How to Choose a Property Management System How to Choose a Property Management System Welcome to How to Choose a Property Management System (PMS). Selecting the best PMS for your property is one of the most critical decisions that you will face. We developed this guide to provide you with a road map for making the best possible decision. If you are wondering why a company that develops a PMS would publish a guide that does not directly promote its own products, the answer is simple. Our goal is to be of service to you and for every client to be a reference site. You need good, objective information to make the best decision. The more you know about the elements of a great PMS, the more likely you are to select our solution - UniResMan. But ultimately, we want to put the power of the decision in your hands. And the best way to do that is with great information. We hope that you find this guide useful. We at UniDevCo hope that we may be of service in helping you succeed with your PMS selection. Why Implement a New PMS? It is important that you are clear on your reasons for implementing a new PMS. There can be a wide range of valid reasons, just as there can be a wide range of misguided reasons. Determine why you want to change then examine the business case and return on investment (ROI). To assist you in this exercise, here are a few points to consider: · The ease with which guests can make reservations and the speed that you can check them in and out can greatly improve the guest experience. · A more user-friendly interface can improve staff effectiveness thereby increasing productivity and staff satisfaction. · The elimination of manual processes can reduce or eliminate errors and speed up access to important information for decision making. · Maintaining more detailed guest preferences allows you to provide a higher standard of service and to customize marketing efforts. · A scalable solution allows you to grow with your new system without having to change systems and retrain staff. This provides maximum leverage and ROI. · The ability to seamlessly integrate to other external systems (like POS or telephone systems) will further reduce the requirements for manual intervention. · Quick and easy access to key reports and the ability to create ad hoc queries will provide a competitive advantage and aid in better decision making with up-to-date information. Many hoteliers stay with their current PMS too long. There is an understandable reluctance to change because of the fear or apprehension involved with something new. There are time and resource issues to consider as well. With proper evaluation and a thoughtful implementation strategy, these issues can be closely managed and minimized. The resulting gains in productivity and improvements to guest service will far outweigh any costs to your business. You should be able to attain a measurable ROI that will make the effort well worth your while. Getting Started The success of any new technology implementation can be assured with emphasis on one primary activity; planning. A thoughtful approach will guarantee that you get the best system; that all stakeholders have taken ownership of the project’s success; that all requirements are being satisfied; that a realistic timeline is anticipated and adhered to; and that there are few, if any, surprises. Involve the Right People The success or failure of your project may come down to ownership. The best laid plans and the best software solution can fall flat without the proper level of buy-in from every level of the organization that will have a stake in the outcome. Before planning your strategy and implementation, be sure to appoint a project leader with the authority to see that all aspects of the plan are carried out in a timely and effective manner. You may also need to include managers for all functional areas such as reservations, management reporting, distribution and yield management (GDS, IDS, etc.), conference, catering, housekeeping and maintenance. Depending on the size of your operation, this could be as few as one or two people. To ensure that all concerns are being met, you should consider adding people to your team who are not in favor of a new system. Open dialog and honest criticism will increase your chances of success. System Users These are people who will use the PMS daily. They need it to be intuitive, user-friendly, and have easy, logical navigation and workflow. All changes should be made with the idea of improving the guest experience. This can mean speeding up check in and out among other things. It will translate directly into your staffs’ ability to easily use the software. Managers Managers will require specific financial and operations reports for themselves, for upper level executives and for property owners. They must be able to direct system users on how to effectively provide this information. System Customers PMS customers will be found throughout your organization at all levels and in many departments. They will rely on the reports that the system users generate in order to properly run their departments and the property as a whole. They may not understand the fundamentals of the PMS, but they do require the information supplied by the software to do their jobs. System Signoffs These are the people who must give final approval to acquire the new system. This group may include representatives from Information Systems (IS), reservation management, the General Manager and possibly even the owner depending upon the size and nature of the property. It is important to have involvement from as high a level in the organization as possible to help ensure commitment to the project. IS Staff Your IS staff, if you have any, should be closely involved with the PMS selection since they will typically play a key role in its implementation and integration to other external systems such as POS, guest room systems (movies, telephone, minibar), and back office accounting for instance. Their involvement at every stage will help to ensure a smooth implementation. Understand Your Requirements In order to select the best PMS for your property it is imperative that you gain a keen understanding of the requirements of all users and customers. The best and easiest way to accomplish this is to conduct a brief interview with each of them in each functional area. Determine what they like about the current system, what works well and what is on their wish list for improvements. Bear in mind, however, that most people are resistant to change, so it is important to sift through what users may say they like, but in reality they have simply become accustomed to doing it that way. It may not be