Web Based Delphi Information System - Research Paper Example

Executive Summary The Internet has been known to provide the best and most effective platform for marketing products and both local and international products. It is most economical, to say the least. However, there is more than meets the eye with property management information systems. The property market is growing exponentially so that there are many processes and procedures that are involved in managing property. For this reason, there are information systems which have been developed to help manage this. One of the information systems which has been. This paper will look at the aspect of property there are many parameters that should be considered before one engages in online advertising. The Internet is complex and also dynamic market platform that requires regular and daily training. Online marketing is far much different from the world of print, broadcast, and out-of-home advertising markets. The Internet is so vast and is evolving at very high-rates such that it is becoming hard to properly target the audiences which are intended. The online marketers are looking for efficient way of reaching their online audience while at the same time they are supposed to minimize expenditures. Websites are the primary tools that are used by companies to market their products and services online. There is therefore a dire need to make sure that the website that is being marketed meets the aim they were meant to achieve. Most e-commerce sites that have been developed lack strategy to appeal to the audience. They lack in proper segmentation to address the issues and the needs of the various visitors that come to their sites for some information. They therefore fail to win these visitors and more still, fail to convert them to properties. Companies who are keen to turn more visitors to client swill have to learn about their intended audience and the needs and tastes they have. Every visit they make on the website should be an opportunity to entice them to buy or better still to come for services in the site. INTRODUCTION Property management systems are computerized systems that are used in the manufacturing, logistic, government and hospitality industry for managing properties. PMS is single software capable of performing numerous services including, management of personal property, equipment, and the associated legalities. In this digital age where web based applications such as PMS provide a competitive edge over old-fashioned, paper-based management mechanisms, these applications should entirely be incorporated into the business environment of any organization. This paper attempts to explore the advantages the PMS software such as Delphi would have on the hospitality environment such as chains of hotels. The hotel industry is made up of ventures interlinked together to provide wholesome services to consumers. Starting from reservations all the way to check out, all this activities need to be documented in a harmonious way. The adoption of technology is therefore necessary to promote interoperability as well as efficiency. The many hotel systems such as point-of-sale, telephone, security and room control, entertainment and ordering, telephone services, accounts, HR and payroll among others are comprehensively packaged together in single PMS software. By automating these services, better customer service is achieved, which encourages spending, and consequently better returns. The automation can be achieved at a single entity or/and integrated throughout a worldwide chains. Our focus for this assignment is New Market Internationals Delphi sales and suite. The software is termed as the industries standard tool for empowering sales, marketing for hotel, restaurants, and stadiums and gaming venues. The Kessler Hotels for instance utilize the Delphi PMS software. Its vast networks distributed across the globe are centrally managed. Comprising of 50 hotels and resorts distributed across Asia Pacific, North America Middle East and Europe, and boosting of over 30000 room inventories, the Hotel management could be virtually impossible without this PMS. The company is structured into Boutique luxury hotels and resorts. The different company portfolio includes, room service, accounts, saloon service, food and beverage, HR department, on line reservation and travel and expeditions. All the departments are seamlessly integrated to provide accurate flow of information. The sharing of information promotes projection and decision making for management purposes. The centralized Delphi database enables hotels to cross-sell and up-sell using a central sales system for checking available spaces and vacancies as well as distributing leads. For instance Kessler Hotels chains could be managed where check-ins are distributed according to the location for a customer. Delphi as a service is used to streamline businesses and IT operations to increase business performance, improve it infrastructure and reduce costs. For a better understanding of how software functions as a service it is important to discuss this topic a little bit. SaaS Software-as-a-service is a web based application provided by application service providers and can be accessed by users over the internet. It is a subscription service. The principal advantage of SaaS is its reduced number of support personnel and minimal hardware infrastructure required. The subscription fees normally charged as an expense is considered a benefit to organizations that do not have to own the software but rather the data on the software. Delphi software is an example of SaaS software used for the management of hotel industry with Pay as You use IT utility. SaaS being one of the SPI models can utilize the provider applications running on the cloud. Hotels facing the challenge of agility and competition in their operations require an integration platform for adoption of the ever changing market demands. This evolution will therefore prompt a shift to the distributed cloud application service from the single tier model. An integration of SOA into the cloud environment will provide improved governance and management of necessary services. Moreover it facilitates the “on demand” access to virtualized resources which might not be readily available to a hotel industry due to technological constraints. A Service Oriented Architecture for designing SaaS architecture should therefore be formulated to meet the goals of a hospitality industry. This architecture has been utilized by service providers such as Delphi to come up with PMS software having the following characteristics; a. Implementation details are separate from service interface b. It exhibit a standardized open communication protocol c. It comprises of many services each one tasked with a role within the business d. The services are independent of each other For instance, in