Also, because the Conrads will increase their staff, they will need to design new specialized training in customer service. Therefore, they must create rules as prohibiting smoking inside installations. Once Conrads have begun the expansion, they will need to apply the concurrent control. The control process “is used while plans are being carried out, including directing, monitoring, and fine-tuning activities as they are performed” (Bateman and Snell 555). At this moment, the Conrads are using the concurrent control because they are running their business. By being efficient in their operations for example; when a guest need something the workers are empowered to supply it and also including the loyalty of their employees, the Conrads are applying the concurrent control. The Conrads need to keep the harmony among employees in order to maintain the efficiency in the business. Also, the Conrads have to monitor the activities especially the new services they are about to provide such as the food and the outdoor activities while they are being carried out.

After the business has begun, the Conrads will need to apply the feedback control. This control “focuses on the use of information about previous results to correct deviations from the acceptable standard” (Bateman and Snell 555). Conrads should apply this type of control in the food service area as well as the outdoor activities since this are new services and the Conrads will need the feedback to identify and eliminate any problems and prevent harms and finally to improve the quality of the service. Also, the Conrads have to make sure the expenses are under their budget, if not, this feedback will allow them to make any adjustments. Since the Conrads are planning the expansion of their lodge, they will need to have a budget control. Budgetary controlling is “The process of investing what is being done and comparing the results with the corresponding budget date to verify accomplishments or remedy differences” (Bateman and Snell 559). The main consideration of their budget is the length of the budget period. Three month budgeting would be the length recommended to the Conrads as this would be a significant expansion. Also, three months will be an ideal budget length because this is the approximate length of every season. The Conrads also have to establish expectancies; this is the estimate of sales, and it ends with budget approval and publication (Bateman and Snell 560).

The Conrads can estimate higher sales in the high seasons as well as lower sales during slower ones; this will allow them to compare expected amount and actual results. Depending on the budget results, the Conrads are able to correct any issues in case the results are not the expected. By making market controls, the Conrads are able to compare what they offering compared with the competition, in this case, other lodges near to them. The author states that managers and owners can stay in touch with marketplace price to make sure that their costs are in line, and they try to improve the service they provide to increase their business (Bateman and Snell 576). The Conrads can apply this type of control to evaluate outputs and maximize the productivity of their business. By comparing the expected profits and the current market prices, the Conrads can determine whether the expansion is proficient or not. Therefore, by comparing their business versus their competition, the Conrads will be able to improve any area that is being not efficient. According to the book, market controls are very significant because they provide a natural encouragement for workers to enhance their services and offer them to potential firms (Bateman and Snell 576). The Conrads need to keep the harmony in the business because the change they are going to make will be significant. By applying the correct market control, the expansion will be successful.

Work Cited

Bateman, Thomas S., and Scott Snell. "Chapter 16: Managerial Control." Management: Leading and Collaborating in a Competitive World. 10th ed. New York: McGraw-Hill Irwin, 2013. 548-581. Print.