Changing_Role_of_Hospitality

Enterprise Resource Planning System and the Hospitality Industry University of Phoenix Enterprise Resource Planning System and the Hospitality Industry Choosing an IT application that will drive a business to new innovation can be challenging and expensive. The hospitality industry is very competitive and obtaining a competitive advantage over the competition can be very rewarding if done correctly. Using an Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) system application to help run the business processes can help a hospitality business achieve superior success. This paper will discuss the efficiencies and cost controls an ERP system brings to a hospitality business, the value an ERP system has on information leveraging and decision-making, the changing role it provides to the hospitality industry, and the greater competitive advantage that can be acquired from using an ERP system. Efficiencies and Cost Control Any hospitality business can implement lean business policies that provide their business to improve their bottom line. Choosing an ERP system application to run their business is the right choice as it can increase business efficiency, productivity as well as help harmonize with lean business policy initiatives. An ERP system application can help minimize costs to operations, optimize strategic planning, and improve performance by capturing important data and sharing to the entire business. A complex and well detailed implementation is required for an ERP system to be successful, but the reward is bigger then the time and cost is to implement. According to Infor.com (2010) global competition and pricing pressure in the hospitality market places extraordinary demand on businesses to strive for new efficiencies, innovation, and competitiveness. Using an ERP system allows for hospitality business to respond appropriately to there volatile market by creating a balance in customer satisfaction, operational efficiency, and profitability. Harnessing the advantages of an ERP system can greatly increase business and help any hospitality business gain control of cost and performance. Information Leveraging and Decision Making Operating in “real-time” in business is very important, and sometimes with legacy systems it is not possible to pull the data needed by management. ERP system allows business resources to efficiently pull and deliver data for reporting when needed. Giving management the most current data that may be needed for a strategic decision, will help the hospitality industry remove bottle necks and increase turn around time. Leveraging data in real-time as an ERP system can do provides data that can be trusted and give management better decision making capabilities. Changing Role Hospitality legacy systems typically can have many repetitive process that cross all functional departments. These repetitive processes can be prone to error and delay and not supply the data that is really needed at that time. The introduction of an ERP system into a hospitality industry helps businesses streamline their data. Whether its rate availability, inventory control, or customer profiles an ERP system helps bring each functional area together to automate most processes involved with importing or exporting data. According to Collegiate Project Services (2010) an ERP implementation can serve as a catalyst for the creation of data mining program allowing institutions to better analyze patterns in their data. This provides a big innovation to the hospitality industry as it lets them see trends in their customers spending and when their peak times of operations are, giving them more access to capitalize on marketing campaigns and increase their economy of scales. ERP systems provide faster data that can be used to create key performance indicators (KPI), alerts, and scorecards that the business can use to monitor and control their business to strategically align with their mission and vision statements. Competitive Advantage Creating and sustaining a competitive advantage in the hospitality industry can be very complicated and acquiring the right resources such as the proper IT systems is a must to remain successful over the competition. Implementing an ERP system application will not only help the business leverage information faster and more efficiently but also give that business the competitive advantage to reduce clutter and focus more on customer satisfaction. Holding the customers up in the highest regard should be the main focus of any hospitality business and to do that a business must have the tools to provide excellence service 24/7. With implementing an ERP system a hospitality business will be able to achieve greater success, reach their goals and have an even greater competitive advantage. Conclusion Being a leader in a volatile industry is critical to stay successful and achieve the businesses main objectives. Using an ERP system can help a hospitality business remove the clutter, reduce bottlenecks, and gain the competitive advantage over others competing in the same industry. In conclusion this paper discussed the efficiencies and cost controls an ERP system brings to a hospitality business, the value an ERP system has on information leveraging and decision making, the changing role it provides to the hospitality industry, and the greater competitive advantage that can be acquired from using an ERP system in the hospitality industry. Reference Collegiate Project Services. (2010). Five Ways to Leverage Your ERP Investment. Retrieved from http://www.collegiateproject.com/articles/Leveraging%20ERP%20Investment.pdf Infor.com (2010). ERP (Enterprise Resource Planning). Retrieved from http://www.infor.com/solutions/erp/