Hospitality Information Technology in InterContinental Hotels Group - Case Study Example

Hospitality Information Technology Contents Contents 2 Introduction 3 Strengths of IHG’s Website 3 Weaknesses of IHG’s Website 4 IHG’s website’s User-Friendliness and Functioning Adequacy 4 IHG’s Reputation Enhancement via Website 5 IHG Website and Data Security Systems 5 Data and Backup 6 Electronic Payment (e-payment) 7 The Extranet and its Application to IHG 8 The Intranet and its Application to IHG 8 Conclusion 10 References 11 Introduction The increased usage of internet in e-commerce has greatly impacted the hospitality industry. Today, the internet has become a platform for brand imaging and reputation enhancement (Ozdipciner et al 2016). This report takes InterContinental Hotels Group (IHG) as a case study to evaluate the strength and weaknesses of a website in the hospitality industry. It looks at IHGs website functionality and how much it succeeds at enhancing reputation for the organization. Additionally, the report looks at the security systems that ought to be employed by IHG to ensure that its data is backed up, safe from hackers, and its integrity is not compromised by malicious software. It also evaluates various electronic payment modes available and their shortcomings. The last section of the report dives into the networks, and within the context of IHG, looks at how the extranet and the intranets can be employed as well as the advantages and challenges that accompany them. Strengths of IHG’s Website The website is designed in a manner that allows for clear navigation. By its design, users can easily and smoothly navigate the website via quick links that have been simply created. Secondly, the website is mobile-friendly. It is compatible with gadgets such as mobile phones and tablets, and displays in a neat format while viewed in mobile phone Apps. Morrison et al (2005) observe that this makes it possible for many customers to access the organization’s website. Notable also is the website’s theme. It is applied in a responsive way, fit for application and adjustment in any device that may be used by a customer. Moreover, the site allows for integration with social media. The organization’s website has an established connection to the social media, with links to Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, and YouTube on the first interface page. This enables customers to follow links from the organization’s website to such social media accounts and back to the site. Also key for websites, the site has quality content. The website is rich with information that customers are looking for especially on the products and services they offer: booking costs, location, graphics, progress reports and other key information, altogether very appealing to their customers (Tarafdar & Zhang 2005). Further, the website has credibility. The contact and business address information have been provided, and this builds the website’s credibility as customers build their trust on the understanding that there is a person behind the website, whom they can get in touch with thus building the organization’s customer base. Weaknesses of IHG’s Website Regarding the website weakness, this site shows presence of distracting design elements. Even though the website designer has retained an up-to-date information on the website and worked on its user-friendliness, it is worth noting that there are too many dynamic images. The distracting slideshow of images may interrupt a customer’s concentration in identification of a desired service or product. Second, there is a risky chance of directing visitors away from the site as every link opens to a new window. Similarly, to access some information, a customer is in some incidences forced to open up to more than three links which may distract or irritate the customer, driving them to another hospitality organization website. (Chiu et al 2005). SocialTap (2017) argues that websites that open links on the same page are more appealing to customers. IHG’s website’s User-Friendliness and Functioning Adequacy The IHG has a website that is certainly attractive and native. A number of its qualities have made it quite user friendly and equally made its functionality adequate. This is due to its: Legibility: Being a business-oriented site, the website designer was keen to use one among the key elaborate fonts (Tahoma) to enhance contents’ legibility. It is easy for customers to read the website’s content from any gadget due to its clarity in appearance. Scanning through is also easy owing to the line spacing of the content. Dimensions: The dimensions are well observed in the website design. There is minimal horizontal scrolling has guaranteed that customers using various gadgets can read from the site with ease and without frustrations. This kind of responsive website designing further makes this organization’s website very much user-friendly (Nantel & Glaser 2008). Usability: The website’s ability to provide for an easy navigation through the use of internal and external links promotes chances of customers frequenting. Similarly, the website has avoided too many sites thus circumventing the otherwise associated risk of customers experiencing broken links and the eventual non-indexing of the site by search engines as Casaló et al (2008) noted. Colour scheme: The colours used are compatible to all devices that customers are likely to use therefore customers will access similar information regardless of the gadget used to access the organization’s website which increases the website’s user friendliness. File size: The files’ sizes are meaningful, thus allowing for quick loading of the pages in less than ten seconds. Law et al (2010) observe that this encourages customers as they can quickly scan through the website and access information they need in a timely conscious manner. Therefore, it is evident that this organization’s website functionality is good for it provides concise and eligible information to visitors, allows for contact with its customers, provides an access to other social networks and is generally customer friendly. IHG’s Reputation Enhancement via Website The website design for this organization significantly builds its reputation. There are company websites that have unsurpassed content; however, they fail to build a reputation due to adhesive layouts, un-updated content, and inability to secure easy