Hotel Holodeck Case Study 2009 PDF

CASE STUDY Business Intelligence IS - 2 009 Hotel Holodeck Auteurs : Didier Cuménal –Miguel Liottier – Copyright ©2007 - 2008 – English transla...

CASE STUDY Business Intelligence IS - 2 009 Hotel Holodeck Auteurs : Didier Cuménal –Miguel Liottier – Copyright ©2007 - 2008 – English translation Jean Pierre Esteoule 1  SOMMAIRE I. CONTEXT............................................................................................................... 3 II. CLIENT CLAIM FIGURES OVER THE LAST 12 MONTHS.................................. 4 III HEADCOUNT (PERMANENT STAFF):................................................................. 4 IV. PEOPLE INTERVIEWED...................................................................................... 5 Interview with Jean-Luc PICARD, CEO of the « Hotels Next Generation » chain:...................................... 6 Interview with William RICKER, General Manager of hotel Holodeck in Montpellier............................... 7 Interview with Mr DATAMINER, in charge of Group IS............................................................................... 8 Interview with Beverly CRUSHER, in charge of Booking & Customer Service at Holodeck hotel............12 Interview with Olivier MORROW, in charge of accounting and cash desk..................................................15 Interview with Francis WHORF, Group Deputy General Manager, in charge of customer relationship management.........................................................................................................................................................16 TYPICAL COMPLAINT LETTER OF A DISSATISFIED CLIENT............................ 18 TO DO: YOUR MISSION.......................................................................................... 20 APPENDIX............................................................................................................... 21 Auteurs : Didier Cuménal –Miguel Liottier – Copyright ©2007 - 2008 – English translation Jean Pierre Esteoule 2 I. CONTEXT Mr. Jean Luc Picard, just appointed CEO of the « Hotels Next Generation » chain, the headquarters of which are located in Marseille, notices that the Group’s financial results as of Aug. 31st, 2008 go worse and worse for one year. The group’s 12 hotels (3-star) are located in southern France cities with great tourist attraction (in PACA and Languedoc Roussillon); close to Rhône-Alpes which is attractive both for tourism and business congresses. However, the hotels of the chain go worse and worse. Particularly the one in Montpellier, which records the worse results, despite a unique location just next to the place de la comédie. The first mission that Jean Luc Picard assigns to himself is to go to Montpellier and to make an assessment of the problems there, after a series of claim letters by dissatisfied customers. He will spend one full day to analyze local problems and the results of the Holodeck Hotel. He will then make up his mind and decide action plans. Information gathered on site about the hotel’s profitability is the following: It has 180 rooms with an average price at € 95 (breakfast not included). The rooms’ occupancy rate has been of 60% only (as compared to the total capacity). A rate of at least 70% is required to reach break-even (taking into account fixed and variable costs). The average number of guests per room has been of 1.2 people over the 12 last months (taking into account couples and children). For that kind of hotel, a normal occupancy rate should be around 80%, according to a study carried out by the Chamber of Trade and Industry of Montpellier for the syndicate of the professionals of tourism related activities. The hotel is open all year long continuously. The headcount amounts to de 20 permanent employees plus a seasonal staff over 6 months (high season and week-end) of 20 people approx. Average gross salary is € 1700 monthly. Seasonal employees are paid € 1550 gross in the mean, which is quite in the compensation standards of this industry. Auteurs : Didier Cuménal –Miguel Liottier – Copyright ©2007 - 2008 – English translation Jean Pierre Esteoule 3  P&L – Fiscal year 2007-09-01 to 2009-08-31 (in K€) : hotel Holodeck Budget line Turnover EBIT as of 2009-08-31 Rooms 3 965 (240) 85€ x 1,2 x 180 x 60% x 360d (loss) Breakfasts 370 30 Bar 120 37 Mini bar (in rooms) 60 15 Internet (WiFi) 15 14 Hiring halls 290 40 TOTAL 4 820 (114) Loss amounts to € 114 000. Anomaly list over the last 12 months and costs (in K€): From Sept. 2007 to Aug. 2008 Free gifts to clients as compensations for wrong bookings (free stays, free breakfasts) 32 K€ Invoicing mistakes cause a loss : 24 K€ To cope with complaints of dissatisfied clients and to handle their claims, 2 additional employees have been hired with 48 K€ the objective to improve client satisfaction Lawyer fees and damages 43 K€ II. CLIENT CLAIM FIGURES over the last 12 months Wrong bookings: 60% of written claims Invoicing mistakes: 40% of written claims, of which 2 lawsuits!! III HEADCOUNT (permanent staff): UNIT HEADCOUNT General Management (secretary included) 2 Booking & Customer Service 3 Reception desk 4 Accounting & cash desk 2 Room Service 6 Facilities 2 Auteurs : Didier Cuménal –Miguel Liottier – Copyright ©2007 - 2008 – English translation Jean Pierre Esteoule 4  Bar 1 TOTAL 20 IV. People interviewed Mr Jean Luc Picard CEO of the « Hotels Next Generation » chain Mr William Riker General Manager of the Holodeck hotel, Montpellier Mr Francis Worf Deputy General Manager, in charge of customer relationship (at Corporate level) Mr Dataminer CIO at the chain’s headquarters Mme Berverly Crusher In charge of Booking & Customer Service (Holodeck hotel) Mr Wesley Crusher In charge of reception desk (Holodeck hotel) Mr Olivier Morow In charge of accounting and cash desk (Holodeck hotel) Hereafter are the meeting minutes. You as a consultant did carry out the interviews (2 hours each max.). The main functional divisions are located at the group’s headquarters: HR, IT, Marketing. Moreover, the headquarters act as a holding managing the group’s finance and investments which amounts for a consolidated turnover of € 70,000,000 with 330 permanent staff (headquarters included). The main décisions (commercial policy, financial policy, IS architecture and functionalities) are taken by the « Corporate ». The management teams of the hotels have quite a hard time with it, and are deeply affected by what they consider to be a lack of recognition of their abilities. Besides, employee attrition is high (30%!) as far as middle management is concerned in all the hotels of the group. Auteurs : Didier Cuménal –Miguel Liottier – Copyright ©2007 - 2008 – English translation Jean Pierre Esteoule 5 Interview with Jean-Luc PICARD, CEO of the « Hotels Next Generation » chain: What is your position within the group? I am currently CEO of the « Next Generation » hotel chain, and in that framework, I spend most of my time at the group’s headquarters. Nevertheless, I do regularly visit our hotels in order to ensure everything works fine. What is the purpose of this meeting? I think there’s something wrong within our group, and the case of Holodeck hotel is very telling. It seems that our IS or at least part of it has serious failures. Some of those caused lawsuits we lost, and I can’t put the blame on my employees. The CEO of a local newspaper complained about our service, can you imagine the impression made! Could you tell me about those failures? I’ve done some sample checks which showed that consolidated data issued from the databases of each of our hotels were quite unreliable. Indeed, there is a 15% error ration. How can I set up a strategy like that, without reliable data? I detected a flaw in the reporting as well. They are not relevant, provided that they exist… So there’s a problem at the strategy level, you can’t have a clear vision, but there’s an operational issue too: day to day operations are not carried out with an acceptable level of service. Yes, indeed! What are the consequences of those defects? As you might have guessed, it is very difficult to issue prospective dashboards and mid and long term strategies if you can not rely on the accuracy of your data. Moreover, some clients complain about mistakes on the invoices, whereas other cannot book a room in acceptable conditions. All that causes a fall in occupancy rate and turnover, as well as a negative impact as far as our brand image is concerned. This is no longer acceptable! Did you take actions to eliminate those problems? I first got in touch with a big consultancy, specialized in BI and IS implementation, particularly in the hotel industry. Yet I decided to launch an RFP to allow competition to operate. Where will you implement those solutions after the integrator selection? I favor a pilot at our hotel in Montpellier, the problems being the most serious there. If the changes prove to be efficient, I consider deploying the solution in all hotels of the group. How will you manage this project? I chose to appoint the General Manager of hotel Holodeck, Mr William RICKER as project manager, and thus contact of the consultancy and manager of the contract. Auteurs : Didier Cuménal –Miguel Liottier – Copyright ©2007 - 2008 – English translation Jean Pierre Esteoule 6 Interview with William RICKER, General Manager of hotel Holodeck in Montpellier What is your position within the group? I am currently General Manager of the Holodeck hotel located à Montpellier, and I’ve just been appointed by Mr Jean-Luc PICARD to be your single point of contact and represent the project client (maîtrise d’ouvrage déléguée, in French). Do you know the purpose of this interview? Of course, I was part of the decision to hire you. Your mission is to help us to qualify the causes of our problems and solve them. What are the main features of your clients? Most of our clients are private individuals, executives aged from 35 to 40 living in Southern habitant France. We’ve got groups as well, around 30% of our occupancy rate. This type of client provides more cash and gives a longer term vision on the occupancy rate of the hotel. Where is your hotel located? The hotel is located in the very center de Montpellier, which constitutes a unique location, close to the place de la comédie. Moreover, Montpellier is a dynamic city of 400 000 inhabitants with easy access by HST1 and Fréjorgues international airport. What are your objectives regarding this particular client segment? Our goal is to make the private individual