Super 8 Hotels Expanding in China with Business Intelligence Support

Posted on October 12, 2012 by bermanevansretail
Super 8 is a global discount-oriented hotel chain. In recent years, it has been rapidly expanding its worldwide efforts, especially in China.
According to Microsoft Case Studies: “As one of the largest operators of budget hotels in the world, Super 8 Worldwide operates more than 2,300 hotels globally and has a total of more than 126,000 rooms. The first Super 8 location opened for business in Aberdeen, South Dakota, in 1974. Super 8 Worldwide has been consistently committed to providing all guests with clean rooms and friendly service. Super 8 Worldwide entered China in April 2004 and opened its first hotel in Beijing on June 8 of the same year. Within seven years, Super 8 (China) Co., Ltd., the registered management company of Super 8 Worldwide in China, had opened 450 Super 8 Hotels. The chain set an aggressive growth goal to expand its number of franchise hotels in China to 1,000 in three years. The budget hotel market is growing rapidly in China, and Super 8 China competes against many local chains. Super 8 China management had to make sure that it was growing at the right pace and in the right locations and that it arrived in communities before the competition did.”
Click the company logo to learn more about how Super 8 utilized Microsoft’s business intelligence tools in its Chinese expansion.

Posted in Global Retailing, Part 4: Store Location Planning, Part 5: Managing a Retail Business, Technology in Retailing | Tagged , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Mobile Search and Restaurants

Posted on October 11, 2012 by bermanevansretail
As reported by eMarketer: “Mobile users seeking restaurant information seem to belong overwhelmingly to one group: hungry people looking for good food, right now. Many commerce-related searches conducted on mobile devices are not so urgent — such as those made to check prices and comparison-shop. But for restaurant info, actionability is key on mobile. June 2012 research from call tracking solutions provider Telmetrics and mobile-local ad network xAd found that looking up location was the No. 1 mobile restaurant search activity among smartphone and tablet users in the U.S., followed closely by looking up directions to that location.”
Click the chart to learn more.

 

Posted in Online Retailing, Part 3: Targeting Customers and Gathering Information, Part 4: Store Location Planning, Social Media and Retailing, Technology in Retailing | Tagged , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

India Warms to Foreign Retailers

Posted on October 10, 2012 by bermanevansretail
Although India has the second-largest population in the world with more than 1.2 billion people, until recently foreign retailers were allowed to operate there on a very limited basis. Now, this is beginning to change as India loosens its regulations geared toward foreign retailers.
As the marketplace in India changes, the acceptance of foreign retailers by Indian shoppers seems to be generational. As Vikas Bajaj reports for the New York Times: “Those younger than 25, a group that includes about half the country’s 1.2 billion people, appear quite open and eager to try foreign brands and shopping experiences, researchers say. They already while away their afternoons at Western-style malls like the year-old P&M mall here where they try on T-shirts by Benetton, eat pizza from Domino’s, and watch movies in a Mexican-owned theater chain, Cinepolis. But many older Indians who came of age in an earlier era of socialist policies say they are not entirely comfortable with the idea of big-box stores and sprawling malls. They worry that foreign companies will siphon profits and business from Indian competitors, forcing millions of family-owned shops to close.”
Click the photo (which shows shoppers of fashionable clothes at a store in the P&M mall) to read more of Bajaj’s story.

Photo by Prashanth Vishwanathan for the New York Times
Posted in Global Retailing, Part 1: Overview/Planning, Part 2: Ownership, Strategy Mix, Online, Nontraditional, Part 3: Targeting Customers and Gathering Information, Part 4: Store Location Planning, Part 6: Merchandise Management and Pricing, Part 7: Communicating with the Customer | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , | 1 Comment