the most effective or efficient method. Remember that any changes considered should be with the intention of improving the guest experience. Almost certainly this will translate to improved efficiencies. Examine Your Current Processes Before you can consider improvements to your current system, Mistakes People Make when Selecting a PMS Mistake 1: Not doing enough homework. The process for selecting a Property Management System takes time and effort. Understanding the requirements of all users and gathering as much information as possible on available solutions is critical. You are already ahead of most people because you are reading this booklet. Mistake 2: Passing the buck. Top management and key personnel must be involved and committed to the selection and implementation process. Primary responsibility should be assigned to someone with the authority to make decisions. You should not rely solely on the vendor or reseller to handle the job. Mistake 3: Ignoring hard-to-quantify benefits. There will be a number of hard-to-quantify benefits that come from implementing a new PMS; better guest service and loyalty, improved staff morale, better decision making and many more potential benefits. These results can have a dramatic impact on your property’s profitability. create a process map of your current situation to get a better visual understanding of the process flow. Once again, look at your current process with guest experience in mind. Identify the steps in the process that could be improved. Look for inefficient timing and steps that require both automated and manual processes. Document your improvement in a new process diagram. Do not add new automation or replace current systems until you have identified where to improve your processes. With this information you will be well prepared to select the most appropriate solutions. Don’t delay your selection because you are waiting for the “perfect” solution. It may not exist today but may be obtainable over a reasonable period of time by working with cooperative vendors. Current Process © Copyright Advanced Concept Center, LLC 2004. All rights reserved. Reworked Process © Copyright Advanced Concept Center, LLC 2004. All rights reserved. Questions to Ask What is the impact of inaccuracies? Incorrect or the inability to access information can have a detrimental effect on guest experiences. The ability to quickly and accurately process guest transactions as well as cater to their preferences can help build guest loyalty and repeat business. Is it necessary to track guest preferences? Lately more and more emphasis is being placed on the ability to cater to every guest’s individual preferences. We are in the hospitality industry so our objective must be to provide the most enjoyable experience possible for our guests. Once again, this will have a big impact on loyalty and a preference for your property. What reports are not currently being generated or are being generated manually? There is a wide range of reports required to maintain a profitable and efficient lodging operation. Many are standard and should be readily available from your PMS. In some instances you will have unique information requirements that may not be provided out-of-the-box. Be sure that any system you select has the capability to produce custom, ad-hoc queries or reports without extensive programming. This can get expensive. The ability to develop these queries or reports in-house can be a significant advantage providing you the ability to react quickly to changing market conditions. Which external systems need to be integrated? With any lodging property there can be a number of disparate systems being used in different departments; the restaurant POS, guest room systems like movies and mini bars, telephone and call accounting systems among others. It will be advantageous to have many of these systems integrated to your PMS to minimize manual intervention and to ensure that all relevant billings flow through to the guest folio. Decide which systems require integration. This will have an impact on the cost and implementation timeline. This question brings up the issue of whether it is better to look for an integrated solution from a single vendor or to go for a best-ofbreed solution. That question is discussed in more detail later in this document. What information is required for strategic decisions? Be sure that you have access to any historical information you require to plan future strategies. This may include ADR and occupancy rates by season, guest profiles or other elements of historical data. Having easy access to this data for analytical purposes will provide a valuable resource for planning future marketing activities and setting room rates for specific dates among other things. Create a List of Required Features As with any process for evaluating and selecting new systems there will be a number of features that are essential or must haves and a number that are nice to haves. Develop a list of features that must be part of your new PMS in order for you to operate effectively. Next, create a wish list for those features that would be nice but are not essential. Decide on which features you are willing to be flexible. Having this list will make it easier for you to narrow down your field of viable candidate products. Narrow the Field Once you have done the preliminary work described earlier in this document you will be in an excellent position to begin your search for a new PMS. You now know your requirements. The next step is to find out which products can satisfy those requirements within your budget. You will almost certainly have a number of viable options. There are a number of factors to consider that will narrow the field considerably for you. Ultimately you want to be left with a list of more than one viable candidate. Consider Budget Before beginning to evaluate various product options, try to get an idea of price points for the various candidates. You can save a great deal of time by eliminating those from the selection criteria that are priced outside of your budget. Prices for different PMSs can vary dramatically, ranging from a few hundred dollars to well into the tens or hundreds of thousands of dollars. Try to determine an approximate cost as early as possible to avoid wasting both your time and the vendors’ time. Best-of-Breed vs Integrated System There has been an ongoing debate over the past few years among industry pundits as to whether it is preferable to implement a fully integrated solution from a single vendor or whether you are better off with best-of-breed applications from a variety of vendors. Traditionally, single vendor solutions have