stays raise, build their loyalty and avoid growth of tour-operators. Why do you focus on this client type? It’s the most profitable and the one we are used to… And Montpellier is a dynamic city, so it’s normal our customer base is made of that client… well, I think so, it seems to me… What are the deadlines for the implementation of a solution suited to your problem? We want the changes to the IS to be rolled out by the end of this year. How are the resources allocated between the different services within the hotel? The hotel is made up of 4 aisles, rooms being located in two of them, the third houses the meeting rooms for groups and congresses, the last one being dedicated to our administrative services and reception desk. So we need a motivated and dedicated staff, always attentive to clients. How are your reservation desk and your invoicing service organized? Those two entities are quite typical of the malfunctioning of this hotel. There’s quite a fair amount of incidents which cause customer complaints. Indeed, reservations are not updated in real time which keeps our client waiting too long. Besides, our hotels are not interconnected, so we have no visibility or overview of the occupancy rate or availabilities in our hotels. 1 HST : High Speed Train (TGV) Auteurs : Didier Cuménal –Miguel Liottier – Copyright ©2007 - 2008 – English translation Jean Pierre Esteoule 7 Regarding invoicing, the problem is quite similar, the payment system is not properly defined, some rebates are not applied, and taking the credit card print is a problem for us, which impedes the validation of our client’s. How to you plan to implement those changes? Do you have an accurate idea of the best suited method as far as your needs are concerned? To be honest, some of our competitors already encountered the same kind of problems as we did, so they went into a pilot, which allowed them to validate changes and achievements on a sample of their hotels before deploying them everywhere. Why so many problems according to you? Our IS is not flexible enough to handle all the cases we face to. It is an accounting system rather than a decision support system (DSS). Why? I don’t know. Interview with Mr DATAMINER, in charge of Group IS Do you know the purpose of this interview? There are some people here who should hit the deck again… Your mission is to identify them. We work in my department. I have no doubt about your commitment! The chain’s hotels record a poor financial performance that can’t be explained by current economic situation. Our job is to help you to find out the reason. This interview aims at understanding your work environment and to build a solution with you. What is the IT hardware currently used? Every hotel hosts a server « COMPACQ » under WINDOWS 2003 SERVER with a SQL SERVER relational database and a Microsoft IIS server. We installed as well web services (« SOA » protocol based on « XML »), unworked so far. I’m having a very hard time with the user account creation, thus I created a single account by function. What is the network architecture? Network is radiating, a mixing store made up of concentrators distributes the cables in each aisle; which is perfect for our application. This is a client/server application, with a 3-tier architecture enabling the deployment of a true Intranet. However, employees don’t have access to Internet. Mr. DATAMINER draws the following sketch: Auteurs : Didier Cuménal –Miguel Liottier – Copyright ©2007 - 2008 – English translation Jean Pierre Esteoule 8 Why don’t they have access to Internet? I don’t know. Anyway, I don’t see what would be the use of it for them? Clients may surf using WIFI. What is the servers’ storage capacity? Server’s hard disk capacity is 160 GO. It’s far more than needed as we’ll never need a data warehouse. Managing a hotel is mainly about interpersonal skills; which is quite missing here…If you see what I mean… How many workstations connected to the server? On this one, fifteen « Dell » PC (under VISTA PRO) are connected par internal network (LAN) and there are WIFI areas. Where are they located? There are 2 workstations at the general manager’s office, 3 workstations at the booking service, 3 workstations at the reception desk, 2 at the accounting, 1 at the bar, 2 at facilities & technical service and finally 2 at the room service. What are the other peripheral hardwares? There are as well around 10 printers at the hotel (of which 2 at 80 pages/minute for accounting and reception desk); two other printers can be used as copiers. We have a backup unit, a scanner, and 2 faxes. How do the hotels communicate between each others? Auteurs : Didier Cuménal –Miguel Liottier – Copyright ©2007 - 2008 – English translation Jean Pierre Esteoule 9 The hotels are not interconnected, but a dedicated line (rented from France Télécom for too high a price) connects us to our headquarters in Marseille. What do you use such an expensive line for? We use it to upload monthly accounting and finance information from all the hotels for the Corporate to consolidate. This line is secure. We could create a VPN with an internet connexion, but then, maybe the employees would browse the web too much… What softwares are installed on the workstations? Each workstation has MS Office installed. We