considering the existing legacy application running at an SME, a first stock of service applications will result in a series of other different applications utilizing different technologies, designs and integration structure. Property management systems, Client/Server applications and Web Services can be integrated in a package that is designed to run at a hotel industry. SIGNIFICANCE OF DELPHI The most visible advantage of this software is its ability to provide accurate forecasting based on previous performance. For example the travel and expedition forecasts for winter in the current year can be accurately determined based on the previous records. This knowledge is important to the sales team for the purpose of advertising. Likewise the room bookings could possibly be increased through direct marketing targeting salon and traveling customers. Since its inception the software has undergone frequent upgrades and review. The latest version Delphi® contains an Interactive Open NetworkTM that adds features and functionality relevant to a particular industry. The software is also customized to meet the specific demands of a particular organization. Keller Hotels would for instance like to know the monthly reports on customer on line bookings, check-ins, accounts, and strategic projections. The hotels room service system utilizes advanced features that provide maximum security to the clients and staff. With a controlled data center that is tightly monitored to detect intrusion, fire and power blackouts, the system provide a set of security measures that ensure the safety of the clients and staff. The system is controlled by personnel 24 hours a day. Delphi is designed to meet the needs of the stand alone small enterprises and the large corporations with worldwide chains. The chain of hotels is managed by a single system that allows cross-selling and sharing of management essentials. The sales management part of the system provides a range of services to the sales team that are crucial for periodic scheduling. For instance, Showcase diagrams Webview, eProposal, and eMenu for planning. Measure the level of productivity. Organize daily appointment through Daily Schedule. The catering and event system on the other hand has in-built features that create, and update event orders with Ms Word. THEORETICAL CONCEPTS OF PMS Characteristics of a project management system. The PMS creates a skeletal overview of the information on property in-transit from the providing party. This means it provides the status of the transaction taking place. In the case of the hotel industry, the transaction involves online bookings, reservations, transfers and payments. The skeletal property record may have the following features; Name and address Estimated time of transaction and its completion. Item identification which may be names of persons checking into the hotel. Requisition information involving the details of the contract the transactions pertains. After the skeletal/property record has been received, the real property in record is initiated or placed into the real instrument or the grant. The date and related features of the property item are captured update of its status documented at that stage. The physical receipt of the item and/or the date of next available use is stated and captured by the system. Finally the PMS forwards the physical receipt of information, including the date of receipt and quantity to other external systems and financial systems for recording and other transactions. Application service provider. An ASP describes software that is owned by a vendor and located in a high-security remote facility to connect offices over the Internet. The payment for such software by the user is dependent on terms and conditions of the license. The advantage of an ASP translates to low cost of hardware and software maintenance. This directly has an impact on the total administrative cost of a company such as Kessler Hotel. The approach increases the overall performance of the system using the PMS. The PMS server usually running on some form of Unix operating system has the capability to support multiple users at the same time. The Hotels are most commonly connected by a private data network using LAN or WANs. Thus the properties share the same client history, Account Receivable database, Central reservation or Telephone directory. This centralized approach consolidates major operations in key departments to reduce labor cost and make decision making easy. For example instead of having a reservation desk at each hotel, only one personnel based at the headquarters can control the booking and distribute the clients to their chosen destinations. Alternatively, dedicated property systems can be formed for each hotel each connected via an enterprise host. This model enables individual data from the hotels to be copied back to the enterprise server through a replication technique in real time or batch mode. The review will then be carried out from the headquarters to evaluate the performance of each branch as if they were located there. Therefore the two approaches can be applied according to the hotel topology network. It consequently allows better integration and growth but requires hardware, software and system administrators at each site. Fig.1 Distributed and single PMS server INTERFACE REQUIREMENTS A property management system should display the required interface designs and system architectures. All the systems, modules and applications should be linked together to capture, use and pass information. The PMS should be able to interface with other financial and management systems seamlessly. It should be able to process information from such systems, record and track transactions, and relay such information to control stations. Credit card transactions for that matter should be effected and tracked easily. It is highly recommended that the system should have a way interface to communicate with other systems. The PMS should be able to send and receive information within subsystems. For example, where there is a work in progress subsystem, the property management system should be able to interact with it in a two way interface. The goal of the system interface can be summarized as follow; Provide an entry point to feed in the PMS and all other databases with which the system interfaces with. Capture the audit trails of all system transactions. Facilitate the reconciliation of these systems to obtained accurate results. Fig.2 A general view of a project management system. Advantages and Disadvantages. The single server model is easily to implement as compared to the distributed model. The network connection is independent of the other in the former. Thus a system failure in one of the Hotel systems would not affect the operation of the other. The distributed approach functions without the host or the An integration of PMS system