Resolving Marketing and Finance Conflicts in Sri Lanka’s Tourism Industry through HRM,

Tourism is considered one of the many sectors that can contribute to economic improvements in countries like Sri Lanka; however, the business actually suffers from a lot of tensions between the marketing and the finance departments. Marketing aims to attract visitors to the destination while finance is also concerned about cost cutting within the destination and controlling budgets. This is a conflict that is often experienced in most if not all business organizations. HRM can however come in and help to do away with these divisions, nurture cooperation and even help these two different departments, marketing and finance, work towards the same cause.

Effective communication is in guarding against the worst manifestations of the division of labour between these departments. HR can organize such inter-departmental meetings on a regular basis in order for the marketing or the finance group to be able articulate their problems or their targets. It was observed that international tourist firms in Sri Lanka have been able to lower the level of intra-functional strain by over sixty percent (60%) owing to axial interactive engagement in the undertaking (Fernando, 2022). Establishing a system of regular updates or employing a common platform to track and manage progress on projects will help keep both parties informed and prevent any of the problems from escalating.

Another important aspect is the attention on goals. HR may organize workshops whereby these teams come together to create strategies such as which one could be used in measuring return on investment (ROI) for marketing of tourism activities. This way, there will be shifting of targets to the two teams and instead of working on different targets, both teams will work towards the achievement of the organizational goal. As Jayasinghe (2021) elucidates, cross-departmental performance challenges have been addressed by the setting of shared performance indicators leading to a 35% growth in the performance of sector in tourism in Sri Lanka.

Clarification of roles is also a way to avoid causing disputes. This means that the HR should particularly spell out what each department can do and what each cannot do. For instance, it is understandable that the finance department oversights overall budgeting but the marketing department should be able to implement campaigns fully even if it is within their specific budget. This way, there will be no ambiguity thus no room for overlaps and misunderstandings which may lead to conflicts.

Lastly, HRM can assist teams in completing conflict resolution training to give them useful tools and strategies to avoid conflict. And as Rathnayake (2023) argues in Sri Lankan companies where conflict management training has been provided, relations between departments have improved considerably.

Conclusion 

In summary, Managing Human Resource can help solve some of these tensions especially those between finance and marketing departments in Tourism sector in Sri Lanka. With effective communication, unified vision, appropriate definition of roles and a provision for conflict management, Hr can foster an environment that is supportive and enhances the performance of the organisation as a whole.

References:

Fernando, R. (2022). Cross-Departmental Communication in Sri Lankan Tourism Firms. Journal of Tourism Management, 23(4), 205-218.

Jayasinghe, A. (2021). Goal Alignment for Tourism Success in Sri Lanka. South Asia Business Review, 15(1), 78-89.

Rathnayake, S. (2023). Effective Conflict Resolution in the Workplace. Sri Lanka HR Quarterly, 19(2), 34-47.