navigation for customers among others (Caruana & Ewing 2010). IHG is quite the contrary. Information is easily available to customers in a user-friendly manner which meaningfully is key in reputation building. Besides the excellent website designing, relevant information is availed to customers including an open communication channel via mails, telephone and social media. Presence of internal and outside links to social media sites subscribed to by the organization further provide a platform for marketing of the organizations products thus extending the bases for its reputation building. IHG Website and Data Security Systems Key reasons for website security include protection from hackers and virus attacks. A relevant security measure for IHG is setting up firewall security; this works by setting rules on servers and network traffic, effectively forming a barrier between trusted and untrusted networks (Gollmann 2010). Law & Huhalis (2010) inform that the firewall will work by filtering data coming into contact with it, having a proxy that will stop untrusted traffic before it makes contact with the website, or inspecting data coming to the site against the security ruleset. Without a firewall, IHG may risk having their website compromised by hackers. Apparently, most hackers are less concerned with stealing data but more with accessing the servers to use as an e-mail relay for spam messaging (Ip et al. 2011). Additionally, the hospitality industry thrives on internet marketing which implies that competitors would instil considerable damage by compromising IHG’s data repository, stealing data, defacing the website or bypassing access controls. On the other hand, attack by malicious software (malware) such as viruses, worms, adware, bots, bugs, Trojan horse, spyware and rootkits can be devastating. Malware attack may collapse firewall, corrupt program causing website to crash on basic tasks, or cause strange behaviour to the website pages such as unexpected messages on screen (Aziz et al. 2014). This can be overcome by installing an anti-malware software, particularly one with tools able to detect, quarantine and remove multiple types of malware. Examples of these include Malwarebyte and Windows Defender. Accordingly, the organization needs a virus checking system that carries out regular checks on alien scripts, malicious media and contents hidden in legitimate contents (Ip et al. 2011). Applications that can be employed to safeguard the organization include anti-malware for servers, cloud based anti-viruses and Website Malware Scanners (Ngair 2016). Additionally, IHG requires to observe other relevant website checks such as encrypting their login page and using secured networks and workstations. Data and Backup In the hospitality industry, data is key in designing marketing strategies because organizations rely on understanding their customers’ needs and tailoring their services to fit them (Ramos-Rodriguez et al 2012). For IHG, it is crucial to keep customer feedback data particularly on their services, food preferences, dining behaviours and recreational demands. With this data, simple analytics will show IHG’s customer base, customer origins and perhaps how that connects with regional cultures and cuisines. Loss of data can be damaging to an organization because it erases the history that would otherwise be useful in realizing new business opportunities and it also clears operational data such as pending bookings, on-going mail correspondences and applications in development like mobile-phone applications. Data back-up is therefore necessary at all times. Mediums that would fit small organizations who host their services are hard disks, optical storage (CDs and DVDs), solid state storage (e.g. flash drive), and remote backup services (Gmelch et al 2013). For IHG, however, an online data backup in required. Unlike offline data storage, this option comes with additional security, automated backup, data recovery, storage for old versions of data (versioning), ability to sync data on many devices and reduced cost (Kim et al 2013). Gmelch et al (2013) state that security measures that an organization should take regarding their data should include having regular data backups, strong passwords, strong firewall, anti-virus protection, regular system monitoring, and updated software. It is key for the organization to establish who has permission to access their data repositories and their privileges. The system administrator, owner or user – depending on their trust and roles in the organization’s data management – may have their privileges set to include or exclude ability to create, read, write, delete, append, assign and share a file (Jung et al 2013). Electronic Payment (e-payment) Electronic payment involves a financial exchange between two parties by way of a digital financial instrument (Fry, 2012). Current methods of e-payment include debit card, credit card, online payment, stored value cash and smart cards. Preference of one method over the others mainly depends on the availability of the payment mode by user, transaction charges and security concerns. These modes of payment are acceptable to most organizations in the hospitality industry. While debit cards may be used by fraudsters to access money following card loss or robbery, credit cards from unknown or untrusted institutions are more likely to be rejected by organizations (Agarwal et al 2014). They are also prone to fraud. On the other hand, online payment, facilitated by the financial institutions and internet companies such as PayPal and CheckFree, are convenient in that transactions can be done from the customers’ comfort location. This mode is nevertheless associated with multiple challenges, the key one being online security. Fraudsters often take advantage of unsuspecting clients to gather their bio-data and other information online to use in accessing their financial data resources. The IHG has embraced online room booking. Challenges that may accompany such an implementation include delays in case of trans-border transaction and currency exchanges (Wei et al. 2013). The Extranet and its Application to IHG The extranet is a controlled private network. By employing internet technology and public communication systems, organizations allow vendors, suppliers, customers and partners to access information from their network without gaining access to the entire network (Forslöw, 