chose packaged software « Hotel Voyager » to manage booking, invoicing and issue some statistics. What kind of problems do you encounter with your packaged software? Data format is «propriétary» and does not allow easy communication with MS Office according to the users, particularly with Excel. If you follow step by step the procedures in the software user documentation, no problem! I gave every user a copy of pages from 112 to 127 from user guidelines where all stages are described. You only have to refer to the guide when needed, but users lack rigor and won’t make the effort. On top of it, department heads resign every 6 month one after another, there’s no training follow-up and employees are not motivated, so they don’t learn… After one year of intensive use, anyone could use it properly. For the rest, les functions of this software are displayed on the screen with menus and sub- menus. What are the software functionalities? There are 2 functionalities: - booking - reception How are the different client types managed? All types of clients are handled the same way: private persons, business, and groups. Clients will be clients, you know. This software is able to simplify things when needed! What are the different types de rooms in the system? There are four types de rooms: simple, double, triple (families with children) and suite. How can you know whether a room is vacant or not? Occupancy and occupancy rate may be viewed on the screen every day and from one day to another. So, one can check the occupancy rate of the hotel with focus both on number and types of rooms. The software will then display what is vacant, occupied or blocked. You just have to navigate there and back on the screens… A good memory and skill and there should be no problem. What are the different possible statuses of a reservation? We have two types of events: confirmed or firm reservations (payed deposit or credit card number) and pending reservations (no deposit, no credit card number). How does the system manage those different statuses? The program processes confirmed reservations as soon as the client gives his credit card numbers, puts down a deposit or comes in person the very day of his reservation. The problem is that reservations pending are stored in wait in a dedicated temporary file under SQL Server. Auteurs : Didier Cuménal –Miguel Liottier – Copyright ©2007 - 2008 – English translation Jean Pierre Esteoule 10 What are the consequences of this problem for the staff? The receptionist has then to view two screens: the one for confirmed reservations and the other for pending reservations. Some of them are not happy with that but I installed two screens on the workstations and with VISTA, you may tile the layout, and that’s it! Besides, that’s the way brokers work at the Stock Exchange, so it’s probably efficient. On the other hand, if the server goes down, pending reservations may vanish, it should encourage them to work more carefully. Do users have good reasons to complain? The bespoke software « Hotel Voyager » was badly set up by the integrator in charge of implementation. According to you, was the set up actually shoddy? I don’t know. I really took everything in charge and I delivered all that had been requested. Besides, I think the software is aligned with the business requirements. It’s the users’ fault, they use it badly! And I know they enter the reservations only afterwards, they first write them down on a handbook. A system downtime shouldn’t be really a problem in fact, users just have to move their *** to key in the data they wrote down in the handbook previously. What improvements could you propose? It should be possible to take a simple option which would update the database in real time (room assignment, client, reservation, etc.) and with automatic cancellation if client doesn’t show up at 6 pm on the day of his reservation. Where does the problem lie? The SQL « Triggers » (requests triggered by events) regarding non-confirmed reservations do not update two main tables: reservation and rooms. Only the «demand» records a movement. What access levels and authorizations have been set up? Our system is not really secure. Authorizations have not been completely designed yet (many users may easily modify, delete, create and print). It isn’t a problem when people know what they are doing. Who has access to tables? Anyone has access to tables or files from the SQL Server database. How come? I must admit there’s a serious deficiency here. I strive to solve it ASAP but with only 3 people in my team at the headquarters, it’s not so easy to have so many tasks on the go at one time! I managed all downtimes and WINDOWS 2003 SERVER is not easy to set up; I asked for training but it has been refused, so it’s no wonder if I don’t know how to create complex user accounts. Auteurs : Didier Cuménal –Miguel Liottier – Copyright ©2007 - 2008 – English translation Jean Pierre Esteoule 11 Interview with Beverly CRUSHER, in charge of Booking & Customer Service at Holodeck hotel Do you know the purpose of this interview? Yes, many managers resign and the board want to understand why. I stay because I enjoy working together with my husband. He’s the concierge of the hotel, a very good and well- organized worker. Formerly, we ran a small hotel together and I followed him when he took his post here. Your joint experience must be an advantage for the chain! The hotels of the chain are currently experiencing losses that can’t be explained by present economic circumstances. We’re gonna help you to find out why. This interview aims at understanding your work environment and to build up a solution using your experience and other inputs as well. What kind of problems do you encounter in your day-to-day work? Answering the phone is far too time-consuming. Normally, I should manage the team, but in fact, I often have to help my two team members who are overwhelmed by calls and work. How many calls do you receive per day? We receive approx. 