Business Lessons From Holiday Inn Express

Rich Karlgaard, the editor of Forbes Magazine, recently had a blog post called "The Holiday Inn Express Solution".

In the post, Karlgaard, who travels a lot as a speaker, explained how economic conditions have made him switch from his regular hotels (Ritz-Carlton, Four Seasons, JW Marriott) to lower-priced ones (Residence Inn, Hyatt Place, and Holiday Inn Express). He found the new hotels surprisingly good (free wireless internet, fresh beds, flat panel TVs, self-serve breakfast buffets, etc).

Karlgaard goes on to explain how these Inns are the "Charles Schwabs" (i.e. discount brokers) of the hotel world. In other words, they are examples of disruptive technology - cheap, easy to use, focus on a simple mission, and achieve it.

He then brainstormed about the need and opportunity to apply this kind of thinking to "broken" industries like cars, banking, health care, and energy. What would be their equivalent "Holiday Inn Express?"

i.e. for the auto industry, in might be a way to configure and build cars like Dell computers.