March 19, 2010

Case 12-4 Wayside Inns, Inc.

1. Pro side: The proposed expansion appears to meet the firm’s stated expansion
criteria; The existing inn is clearly operating at or near its practical capacity; The
analysis is based on one year only, and it ignores the fact that the management and
reservation fees stay within the overall firm.
Con side: The ROI is projected to decrease with the investment; The turnover count
might be grossly overstated. This depends on how these data are collected. The same
person could show up on the turnaway count of several reservation services; There is a
risk of being hurt by either a downturn in the economy or overbuilding in the local
market.
Drawing conclusions whether the proposed investment is likely to be a good one is not
easy in this case. However, the pro case would appear to be more convincing over the
long run.
2. As shown in Exhibit 6, a 34 percent increase in the size of the property managed
would result in only a 13.7 percent increase in compensation. This would appear to be
somewhat unfair. However, these data are rough calculations. I.e. the base salary is
unlikely to be left untouched from one year to the next.
3. The management couples are directly responsible for such factors as the internal
and external appearance of the motel, the cleanliness of the rooms and the attitude of
the front desk personnel. They also have some influence over direct costs,
administrative and financial costs, and over the volume of business. Therefore the
Performance Evaluation Report could be argued to be included as one of the
determinants of compensation.
The regional general manager has a key role and this might raise the anxiety level of
the management couples. To ensure some uniformity of evaluation techniques across
the various inns, a travelling inspector could for example be employed to periodically
check such things as room cleanliness etc.
A ROI-based system is naturally unfair since it is tied to an historical cost
measurement system. Older property has a higher ROI since its investment base is
somewhat smaller. This will make almost any expansion proposal look less favourable.
4. A few points could be made regarding the case of Wayside Inns, Inc., managerial
roles and how they vary as one moves up in the organization:
The ability to directly affect the more strategic decisions, such as site selection, market
segmentation policies, and the size of the inn to be built, increases as one rises in the
organization.
The appropriate time period for evaluation tends to lengthen as one rises in the
organization. Inn managers can be measured on the short-term results while senior
management should be assessed on the basis of long-range objectives.
The immediate supervisor of a particular line manager should be held accountable for
those aspects of the line manager’s behaviour that the supervisor is able to influence.

Department of Management and Engineering

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