Implementing IT-based Improvements For Future Growth At Home Away From Home, An Essay.

Overview of Home Away From Home

Question:

Discuss about the Systems Implementation Plan.

Home away from home is a large organization employing about 3000 men and women from a wide background like catering, hospitality, IT, management etc. HAFH has been in hospitality business for like a decade now and it has grown admirably to reach where it stands tall today.

Perhaps we have been very complacent about our achievements that we aren’t able to keep up with the quality we have been always provided to our business clientele and customer base. A growing service based industry needs to keep itself updated with the latest IT cum growth culture otherwise it takes less than a fortnight to be left years behind. We have proposed a wide set of improvements to be implemented in order to keep the market share and expand grabbing more of it.

The various systems which have been adentified for being implemented are as follws:

1. Upgrading WIFI in all our hotels, motels, appartments as we have been getting complaints from our most regular client base.
2. PCs are slow and hence it needs to be upgraded, CRT screens needs to be replaced with latest LED screens for performance as well as looks of it. All the existing windows XP needs to be updated to Win 10.
3. A strategy needs to be designed for the implementation of BookIT & CookIT packages as it would take 20 and 15 hours respectively to become fully functional.
4. Now for the expansion, as per our current data analysis, we can see that if we provide Conference and Event IT management services, we can grow by 12%, hence implementation of associated hardware and software is to be undertaken.

For implementation of the BookmIT and CookIT, the log files  of all the employees needs to be kept handy as it is very likely that we will be facing shortage of human resources for a short period.

Store rooms needs to be kept ready for receiving computer hardware as well as furniture in all the respective hotels, appartments.

Software packages needs to be bought beforehand and their respective service engineers are required to be intimidated beforehand.

• Hardware Requirements : New PCs need to be bought with new Window 10 OS. WiFi routers also need to be purchased with a throughput of 100MBPS.
• Software Requirements: Windows 10 OS and softwares for managing routers and networking are required.
• Data Requirements: Since the entire IT service would be centralized, it would need servers used previously to be stationed so that data analytics could be run, facilitating predictive analysis for the growth of the company.

Since, HAFH is a group of hotels and apartments at various locations, an IT service desk central to all needs to be set up. This would be done at our largest hotel, which would house the server room, technicians and the security and maintenance staff..

• The upgrading of WiFi would be done one by one at all the locations in a span of about a week using our core IT team.

For the WiFi coverage, I think the best most economical way would be to make the ISP as a partner for billing, as it’s a large project and the cost for the wifi is deducted with the hotel bill and not separately. For this we can use a billing partner which would supply the equipment & hotspot system. Such ISPs usually provide and install wifi in hotels, shopping centres etc and have a lot of experience in setting up wifi networks. Usually they charge 25% - 50% of the revenue from the hotspot.

• Again, as the number of computers we need to buy are more than 150 for the server room, IT service desk, analytics team and reception meeting rooms and to be newly introduced conference rooms, we need to ask for quotations from wholesale dealers of computers and parts and also the warrantee and extraneous maintenance. The printers and copiers should also be applied here and bought together as it would help reduce cost or/and get a package deals from the companies.
• The installations of the printers and copiers should be done following the installation of the wifi hotspots at different locations so that they can be networked together cutting cost and saving time.
• As a thirdparty “Hospitality Solutions” is responsible for the modification of the old modules and introduction of BookIT and CookIT which would be taking about 20 and 15 hours respectively, we will have to have an interim arrangement. Also the thing to be noted is that since we are setting up a central IT service desk for monitoring and quality control, the calls or requests for reservation to meals would be processed at the central desk located in the largest hotel. We need to install and modify the package at only one location. I propose that:

1. Calls for booking the hotels rooms, reservation of appartments etc would be diverted to a make shift call centre for the interim period.
2. In case the management decides that the registration or booking though BookIT is to be made central but CookIT be distributed at respective service locations, then the other nearest facility of the group would take over the operations for the period of modification. This will make sure that the customers are not affected by the work.

• For the central hotel, and other hotels, as we might face a shortage of crew, we have an option of limited booking for the day of operation at a particular location, otherwise showing “Sold Out” on the app and web. The crew then can be utilized in the upgrade.
• Now for the expansion of the services, some civil construction work also needs to be dome which might again put some negative impoact on out customer reviews. Hence this work should be dome gradually and major civil cork should be dome only when there is no reservation on that particular day, this can be achieved by shifting the other customers or allowing no booking for a particular day, the date for such has to be decided well in advance.

• Providing overall planning and coordination for the implementation- this would make sure that the job is done in time, with proper and judicious utilization of resources.
• Preparing site facilities for implementation – this would minimize the wastage of resources and make sure that it is task is delivered timely.
• Providing personnel for the implementation team- this is a very important task which ensures that the job of implementation of the systems would be done effectively and efficiently.
• Acquiring system hardware & software- since we need to update the routers and windows OS software we will have to get these things beforehand.
• Configuring and testing hardware & software is required since we have to reassure that all the systems are working as they should.
• Configuring and testing networks needs to be performed and we have to test weather the new networks are capable enough to host 100 bookings and orders at a time. We also have to be sure of a backup of the network and associated servers in case of a failure.
• Security features of the system- we need back up the data on special backup servers. 

The conference and IT management service needs to start for the first time, since this would also have some civil construction work, the hotel or other property need to be vacated so no booking for that particular day and would be carried out one by one for all the hotels so that the customers might be accommodated in other hotels should the need arise. 

All the training and documentation of the implementation shall be provided by the partner billing company and maintenance log will have to be created for the proper record for the future use.

This will be done in a months time on daily basis for all the commercial properties.

Since, we will have ISP  as billing partner, all the staff will be provided by the billing company.

The data scientist team at the central IT service disk will monitor all the networks and data post implementation to see the changes in business as a result of the work done.

We shall have backup servers for any issue with the servers.

All the installed system would be tested continuously, customer reviews would be taken and then fed into the data stream for analyzing, mean while data though social network and others, cheking the ratio of new to returning customers would say everything.

References

• NQA, October 2016, Where to Begin With Integrated Management System Implementation, https://www.qualitydigest.com/inside/management-article/101116-where-begin-integrated-management-system-implementation.html#

• Patricia Lotich, May 2016, 12 Steps to Implementing a Quality Management System, https://thethrivingsmallbusiness.com/12-steps-to-implementing-a-quality-management-system/

• Patricia Lotich, August 2017, 8 Steps to Implementing Successful Organizational Change, https://thethrivingsmallbusiness.com/8-steps-to-implementing-successful-organizational-change/

• Cathrine Adenle, February 2015, 20 Effective Ways to Involve and Support Employees During Change, https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/20-effective-ways-involve-support-employees-during-change-adenle

• Susan M. Heathfield, September 2017, Learn How to Make Strategic Planning Implementation Work, https://www.thebalance.com/how-to-make-strategic-planning-implementation-work-1919184

• https://www.solarwinds.com/network-monitoring-best-practices

• https://www.dynatrace.com/topics/network-monitoring/network-performance-monitoring/

• GFI Softwares, 2011, The Business implications of not having backup strategy: Where business get it wrong, https://www.gfi.com/whitepapers/The_Business_Implications_of_not_having_a_Backup_Strategy.pdf

• Microsoft, October 2011, https://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/develop-backup-plan-1(v=ws.11).asp

• Kevin Lo, Elliot Harmon and ONE/Northwest, April 2012, Your Organization’s Backup Strategy, https://www.techsoup.org/support/articles-and-how-tos/your-organizations-backup-strategy