50 reservations or inquiries for information every day. By chance, my two assistants help me during the rush hours during the season, where the number of daily calls can go up to 100 a day. It’s impossible to handle all of them, not enough staff… Does the information system help you in your work? IT is of no help for us, it’s a «yoke», far too cumbersome and not user-friendly at all, with too many menus and sub-menus to go through during a call. And if we need to send back a fax, we have to read more than 10 pages to be able to export the information to Word. What is the process triggered by a phone reservation? During a phone reservation, we never enter the data directly into the computer, in order to spare the client a long wait, which exist as well when searching for data. How could this problem be solved? In fact, after availability check on the screen, we write the collected information (here after) with a pencil in the BBB (Big Booking Book!) and then enter them into the computer during slack periods, when any… What are the required informations from the client for a reservation? Name, address, phone #, client category (leisure, business trip and in that case company name or tour operators, etc.). The operator writes down those data on her BBB and completes them with the following: reservation date, type and number of rooms, credit card (category - N° - valid until), only if he’s willing to give it by phone of course, room characteristics (simple, double, triple, suite, smoking, non smoking). She then gives the unit price of the room with discount if any, and its location (floor, orientation). How are non phone reservations managed? For clients that have been directly registered by companies or travel agencies, reservations are often made by fax, which we record as a confirmation in our systems afterwards. For travel agencies, a 25% deposit is normally required, but in fact not always applied. Auteurs : Didier Cuménal –Miguel Liottier – Copyright ©2007 - 2008 – English translation Jean Pierre Esteoule 12 How long does a phone reservation take? A call lasts approx. 10 minutes (from request and screen browsing to BBB). But it often doubles as soon as there’s a particular issue or a change. How do you cope when several clients call at the same time for a booking? During the day, there are hours more busy than others, particularly between 9:00 and 11:00 am where up to 40 calls of 10 minutes each can be recorded. This amounts to 40 calls of 10 minutes within a range of 120 minutes. And in that case, 40x10/120 = 3,3 calls should be answered at the same time. My two team members couldn’t make it without my help, but only just… You see, my service is not staffed enough! Are you able to handle all the calls during those hours? There are queues between 9:00 and 11:00 am in some seasons (spring and summer particularly). We lose many clients who are fed up with the wait and go to competition. How could that loss of business be avoided? It’s a pity that our information system does not provide interconnection between all our hotels. For instance, La grande Motte and Montpellier are not so far away from each other, and at least some reservations could be redirected, with a little rebate. Why has this idea not been implemented yet? It is not in our culture, for we could simply call the reservation desk of the other hotel to check its vacancies and redirect a reservation we can’t fulfill. How far are you satisfied with the current IS? Finally our system favors human intervention. Despite the delays and some mistakes, it’s flexible enough for our business context. What would you think of implementing a new and more performing IS? I think a new fully automated IS could make our organization too rigid. A too standardized system would act like a “yoke” make dialog adjustments with our clients more difficult! What improvements would you recommend? My service needs more staff, and to be fitted with more ergonomic phones. Indeed, after one day work with the phone jammed between our ear and shoulder to be able to write at the same time, our necks hurt. You should talk to my husband, he’s in charge of reception desk and he lacks staff in his team too. Interview with Whesley CRUSHER, in charge of reception desk at Holodeck hotel Do you know the purpose of this interview? This hotel doesn’t run full engine as compared to the others… I know the local market quite good. We do our best and this is acknowledged by the management, so the problem is to be found elsewhere! That’s why you’re here for. How are you organized at the reception desk