The first two assessments are based on the same topic area

General instructions and information for Assignment 1 and 2
The first two assessments are based on the same topic area. To complete these, you will be
required to create your own hospitality/tourism/events service organisation, large or small,
that you may like to manage (or own) someday. You will need to think about the key aspects
of service delivery and as such, focus on the operational management concept rather than
simply presenting a business proposal or plan.
Your service deliver plan will be broken down into two parts and it is strongly advised that
before you commence Assignment 1 (Part A), you read the requirements for Assignment
2 (Part B) to identify some of the key concepts that you will need to apply to your
organisation at a later stage.
One of the major differences between a manager with a university degree and a manager
without a university degree is the use of evidence based decision making. We want to see
you use this type of decision making with the service organisation you create. As a
university graduate you should be able to draw on relevant literature and think
constructively and critically about the information you obtain. For more information on
critical thinking please refer to the document “Critical Thinking – A brief recap” which is
available on the Blackboard site, under “Assessment Help”.
Other important points you should consider when planning, writing, and submitting
Assignment 1 (Part A) and 2 (Part B):
There is no need for you to approach any organisation to obtain information.
Your analysis must be based entirely on secondary information sourced from
observation, academic or applied literature and other web-based sources.
Your reports must be word-processed and double spaced. Handwritten
assignments are not accepted and will not be marked.
All assignments must be submitted via Turnitin.
You might find the Factiva database, hosted through the SCU Library website a
useful tool for sourcing relevant newspaper/trade journal articles. Consult with
Library staff if you are not familiar with this database.
Part A: Your organisation and its Strategic Service Vision (Stages 1&2)
Many organisations face choices regarding the types of services they wish to offer and to
whom, and the operational procedures they employ. Frameworks are sometimes used to
assist in these decisions. Using Heskett’s ‘strategic service vision’ framework as a
template, specifically stages one and two, provide an overview of your organisation, its
‘target market segments’ and its ‘service concept’. In addition to the above, the following
questions should be addressed:
1. Outline your core and peripheral services that make up the bundle of services you will
offer to your customers.
2. Provide a description of the proposed servicescape. Note that although this is relevant to
Part B, it will provide substance to your overview.
3. The service sector is now a key generator of economic prosperity in many countries.
However, changes in the context in which businesses operate are having an impact on their
ability to provide this economic wealth. Using newspaper articles (print or online) written
in the past five years, identify three current issues that would impact on your specific
organisation. You will need to include these with your assignment submission.
4. Using a range of sources of information, including both media articles and academic
literature as supporting evidence, identify and evaluate four factors that you think will impact
on your business in the future.
Guidelines to your Strategic Service Vision report – Part A
This assessment is designed as an experiential learning exercise by having you apply
theoretical concepts to a potential real-world situation in a critical manner. You should
adopt the mindset of a real business owner/investor for the organisation you have elected
to base your report on.
Your strategic service vision report must be presented using academic report format. It
should conform to the following format, and should also include a professionally laid
out table of contents prior to the executive summary. The word count for each section is a
guide to help you, but you may be longer or shorter in some sections depending upon you
organisaiton.
Executive summary
An executive summary of a report is a summary that contains a statement of the report’s
purpose and an overview of the findings. For this assessment, it should be around 250
words. The summary can only be written after you have completed your report. Write in
past tense (e.g. The purpose of this report was to… ). If an executive summary is well
written the reader should be able to understand the main points, findings, and
conclusions of the actual report without having to read the full report.
Section one – Introduction
This is a brief statement of the purpose of the report, what its objectives are, and an
overview of how the report is structured. Aim for under 100 words.
Section two – Organisation overview
This is where you will briefly showcase your organisation, its name, description of
operations, its bundle of services (core and peripheral services) and its servicescape. A good
place to start is Topic 2 of the Study Guide (core and supplementary services) and your text
book (servicescape). Your goal here will be to sell the idea of your organisation to the
reader/marker. You should aim to keep this under 400 words.
Section three – Target market segments
In this section you are to refer to Heskett’s strategic service vision, stage 1 and using the
most relevant headings, identify the type of customers you plan to attract. Although there
are a number of headings, you are not restricted to this list and it is recommended that
you source other data and/or literature to help determine the appropriate markets. Study
Guide Topic 2 is useful for this section and aim for around 400 words.
Section four – Current and future implications
You need to identify three issues (sourced from media and academic literature) that will
have future implications on your organisation. It is important here to source information
that is actually relevant to your organisation and you must critically analyse the
information, potentially exploring strategies to minimise these factors and implications. For
example, if your organisation is tourism based you might source information from a
research report published by Tourism Australia as well as a media story on traveler fears.
As part of your critical analysis you should weight these pieces of information (ie. the
research report is more likely to have valid data than a journalists’ story and would
influence your decision making more). Aim for under 400 words.
Section five – Service concept
Here you are laying down the foundations for Part B of your assessment and will be
brief (around 100 words). It is the how and what of service design, where you need to
bridge the customer ’ s needs (as determined in your Target Market research) and the
intent of your organisation. You should be aiming to show how you wish the services to
be perceived by the customers and other stakeholders. For example, if your organisation
is a backpacker accommodation, you might emphasise a cheaper service utilizing mobile
technology whereas a luxury resort may emphasise quality service and personalised
attention.
Section six – Conclusion
Within this section restate the purpose of the report, then provide an overview of main
points covered in your analysis. Ensure that you do not include any new information,
only that which has been discussed within the main body of the report. Aim for around 100
words.
Reference list
All works cited must be included in your reference list. Citations must conform to the
Harvard referencing style which can be found under Assessment Help (Referencing
Guides).
Appendices
This is an optional section in which you are able to place relevant material which would
have otherwise disrupted the logical flow of your report e.g. business data reports. Material
included in this section will not count towards the overall word count for this assessment.
Marking criteria
The marking criteria for this assessment can be categorised as general – which apply to
the report as a whole; and specific – which apply to specific sections of the report
(outlined above).
Marks for this assignment will be apportioned as follows:

Section 2 Organisation overview Section 3 Target market segments Section 4 Current and future implications Section 5 Service concept Referencing (in-text referencing) Reference List (relevance and consistency)

5 Marks 5 Marks 5 Marks 5 Marks 1 Marks 2 Marks

Presentation (table of contents, executive summary, intro and conclusion) 2 Marks
Total 25 Marks
General marking criteria
Below are three general marking criteria that will be used to mark your report:
Demonstrated ability to critically analyse sources
You are expected to ask critical questions of the material you read. Only minimal marks
will be awarded in cases where you have merely re-stated what the authors have already
said. Can you identify any potential flaws in the concepts? Is there a difference in opinion
between scholars? Who do you think is right, and why? These are potential areas of critical
analysis you could focus on.
Evidence of original thought and creativity
You must show that you have developed an ability to think about how the theories and
concepts covered might be applied in the real world.
Quality of presentation structure; overall content; quality of bibliographic details;
written expression
You should present your work in a logical, easy to read format. It should also conform to
the structure outlined previously. Students will be marked down for poor written
expression, bad grammar, and spelling errors. The expectation is that you have the
ability to hone your writing skills, and should thus present well written and presented work.
Correct referencing, both in-text and reference list, is essential.
Part B: Your organisation and its Strategic Service Vision (Stages 3&4)
Continuing on from your first assessment, Part B will once again be structured around
Heskett’s ‘strategic service vision’ framework although your focus will be specifically on
stages three and four. Your role will be to develop an ‘operating strategy’ and discuss those
relevant features of the ‘service delivery system’.
In addition to the above, the following questions/tasks should be addressed:
Productivity and quality are both key facets of the service process. Using the
academic literature, explain how your organisation will balance the quality of its
service whilst maximising its productivity.
Construct a simple blueprint for one service process in your organisation.
Select any two methods for managing capacity and explain how these could be
used to better match supply and demand for a service offered by your
organisation.
Explain how your employees can affect the quality of service received by your
external customer. What measurements could you use to gauge and manage the
satisfaction of your employees?
Choose any service quality model as described in Chapter 12, and analyse and
apply the model to your own organisation.
Guidelines to your Strategic Service Vision report – Part B
Once again, this assessment is designed as an experiential learning exercise by having you
apply theoretical concepts to a potential real-world situation in a critical manner.
Remember that you should adopt the mindset of a real business owner/investor for the
organisation you have elected to base your report on.
The report should conform to the following format, and should also include a professionally
laid out table of contents prior to the executive summary:
Executive summary
It may be slightly longer than your Executive Summary in Part A and you should aim to
keep the word count around 300.
Section one – Introduction
This is a brief statement of the purpose of the report, what its objectives are, and an
overview of how the report is structured. To assist in continuity, you may wish to highlight
key elements of Part A but you should aim to keep it around 100 words.
Section two – Operating strategy
As you will see from Heskett’s framework, you need to identify the important elements of
the strategy although be mindful of the Service Management Trinity and limit your
discussion to Operations, Marketing and Human Resources. There are several ways in
which you can approach this and you may like to refer to Topic 4 in the Study Guide as a
framework for your discussion. You should be able to do this in around 500 words.
Section three – Service blueprint
You are to prepare a service blueprint here and a diagrammatic presentation of this is
warranted. You should identify and discuss two (2) critical points within the service
delivery process that are likely to have a significant bearing on the customer’s experience.
Clarify why these points in the process are particularly important and how you would
manage them. Aim for 300 words but it will depend on the level of detail contained within
the blueprint.