2006). Parties granted access to specific information do so by use of a user ID and password. Studies have compared the extranet with an intranet that grants limited information access to users outside the organization (Dragoi 2007; Near 2008). The IHG provides services to customers from all origins and will therefore require extranet to share information to those that plan to do business with them while holding back information that may be used to harm the organization. Accordingly, IHG partners abroad, vendors and suppliers require data on food supplies requirements, customers’ volumes and other details that may be classified as big data. Extranet has the capacity to share such large volumes of data, co-ordinate joint operations with other companies e.g. meetings and trainings as well as give access to a service provided by one company to many other companies (Garrity 2015). Additional benefits of extranet to IHG include integration of supply chains where online ordering and tracking of supplies is made possible, enablement of easy IHG-customer interface, possibility of sharing news partners, and most importantly, assured security. The main challenge of the extranet is its cost. Extranet calls for hardware, software and facility security, and this can be expensive to implement and maintain. Staff training is also necessary, which comes with cost and time demands. Due to cost, organizations that are not huge as IHG may opt to use low-cost information-technology infrastructure, and that may lead to unsecure proprietary information. Furthermore, private information may end up in wrong hands, even within the organization, because passwords and IDs maybe seen illegally. In some cases, passwords are set by the system admin and users may not change them immediately. This calls for regular system checks. Moreover, with extranet, there is increased dependency on computers and reduced face-to-face communication between an organization, its clients and customers, suppliers, and vendors (Caber 2013). The Intranet and its Application to IHG The intranet is a private network only accessible to members of an organization (Nawaz & Kundi 2010). It is designed to distribute diverse information kept in corporate databases and other repositories to individuals in the organization with access to the network. All information that is relevant to use by IHG staff and not the public is contained within this network. This may include minutes of meetings, strategic plans, staff remuneration and marketing strategies. Unlike extranet, the intranet may not be connected to the internet, and when it is, measures must be taken to prevent external access of information. There are many reasons for an organization to opt to have an intranet. First, it gives staff in an organization a common space to interact. Members of IHG, for example, from various sections and departments can log into this network and update their fellow staff on new trends in the hotel, contribute to debates or discuss key issues highlighted by their managers. Okumus (2013) argues that this helps in nurturing the corporate culture and improves networking in an organization. In addition, staff in an organization are able to develop a common language of communication where in a glimpse, other staff members can pick the importance of their communication. Files in this environment are easily tagged, and a dashboard format that avoids information overlap is easy to implement. Management of the staff and tasks within an organization is also greatly enhanced by intranet. Project planning, for example, is so enhanced that you can track projects within work groups from initiation to completion (Mihalic & Buhalis 2013). This goes together with shared work schedules and calendars. Other staff members are able to view the engagements of others, plan meetings in convenient times and carry out virtual meetings. Additionally, with tools such as HR-Intranet, human resource management is streamlined with the human resource officers being able to pick staff for tasks by their potentials based on their project histories saved in the intranet. Looking at the disadvantages of the intranet, the major challenges to note is security risk. (Andrlic 2011) notes that software security issues are a common problem. This is in addition to staff handling their login credentials without caution that they leave their passwords on their computers or use easy-to-guess passwords. Another huge concern with intranet is information overload; with staff sharing information regularly, there is the risk of staff spending so much time reading updates instead of carrying out more productive work. In such an event, staff may design excessive web pages within the intranet that managing them becomes problematic. Finally, as it applies to extranet, the cost of managing the intranet may be very high. To have software that cannot be compromised, regular updates are required and servers must be updated and upgraded on a regular basis. Apparently, intranet does not benefit customers, partners, vendor or suppliers as it is limited to an organization’s staff. Conclusion This report has shown that the design of a website in the hospitality industry is crucial. The ability of the customer to interact with the website with ease and be able to follow social media links are examples of elements that add reputation to an organization. On the other hand, a poorly designed, dull and distracting website can make a customer lose interest in an organization. The IHG’s website performs well against these benchmarks with only limited shortcomings. Regarding data management, it is clear from the report that every organization, more so in the hospitality industry, needs a well thought-out system that cannot be compromised by hackers and malicious applications. Some of the necessary measures to take include setting up a firewall and having an anti-malware application functioning all the time. Finally, a look at computer networks has revealed that both extranet and intranet are desirable but for different reasons. While the extranet will allow business partners outside the organization to access limited information from the organization’s network, the intranet only grants access to users within the organization. Aspects to consider while setting up these networks should include but not limited to security risks and costs. 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