of the hotel to welcome clients? When a client arrives at the hotel, he goes to the reception desk. The receptionist then checks on his terminal the reservation and its details. If it’s OK, the employee enters the room Auteurs : Didier Cuménal –Miguel Liottier – Copyright ©2007 - 2008 – English translation Jean Pierre Esteoule 13 number and gives the magnetic card (used as a key) and the access code for the night door. The client may of course ask to change room. In that case, the receptionist goes back to its terminal to check the alternative solutions to propose them to the client, who will accept (or not). What problems do you encounter? We have many claims and customer complaint letters you may have been shown. What kind of claims do you have? As you have probably been told, our IS discriminates confirmed reservations and pending reservations. Therefore, we need to access by the menu the temporary file of « pending reservations », locate the reservation dates, the number de rooms wanted, and then go back to the screen of confirmed reservations to control if everything is correct. The client is sincere most of the time, and it’s very difficult for us to tell him we can’t accept his reservation because of human mistakes in using the computer or a forgotten data entry! When it happens at 10:00 pm, we feel very bad, even if the client knows he should have confirmed by 6:00 pm to avoid cancellation! But the problem does not always come from here. Once, a German Tour operator sued us because we refused admission to his clients upon their arrival and he won! Clients no longer think twice before they go to court, for anything! Why are there mistakes forgotten entries? Duplication of data entered on one screen to another screen is not automatic. For instance, the data “transfer” from the pending screen reservations to the confirmed reservations screen is pure manual double entry! Moreover, we think those redundancies inflate the file sizes, without any added value. Maybe the consolidations, P&L and reports are distorted because of that? What it is possible to do with reservation data? It is theoretically possible to cancel or modify a confirmed reservation (change arrival date, number of nights, and room type but in fact, it’s not so easy. Why? Because you have to browse several sub-menus in a row (client, reservation, room). That’s strange: when a new reservation is being created, all updates are made automatically in all tables in a cascade! Once, an employee even deleted by mistake a client just making a reservation! How do you handle a confirmed reservation upon client arrival? When a client with a reservation shows up at our hotel, his reservation details may be viewed and validation can be done (triggering event for invoicing). How do you handle a pending reservation upon client arrival? If he’s a casual, we check whether there’s a room available by simulating a reservation that very day using the confirmed reservations table. Then we search in the temporary table (pending reservations) to complete the information and find the rooms. I’ve noticed that for non-confirmed clients, there’s never a problem. In those cases, they always show up. Who is in charge of invoicing the clients? You need to know that the validation of the check-in and check-out of a client triggers invoicing for the rooms and breakfasts at the reception desk. For extras (bar, mini-bar in the Auteurs : Didier Cuménal –Miguel Liottier – Copyright ©2007 - 2008 – English translation Jean Pierre Esteoule 14 rooms, WI FI, etc.), the accounting service is in charge of launching the invoicing. Accounting has a hard time retrieving those informations in order to guarantee an invoice to within about a Euro cent. Sometimes, they even do it manually! What improvements would you propose? My service needs more staff! The one of my wife is saturated every day between 9:00 and 11:00 am and mine between 11:00 and 2:00 pm then again around 6:00 pm. She would be OK to help but this is precisely the time when she enters the reservations made on the morning into the software. Interview with Olivier MORROW, in charge of accounting and cash desk Do you know the purpose of this interview? We need to find who’s responsible for all that! Or maybe WHAT is responsible! The hotels of the chain are currently experiencing losses that can’t be explained by present economic circumstances. We’re gonna help you to find out why. This interview aims at understanding your work environment and to build up a solution using your experience and other inputs as well. Which service is in charge of invoicing? There are two accountants in the service located in the back of reception desk. When he leaves, the client checks out at the reception desk and pays the invoice. How long does it take? The client has to wait some ten minutes with his luggage, so that the accountants prepare the invoice and check it. How do you proceed? As you’ve probably been told, we launch the invoicing process because of the extra to invoice on top (bar, mini-bar and cold in the rooms, WI FI, etc.). It’s a pity that the reception desk is not in charge of launching this accounting & financial process. Why? When presented to the client, the invoice still contains mistakes in the reservation date de (Number of