Section four – The service delivery system
This is your opportunity to detail some of those actions that will support your operating
strategy. Topic 2 identifies some important questions although you should focus specifically
on the following:
1. What should be the nature of the service process at each step?
2. What should be the serving protocol – reservations system, first-come, first served,
or a priority system for certain types of customers?
3. Given that services are perishable, what capacity management issues do you foresee
and how do you plan to address these issues.
In addition, you should address question 1, regarding productivity and quality. As each
organisation will address these differently, aim to discuss the trade-offs that are relevant to
your chosen organisation and seek to support this with academic literature. You can use
diagrams here with supporting text of around 300 words.
Section five – Service employee management
As noted by Lovelock et al. (2015), the encounter with service staff is often the most
important aspect of a service. Given this importance, it is prudent to attract and hire
employees that add value and gain your organisation a competitive advantage. This can
present many management issues such as training and staff retention. Discuss how your
employees can affect the quality received by your customers. Furthermore, how will you
gauge and manage the satisfaction of your employees. Aim for around 300 words.
Section six – Quality management measures
This final section will draw upon information discussed in Topic 4 and 6 in the Study Guide.
Although an essential element of this section is to identify a service quality model such as
that discussed in Chapter 12 of your text, you are to bring together many of the service
provisions discussed previously, which will ensure the provision of quality services. To get
you started, you may wish to develop a ‘service guarantee’ and match elements of this
guarantee to some of the key aspects of the service delivery system or employee
management. Again, aim for around 300 words.
Section seven – Conclusion
Within this section re-state the purpose of the report, and then provide an overview of main
points covered in your analysis. Ensure that you do not include any new information, only
that which has been discussed within the main body of the report. This will be brief, about
100 words.
Reference list
All works cited must be included in your reference list.
Appendices
This is an optional section in which you are able to place relevant material which would
have otherwise disrupted the logical flow of your report e.g. business data reports. Material
included in this section will not count towards the overall word count for this assessment.
Marking criteria
The marking criteria for this assessment can be categorised as general – which apply to the
report as a whole; and specific – which apply to specific sections of the report (as outlined
above).
Marks for this assignment will be apportioned as follows:

Section 2 Operating strategy Section 3 Service Blueprint Section 4 The service delivery system Section 5 Service employee management Section 6 Quality management measures Referencing (in-text referencing) Reference List (relevance and consistency)

6 Marks 6 Marks 6 Marks 6 Marks 6 Marks 1 Marks 2 Marks

Presentation (table of contents, executive summary, intro and conclusion) 2 Marks
Total 35 Marks
General marking criteria
Below are three general marking criteria that will be used to mark your report:
Demonstrated ability to critically analyse sources
You are expected to ask critical questions of the material you read. Only minimal marks
will be awarded in cases where you have merely re-stated what the authors have already
said. Can you identify any potential flaws in the concepts? Is there a difference in opinion
between scholars? Who do you think is right, and why? These are potential areas of critical
analysis you could focus on.
Evidence of original thought and creativity
You must show that you have developed an ability to think about how the theories and
concepts covered might be applied in the real world.
Quality of presentation structure; overall content; referencing;
written expression
You should present your work in a logical, easy to read format. It should also conform to
the structure outlined previously. Students will be marked down for poor written
expression, bad grammar, and spelling errors. The expectation is that you have the ability
to hone your writing skills, and should thus present well written and presented work.
Correct referencing, both in-text and reference list, is essential..

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