Accounting for Decision-Making Controls at the Bellagio Casino Resort (Math Problem Sample)

ACCOUNTING FOR DECISION MAKING
CONTROLS AT THE BELLAGIO CASINO RESORT
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INTRODUCTION
Firms have embraced use of control systems to be able to monitor as well as coordinate events. In the business environment that is characterised with a lot of differences mainly from the background, cultural differences, employee’s attitudes, and social distances, firms enact controls which guide how work is to be done (DeFranco & Wortman, 1997; Matsuo, 2009; Jensen, 2010). Controls are also meant to enhance transparency as they have been seen to lead to efficiency and improved accountability. Controls are implemented at different stages through the hierarchy development of a firm. Mainly, the controls are laid on bases of the functions of each level to ensure they are in line with duty of work (Ivancevich, 1995; Bierstaker et.al, 2010). The current analysis will thus seek to assess the role and authority of managers at different levels of the casino, kinds of controls enacted, and assess how well they can be suited for other industries.
BODY
Bellagio is a world leading hotel and gaming company. It undertakes its operations in a highly competitive environment thus creating a need to develop strategies that give it a competitive advantage. Some of the strategies it has put in place include strategic positioning of its resorts, maintenance of high quality, and recruiting high qualified staff who are continually trained (Merchant & Van der Stede, 2007).
In addition to ensuring the company is competitive they have put in place control that lead to improved efficacy. This includes; gaming revenue indicators and hotel revenue indicator which were major controls of assessing how well revenue is realised. Since major operations are cash based, the casino has its major staffs located in the finance department. To ensure transparency controls enacted include; use of locked cash boxes which were put in place in attempt of reducing theft, and daily cash and coins counts by persons independent of casino workers which was used to track and realise fraud as soon as it occurred. This was done under high supervision. Especially when giving credit, they were very cautious to ensure no loss was incurred. This was done for high accountability through strict issuance of credit and tight controls in the count room (Merchant & Van der Stede, 2007).
The other control was constant observation of gaming area. This was to ensure people were not tempted to take money that was involved as it could be quite large. To respond to the gaming problem, the firm enacted controls like; licencing of casino personnel, standardisation of actions of personnel running the game, supervision and surveillance, monitoring results, and strict audit procedures.
In addition, the enacted other controls including; observation and recording of gaming by closed televisions to ensure all procedures are well documented and can be used to compare with manual results reported thus reduce fraud. Also, this was a technique to ensuring that there was close supervision of the actions within the casino thus zero tolerance of fraud.
Also there was timely analysis of deviations from expected used to track performance and to ensure the firm is moving towards achievement of set objectives, and constant monitoring of computer slot machines to ensure proper activities and each stakeholder is able to achieve a fair share of the revenue and also to make it easy to track transactions (Merchant & Van der Stede, 2007).
For the major controls put in place including; cash count and supervision, strict issuance of credit, and monitoring of the gaming area were interviewed to the managers to make an elaborate case of how the controls were enacted. The controls were well functioning and thus the strategies implemented could be qualifies to achieve the intended purpose.
To enact the controls, each level of authority within the casino has roles that would lead to achievement of the corporate objectives. For instance, the black-jack involves a card game. The dealer main role is to sell chips to the customers, deal the cards, take losing wagers, and pay the winning wagers. At this level, the dealer is highly engaged and enacts tight control strategy as they keep the play under control, managing players, and ensure all monies realised are safe (Merchant & Van der Stede, 2007; Matsuo, 2009). On the other hand the pit bosses major role was to supervise the dealers work, give relief breaks, and ensure the floor tables were well spread. At this level, mainly loose authority was in operation as they ensured the dealers were highly trained and thus would make minimal mistakes as well as gave them breaks thus less supervision was needed. The vice president of the game was in charge of all games at different floors, and thus supervised the work done by dealers and pit bosses, reported to the president of the game, and ensured all controls are in place. At this level, tight control is enacted to ensure all controls are put in place and adhered to.
Major controls that can be used in other industries include cash count, and surveillance. Also strict monitoring and timely audits would be useful in other areas (Schubert et.al, 2005; Wan, 2010). All firms require transparency in the systems. For instance in an automotive industry, or a food industry, track events using surveillance would be very effective. In a service industry, use of surveillance coupled with timely audits would be useful. In