nights), price, etc. We then have to correct it, which makes the client angry and causes one more loss of time for all. Do you encounter other problems? We are accountants and cashiers at the same time. Which is by the way an issue as far as data security is concerned. Because of the way the organization is designed, we have access both to invoicing and cash programs; we both make scriptures and handle money. What would an auditor think of that? The programs should at least have multiple access levels, password protected, in order to mitigate risks of embezzlement which certainly never happened, but who knows? Could you describe the process? Auteurs : Didier Cuménal –Miguel Liottier – Copyright ©2007 - 2008 – English translation Jean Pierre Esteoule 15 We break down the revenue of the day, and then consolidate it monthly and quarterly for the general management of the hotel and for the Corporate as well. Of course, we cash deposits on reservations, and payments on check outs (CC, checks and cash) We’re miles away from DSS and BI, this is pure accounting we make here. We know that competitors have prospective dashboards (He’s talking about “balanced Scorecard”), but we don’t know exactly what it is. What solutions would you propose? If only there were a monthly dashboard with confirmed/pending reservations, a record for company and travel agency accounts for dunning purposes, particularly the travel agency who are granted a 90-day payment term they don’t always comply to! It would be a good start. But are the data reliable in the database? Shouldn’t we make an audit of the IS quality before doing anything else? Reportedly no, but is it really sure? Interview with Francis WHORF, Group Deputy General Manager, in charge of customer relationship management Who are you? Francis Whorf, Group deputy general manager, in charge of customer relationship. Do you know the purpose of this interview? Of course! I wrote your letter of engagement… Help us to find the solution, you’re desperately needed! How is your service organized? The synthesis system service: - Handles client claims - Answers - Establishes statistics on activity The network client service - develops business with companies and tour operators - Proposes reservation packages - Takes the orders What are your objectives? Building of group customer loyalty: to create more meeting points with our clients to know their profile better. To vary our range of services: to meet customers’ expectations at best. Where does the problem lies, according to you? At the headquarters: data and processing consolidation is done based on a series of Excel spreadsheets sent by all hotels by mails and attachments. How would you do things? Control the profitability of the group’s different activities by consolidation of sales with: - Indicators measuring sales efficiency (issued proposals, orders in progress…) - signed proposals, sales people compensation… - Indicators measuring sales and cash collection (average turnover, cash risk follow-up…) Auteurs : Didier Cuménal –Miguel Liottier – Copyright ©2007 - 2008 – English translation Jean Pierre Esteoule 16 - Internal JIT indicators for each hotel (headcount, hours, number of operations handled by employee …) Cross and consolidate the client reservation files with external files such as phone data recorded and stored by every hotel of the group. Issue statistics to better target our clients: new clients, “sleeping”clients, active clients. Why do you encounter those difficulties? - The group has a poor client insight and so can’t meet its client expectations. - The information consolidation at the headquarters is cumbersome, time-consuming and not reliable. What improvements would you recommend? I count on you for this. Data are not reliable, that’s what I miss and I will be available any time during your engagement to explain to you what I mean when I say “reliable data”. Auteurs : Didier Cuménal –Miguel Liottier – Copyright ©2007 - 2008 – English translation Jean Pierre Esteoule 17 Typical complaint letter of a dissatisfied client Mr. J. Henry Attention of Mr Jean Luc Picard 3 Boulevard des Mimosas CEO 06150 Cannes La Boca « Hotels Next Generation » 1 avenue St Maurice 13000 Marseille Cannes, September the 26th, 2008 Dear Sir, May I notice you my utmost indignation due to the following: I called one of your hotels named « Holodeck », in order to book room pour two nights a fortnight later. First, I had to wait for 10 minutes to get a confirmation, the reservation service being reportedly overwhelmed by calls! One week later, I got a phone call of the CRM manager noticing me it had to be cancelled because of a tourist group who had booked before me, and that I had to choose another date. I kindly accepted and put my reservation back by two days. After a change in my business agenda, I had to change my reservation less than four days before my scheduled arrival and once more, I had to wait on the for at least 20 minutes this time! I’ve finally been told it was possible. Two days before my arrival à the hotel Holodeck, I thought it wiser to phone for confirmation. I’ve been put through the service reception desk who informed me I was not registered, to my great surprise! The person on the phone gave me complex explanations about delays in