with CRM fosters the client-company relationship. Kessler Hotels client inventory can be integrated with the CRM to provide a personalized communication with the company. The client portfolio in the Delphi PMS can assist the company management to conduct a proactive marketing and customer relation exercises through guest behavior and preferences study to turn them into customers of the company. The company will ultimately attain better customer retention leading to reduced advertising and related cost. The enterprise system would also become more accessible and affordable in the long run. In our case scenario, the distributed multiple system is more favorable as compared to the single PMS server system. This is necessitated by the autonomous portfolio of the property management of the company. In addition the company size is large enough for a distributed system. With various hotels and resorts, Kessler ambition in the market is dominant. Its growth rate is exemplary and as the number of properties and personnel increase, the benefits of economies of scale are realized. Another contributing factor for the choice of the distributed system is the geographical orientation. Kessler Hotels are distributed all over North America and Europe. With this sparse concentration, multiple servers are economical in the long run. The data networking cost will be significantly reduced as compared to a streamlined single system. The competency level of the IT staff is another factor to consider. A distributed system is a natural fit for the Kessler Hotel. This is partly because of the magnitude of the work involved. Property management for the hotels, resorts and travel require competent staff with advanced IT skills. Delphi system is however simplified to allow easy integration and usage even for the technology un-savvy staff. The other notable factor is the tolerance of an IT department. Principally, the IT department in a hotel falls below major departments such as catering and accommodation in the significance hierarchy. Adopting a PMS system and Delphi serves to reduce cost associated with an under-utilized IT department. The benefits derived from adoption of a hotel PMS are immense. With a distributed system such as Delphi, the management can utilize IT for the greater benefit of the guests, operators and the owners. A summary of the advantages and disadvantages of the two models discussed above can be shown in the table below. PROS CONS CONSIDERATION Single server Simple and cost effective Depend on data network Common vs. separate files. Centralized operation Costly data network required Level of property reporting. Multiple server Independent of data network Many servers and software plus hardware Use of public Internet for networking Less costly Data replication not perfect Replication strategy adopted Hosted ASP Limited IT requirements Dependent on data network Pricing model evaluation. Huge investment in servers and software More cost in the long run in form of fees. Host knowledge of the business. The implementation of the Delphi SaaS impact the hotel industry in a positive as well as a negative way. The management system is projected to improve productivity while reducing substantial cost associated with the old-fashioned paper work system. The system can reduce accounting personnel by up to 20% using the consolidated packages. The software-as-a-service is based on cloud computing offering unlimited storage of company information in the clouds. Millions of dollars could be saved using this technology with image document imaging systems. The PMS interface could also save thousands of dollars incurred in manual processing of more than 15000 reservations yearly. The technology is however replacing the jobs of thousands of accounting and records employees. Although it is economically viable to the organization, it reduces the human capital to an insignificant level . Thousands of families could be affected as a result of the roll out. Another disadvantage to the guest and the company is the technical hitches that may occur in the course of reservation and check-ins. A customer can be stranded for a long while waiting for correction of server malfunctions. Most the PMS systems in the hotel industry are audited during the night. While the auditing is taking place all users are switched off. An intrusion to the system might occur at such times which will alter the stored data and information to the management and the guests. A virus attack may render the whole hotel inoperable since all the data might be lost. Since most viruses are transmitted over the Internet, the security risks are more profound. PMS and Delphi deployment in the hospitality industry especially hotels proves more powerful than expected. The success of Kessler hotels is attributed to the integration of e-commerce features in its websites so that they can be able to sell bookings over the Internet. The use of information systems will be easier because clients will be able to save time and money given that they will just go for online bookings as compared to the physical act. The system is already familiar with many tourist and business people making hotel reservations and bookings. Other than that the Delphi system is an efficient marketing tool with great search optimization methodologies to get listed at the top in top search engines. The system delivers perfect and effective electronic mail marketing; dominate a bigger part of their marketing niche with close, reseller and programs associated. It is also useful to call for analysis of a web-based marketing institution or consultant. One of the solutions that have been developed at Delphi is that of Mob eCommerce solution which is a strategy that is used to allow potential and existing clients to make orders from their mobile phones. New Market Internationals partnered with mobile service providers like Microsoft, Android and iPhone to make an application that will enable clients to make orders from their mobile phones. This ecommerce solution is a partnership with an e-commerce company for ecommerce solutions. With this, it is possible to make orders while using mobile phones, the next big thing in e-commerce. There is also the partnership with eSystem which is a company that develops merchant solutions that enables an organization to make orders and process existing orders from anywhere as long as they have internet connection. With this, New Market Internationals will have the largest market integration systems in the region. Their unique approach towards integration has given them a chance to move forward in the marketing strategies. The Delphi technology will enable them to integrate the new technologies with the existing platforms without the need to isolate hardware or software and also provides full integration with existing systems where backend systems are supported. References Read More