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[I212]In The Eye Of The Beholder

by Graeme Nichol, Gra

At a recent forum the panel the discussion was around programs that lead an organization to excellence. The most consistent views seemed to suggest that few programs on their own will achieve excellence. There needs to be an overall strategy moving an organization towards excellence. Nothing occurs overnight and each piece of the puzzle has its own pitfalls.

Looking at the Ford Motor Company, as an example. They have implemented almost every business improvement or business excellence strategy possible and they recently posted losses of about $12 BILLION. Clearly, the strategies they have implemented (TQM, TPS, JIT, Lean, Six Sigma, TOC, and probably more) as well as new IT systems that have been installed, have not led to business excellence.

I have seen companies get results from each strategy individually but few have had breakthrough results. Each strategy has usually only focused on one aspect of the business, mostly process. Yes, Lean is moving into the office but it is still process. It is now about shuffling paper faster and more efficiently. Big deal. ERP systems moved companies to think in terms of processes and attempted to break functional silos, but ERPs are transactional systems that move companies forward incrementally, by creating piecemeal savings. Yes in a F50 the numbers are large but relatively speaking they are incremental. People in the business require new skill sets and ROIs are hardly ever equal to those planned or projected by the IT departments and consultants! Been there seen that.

GE is often mentioned as an outstanding organization. Business owners and managers often mention GEs success and Six Sigma in the same breath. What they fail to realize is Six Sigma was part of an overall plan. Some GE companies only started on their road to excellence and using Six Sigma after many years had been spent re organizing, redesigning, re hiring and focusing the business in minute detail. Six Sigma was not the cause and final end result of their improvement, nor their excellence!

Over the past few years I have been working with companies to achieve their strategies. What this has meant is looking at business in a holistic manner and making sure each piece of a strategic plan is budgeted for and is executed to achieve the desired results, or better. Essentially companies realize that no matter what happens in their strategic planning sessions they are not realizing the results they would like to see. Yes, one can just imagine FORD executives saying" OK guys we are going to drop $12 Billion this next year!

What this means is companies needs to improve their performance in a multitude of areas. This can be done without a name brand process, or a software package. To reiterate, it is not about ERPs, CRMs, Lean, Six Sigma, TQM, or anything else you can think of. Sure you may add one later but that is not the reason for success, although it probably will assist in reinforcing the changes that are made along the way.

The key to excellence in performance is rather simple; It is not easy but it is simple.
1. Have a great strategy.
2. Surround yourself with people who believe in the strategy.
3. Aggressively execute the strategy.
4. Measure your results along the way.
5. Celebrate your successes

This very simple strategy is often scoffed at as not possibly being able to work. The reasons for chuckles are typically; my business is too complex, we are different, and you dont understand my business, I am sure you have all heard these and more, yet this process has never failed. Its tried and tested. Everything else clouds your vision and makes things seem more complex than they really are.

There are, however, any number of small, middle market, and transitional businesses who have grown 3 - 5x their revenue using this very simple strategy. Again, the simplicity should not overshadow the difficulty of actually implementing it. It is tough. People are the issue. Its about challenging paradigms. Moving through false assumptions and mental models which may have become ingrained over many years.

So how do you get this right? Get your top team together. For a session with a difference. Develop that strategy that everybody can support from the get-go. Start with assessing and analyzing the things you do well and the things in which you are challenged. Be rigorous and hide nothing. Your failures reversed could just propel you to success. Failures are an indication of trying new things and just not having figured out all the kinks. Develop working guidelines for achieving success when implementing new approaches. Ensure these are in line with your companies values. This step is all too often overlooked and very quickly leads to discontent and resulting failure.

Next step is letting each team member developing process based, or even functional based priorities for the year. Present these to the group with the rationale as to their inclusion. Once they are all up there select no more than ten as the major objectives for the organization. This is not as simple as it sounds, mind you. A good facilitator will certainly help.

List those top ten objectives. Determine the metrics of success. Define monthly targets. Determine how to get the data in a format to present to your group and the company to show success.

This will be the basis of a monthly review. You will be visiting the exceptions in detail and celebrating successes. This will be the cornerstone of achieving strategic success and corporate excellence. Focused monthly review session based on the top ten objectives will place you squarely on the path to success and excellence.

Like I said, simple. Not easy.

You have taken an objective look at your website and you have decided its time to act you need a new website for your hotel. You want to get it right this time but where do you start?

For the sake of this article, I'm going to assume, rightly or wrongly, that you have prepared and written an online strategy for your hotel that you will also share with your chosen website designer; you now need to provide them with some design guidelines a briefing document that is both tactical as well as creative. Our focus here is more on the "look and feel" of your site I have penned many other articles on hotel website search engine optimisation; Google me for the SEO stuff.

What I am about to share with you has to be taken in context...these recommendations are meant to provide you with a starting point, a foundation upon which to build your online presence but they are not set in stone. We know that these principals work and by following these guidelines you will end up with a hotel website that:

? has a good chance of turning up on the first couple of pages of the Search Engines
? will be attractive and engage visitors to your hotel website
? will convert a high percentage of visitors into online revenues

However, once you have prepared a brief, it is important to let your designers well design. Don't restrict their creativity because that is really what you are paying for. You should expect at least two and maybe three alternatives to review, refining these through a series of iterations until you have a design that is both visually appealing as well as Search Engine-friendly.