reservation updates, etc. I was finally asked to call back a Lady Beverly Crusher who reassured me, telling me I had been retrieved «one of the computer files». However, I realized the reservation was wrong: indeed, I was registered for the same date, but one month later! As I was really irritated and without any idea to get out of this mess, I phoned once again and I was put through to someone called Mr William Riker who answered me quite roughly that everything had been arranged and my reservation date on the right month had been confirmed. And finally, to cap it all, I found a mistake on my invoice at the end of my stay. I was furious and went to the receptionist of the hotel who very politely answered to me he could not be held responsible for invoicing mistakes. For that purpose, I had to meet a gentleman called Mr Olivier Morow, in charge of accounting and cash desk. What I did immediately. This gentleman explained to me that the software had some problems to update the data when changes in reservation occurred and did not include the extras (bar, room mini bar, Internet, etc.). Sometimes, those mistakes were in favor of the client! Finally, price errors regarding the room and number of nights reserved have been corrected. I’ve been given a new hand-written invoice along with a voucher for a free night in a hotel of your chain! At this point, I wanted to have a conversation with the General Manager of your hotel in order to explain him all the reason of my complaint in a constructive mindset. I Auteurs : Didier Cuménal –Miguel Liottier – Copyright ©2007 - 2008 – English translation Jean Pierre Esteoule 18  have been told he was on holiday and I should try to call again in a fortnight to get an appointment. I couldn’t talk to a true manager on site right away! I’m quite sure I will never again stay in one of your hotels because of those intolerable failures, for which I’m still waiting for an explanation, with nobody really in charge of those problems. Best regards, J. Henry Mr J. Henry General Manager of the daily « Midi indépendant » Auteurs : Didier Cuménal –Miguel Liottier – Copyright ©2007 - 2008 – English translation Jean Pierre Esteoule 19 TO DO: your MISSION ACT 1: your 1st MISSION Based on the information gathered here above, you are required to establish a business case regarding the advisability of launching a process re- engineering project. You will use the documentation here above delivered to you for that purpose. You will have to diagnose the causes of the fall in activity, turnover and profitability. ACT 2: your 2nd MISSION Based on the information here above gathered during the interviews, you are kindly required to draw up: Your business requirements (cahier des charges) including the user needs according to the file delivered to you. Do not forget to describe overall context and constraints (diagnosis), the target scenario for to be IS for this hotel, by drawing up a target functional tree. As a related activity during the “IT break period” (césure informatique) you will set up your conceptual data model, logical data model to build an « Access » database. This work will be carried out during the “césure informatique” and evaluation will be done at that time. ACT 3: your 3rd MISSION Draw up DSS dashboards clearly describing the key indicators selected with their periodicity and unit of measure, and necessary inputs or data. They have to be consistent with the user needs and the strategy. You may illustrate this using Word or PowerPoint. The scope is the group of hotels. 2) Build a dashboard using Excel or any like-application in order to carry out a multidimensional analysis of the Datamart’s data. Those are business-related data, for instance reservation activities, financial figures, client typology, regions, time, etc. Datamart’s data will be thus synthesized and may be viewed different ways (viewpoint of every manager). With this dashboard and its few indicators, you’ll be able, if relevant, to build the SWOT for the group « Hotels Next Generation ». Auteurs : Didier Cuménal –Miguel Liottier – Copyright ©2007 - 2008 – English translation Jean Pierre Esteoule 20  APPENDIX 1. Example of an Intranet reservation form 2. Location 3. Example of an invoice 1) INTRANET RESERVATION FORM (DEFINITE) Auteurs : Didier Cuménal –Miguel Liottier – Copyright ©2007 - 2008 – English translation Jean Pierre Esteoule 21  2) MAPS Languedoc Roussillon Regions Auteurs : Didier Cuménal –Miguel Liottier – Copyright ©2007 - 2008 – English translation Jean Pierre Esteoule 22  3) EXAMPLE OF AN INVOICE HOTEL HOLODECK 32 avenue de Palavas 34 000 Montpellier Tél : 0437838383 Fax : 0437999999 E-mail : [email protected] Site : http://www.holodeck.com INVOICE N°........ DATE../../…. Stay from../../.. to../../..Room N° … N° client ……... Attn. of ………………………………………………………………….. ………………………………………………………………………………….... Date Description Amount (€) 29/09/08 Single room XX,xx 30/09/08 « « XX,xx 29/09/08 bar XX,xx 29/09/08 CWi Fi Internet XX,xx Amount exclusive of tax (€) XXX,xx Special discount 10% VAT (19.6%) XXX,xx Amount all tax included (€) XXX,xx Payment (CC, Check) CB SA « Hotel Holodeck»….. N° Siren …………… Code APE ………….. Auteurs : Didier Cuménal –Miguel Liottier – Copyright ©2007 - 2008 – English translation Jean Pierre Esteoule 23