MINI-CASE: CONSULTING FOR THE ROYAL HOTEL The Royal Hotel in New York City is a luxury all-suite log book recording time of receipt, recipient, recipient's hotel primarily serving an executive clientele visiting room number, and sending fax number, (e) place the fax in Manhattan on business. Typically, these business guests a bright orange envelope; and (d) make it available to the stay for three to six days, during which they use their bell staff for immediate delivery to the guest's room. suite as a temporary office. Thus, Royal Hotel's manage- ment has positioned the property to cater to the many needs of this busy and demanding audience. Amenities Royal Hotel. This contact is very timely as the R include in-suite plain paper fax, printer, and copier, three Hotel was about to replace the four Canon fax machines two-line telephones with voicemail and remote message and assume the costs discussed above. WizTech is WizTech, a California-based hi-tech firm specializ- ing in printing solutions, has recently contacted the Internet access in rooms and public areas, fitness center, tion that enables regular printers to be contacted by fax suite dining, laundry service, complimentar shoe shine, machines without any need to install drivers (a driver is complete stereo system with CD and cassette player, a software program that manages the interaction dedicated high-speed elevators, and more. between two devices). Thus, the printer equipped with Even though most suites feature an in-room combo driverless pripting software is a perfect substitute for the Royal Hotel has industrial strength fax machines. Moreover, to ensure a device (fax, printer, and copier), and the the technical ability to route incoming faxes to the degree of redundancy, WizTech offers, free of charge, a combo devices, most guests prefer to have faxes sent to a central number. In-room combo devices are used mainly for sending outgoing faxes. I backup service that enables temporary incoming faxes to any other printer in the hotel if the incoming faxes, the IT department at theseamlessly by WizTech until the main printer is back in strength" Canon fax operations. WizTech's high-end solution offers a "dri- es per minute or ppm), withverless printer" performing at eighty ppm with annual i.e., one incoming fax number auto- operating costs of $500. The printer's useful life is com- industrial strength fax machines printer equipped with the software Royal Hotel runs four "industrial rollover numbers cal day the fax machines run almost nonstop. The fax (five years), Bach machines cost the Royal Hotel $1000 each and have costs WizTech $1500 to produce, operating costs of about $200ryear each (e.g. toner, maintenance). The fax machines have a DISCUSSION QUESTIONS 1. What should Royal Hotel's IT department do? 2. Does WizTech enjoy a competitive advantage (or dis- usable life of five years. The Royal Hotel has developed over the years a for- mal process for delivering the faxes and maintains a full- position. The process has the following steps: (a) retrieve the fax; (b) log the receipt in a dedicated advantage) in this market? Can you quantify time "fax operator" such advantage (or disadvantage)