Layout - work in a grid, usually in thirds (navigation, text, call-to-action buttons or images, usually on the right) or quarters. See that your website designers align the core elements both vertically and horizontally using the grid as a basis for allocating space. We get our best online results where vertically, one third is navigation (left or right) and two thirds body or text. Horizontally we like to see half of the screen as your header/brand and including a dominant image. The lower half of the screen should show visitors a headline including the keywords they were searching for, text and the start of the navigation, all without them having to scroll you can have long pages but visitors shouldn't have to scroll initially to get the idea of what the page is all about.

Navigation - even experienced web searchers don't want to learn how to navigate through your site - they need to quickly know how to get to your accommodation, special offers, room rates and web booking engine. Consequently, we recommend vertical navigation bars people are used to this, it allows easy drill-down to sub-pages and you can see where you are at any time none of those pretty but painful horizontal "drop down" menus that keep disappearing and getting you lost and frustrated when they keeping folding up again.

Sub-pages and "landing" pages - many hoteliers do not realise that with a well constructed site, nearly half your visitors will "land" on a sub-page first rather than all arriving via the "home" page. This is why you must include your address and contact details in the footer of every page. As much attention should be given to the design of lower level pages as the home page so make sure during the initial design stage that you get to see examples of what your sub-pages will look like.

There are two broad design principles we prefer for sub-pages. A single dominant image "floating" in space draws the eye of visitors and captures their interest it becomes extremely memorable, especially if the image is striking. Alternatively, use multiple images on a page and keep them the same size, or the same proportion; repetition creates a feeling of consistency and quality.

When it comes to colours, keep it simple choose one dominant colour and use variations or tones of that base colour as highlights. Unless you have a particularly funky property, stay on the conservative side in your colour selection blues, greens or beige/parchment can be a great palette to develop a quality theme from.

Don't be afraid of open or white space this is ideal for creating an uncluttered combination of imagery and text. Your website needs to capture the hearts and minds of your visitors once they arrive at your site as well as being very Search Engine-friendly and open space is a great way to carry this off. Even a small image, placed in open space, can work wonders on creating the unique nature of your property. Use "drop shadow" effects to create a three dimensional or embossed look.

You need buttons too we call them "call to action" buttons to be precise graphics that prompt visitors to act "make a reservation", "check availability" or "make an online enquiry" are just a few examples. Every page should have at least one button, designed to stand out but not overpower the overall design and that complements the base navigation.

Copy writing - not just the facts write stories, create experiences, develop an emotional connection with your visitors. Tell them about the romance of your packages, the professional efficiency of your business centre team or those small touches that make your hotel stand out from the crowd. And remember that online visitors scan rather than read verbatim so use headlines, bold, italics and bullet points to create visual "hooks" for their eyes to pause on. Write enough to keep your visitors interest but not so much that you bore them.

We also like guest testimonials (yes, I know that no one has ever published a poor testimonial on their website) apart from the visual impact, these are an implied third party endorsement that shouldn't be underestimated.

Don't forget that Search Engines can only read text and design code they can't see images so you need your design to allow for at least 200 words on each page, within which you can insert the keywords that you are targeting in the headlines, the main copy and emphasised elements like bolding, as well as in the meta data and title tags.

Fonts should be simple, san serif (no curly bits or heavy styling) and easy on the eye. Use a dark grey or dark tone of your base colour for page font as black can be too "in your face" on screen. Where appropriate, reversing text in white from a darker background can evoke the feeling of confidence and security but use this cautiously as it can also be very overpowering.

And as a final hint, use your common sense you hotel website must be easy to build, easy to maintain or add to and compelling to visitors. If your website designer wants to take three months or more to design the "front end" and build the "back end" for your mid-size property, they are probably over-engineering it...from acceptance of design it should take no longer than a month to complete. Nowadays, they should be providing you with a website based on a Content Management System which will allow you to edit or add pages in-house quickly and easily this will also reduce your ongoing costs. Finally, your website should indeed look smart and stylish simple, fresh and not too busy enough to capture visitors imagination without trying to do too much.

Use the above guidelines wisely (and remember these are guidelines, not gospel) when you document your hotel website design brief then let your designers design and both you, and your website designer, will have a sound foundation upon which to design and build a great website that sells more rooms after all, that is why you are making this investment, and this time you definitely want to get it right.

Article Source : simple content management system

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Both Graeme Nichol & Keith Paulin are contributors for EditorialToday. The above articles have been edited for relevancy and timeliness. All write-ups, reviews, tips and guides published by EditorialToday.com and its partners or affiliates are for informational purposes only. They should not be used for any legal or any other type of advice. We do not endorse any author, contributor, writer or article posted by our team.

Graeme Nichol has sinced written about articles on various topics from Business Plan, Web Development and Web Development. Graeme Nichol Arcturus Advisors ()works with business leaders and their teams to close the gap between great strategies and mediocre r. Graeme Nichol's top article generates over 33100 views. to your Favourites.

Keith Paulin has sinced written about articles on various topics from Computers and The Internet, Hotels and Hostels and Web Development. Keith Paulin is a leading online marketeer in the hotel industry and is the Group General Manager of Hotel Marketing Workshop, a company that specialises in