Originally Posted by
birdiedouble
I'm more of a contrarian by nature, so I'll give Hilton credit for creating this position, as opposed to than eliminating it, had it previously existed. I seems like there are plenty posts on FT complaining about brand inconsistency, IT issues and poor service delivery that maybe having better focus at a high corporate level won't be a bad thing. I've used some COF products in the past and have been impressed with their operation. Welcome to Hilton Mr. Witter. BTW Hilton is a for profit business. That is not to say that we should agree with all their decisions, but maybe look at some of them from a different angle.
The problem is that even when businesses describe changes as being "good for the customer", they often aren't - and HH has been guilty of this even recently. I view this type of doublespeak to be incredibly harmful to the customer relationship as it destroys goodwill. Also, that the "Chief Customer Officer" position oversees marketing doesn't make me hopeful that HH will be better about this - in fact, I fear it could be the opposite.
As a side note, for-profit businesses don't need to focus on cutting costs in order to make or increase profits. Rampant cost-cutting, especially in the hospitality industry, often works against long-term growth.