provided tighter integration among the different systems providing for greater interoperability. The sacrifice is generally a lesser feature set. Conversely, best-ofbreed solutions have traditionally provided for a more robust feature set but sacrificed connectivity. These traditional arguments may become a moot point with new initiatives being spearheaded by technology leaders in the hospitality industry with the support of companies like Microsoft. Hotel Technology Next Generation (HTNG) is a nonprofit organization founded by leading hotel technology executives seeking to facilitate the development of new, customer-centric technologies to better serve the needs of the global hotel community. HTNG aims to achieve a flexible technical environment by establishing technology standards that will allow multiple vendors’ systems to interoperate. The HTNG initiative should level the playing field so you are free to choose the system(s) that best suits your requirements from a feature/benefit standpoint without concern for their ability to integrate to other systems. Select a System That’s Right for You After you have done a thorough evaluation of your current system, interviewed all system users managers and other stakeholders to determine their requirements, and developed your feature list of required and optional elements, you can now begin to evaluate potential solutions and vendors. Short List Potential Solutions Your budget will eliminate certain vendors and narrow the field for you initially. You should attempt to create a short list of a few viable candidates of which you can do a more thorough examination. If you stick to your game plan by focusing on your requirements and the guest experience, you will get through the short listing process quickly. Remember that you are not just selecting a Property Management System – you’re also choosing a business partner. Ask the vendor or reseller to provide you with the following information: · Estimate software license costs for your implementation. · Estimate any cost for potential custom work required to adapt the system to your specific requirements. · Timeframe for implementation. · Annual support and maintenance options and costs. · Training methodology and costs including incidentals. · A plan for integrating other systems as How to Prepare for Product Presentations A software presentation is one of the best ways for your team to get an understanding of the capabilities of a particular solution. Take full advantage of this opportunity by following these guidelines: Inform vendors or resellers about your specific needs in advance. By informing the presenter ahead of time about your specific requirements, they can prepare a demonstration that will deal with your issues. That way you can be more assured of seeing what is important to you and making the best use of your time. Be sure to have your core team attend. Make it a priority to keep all team members updated on all appointments and have their commitment to attend. Each member has a different perspective that must be addressed for the project to be a success. Encourage open dialogue so that all concerns are addressed. By keeping everyone involved in all stages you will ensure that the best choices are made with all points of view represented. Plan a series of questions. Have your team come up with a set of questions for each presenter. The order in which you ask the questions may be as important as the questions themselves. It is easy to get off track and this will help keep everyone focused and make the best use of your time. Set up a scoring system to track how your issues are handled with each product. With some type of scoring or tally system you will be able to easily recall how a particular presenter was able to address a specific issue or concern or feature requirement. It will also serve as a useful tool when it comes time to do your final comparisons and selection. Ask for a follow up on issues that were not fully addressed. There may be questions, concerns or issues that arise during the presentation that require the presenter to consult with colleagues for an answer. They may be more complex technical questions required. Insist on User-Friendly Software Keep in mind that, even if a PMS promises all of the features that you require, if your staff is unable to effectively navigate through the various screens and functions, you won’t realize the functional improvements that those features should deliver. An intuitive and logical user-interface is critical to gain the maximum benefits from your system. Once again, if you look at user-interface from the perspective of the guest experience, the ease of which your staff is able to navigate through a check-in or check-out process, for example, will have a big impact on that experience. Consider these questions during your review process: · How easy is it to use the primary screens where the data is entered or managed? · How easy is it to navigate between the different modules of the product? · What type of documentation, help files and training will be provided? Here is an example that may help with judging the user-friendliness of the interface. A guest calls requesting the availability and cost of a non-smoking room with a queensize bed for June 1, 2010. How many keystrokes and how much time does it take to answer this question? Get Flexible Reporting There are a few things to consider when you look at the reporting options of various systems. Does the software have the capability to produce all the reports and analysis that you require? Almost certainly there will be a standard set of reports included, but does the application provide the ability for you to develop custom queries and reports easily, without programming expertise? The ability for system users to do ad hoc queries and analysis can save time and expense as well as provide a competitive advantage. Evaluate Technical Support For mission critical applications like your PMS, you need to be confident that you will have access to responsive technical support resources. Check for options to ensure that you can get a service level agreement with which you are comfortable. For example, you may want to have access to technical support 24/7 for issues that may arise during night audit or other issues that may arise after normal business hours. Ask About Customizability You may encounter the situation where in order to get the complete functionality that you require, customization of the application in question may be required. If that is the case you need to be sure that it is possible, how much it will cost, and what the implications are for new revisions of the product from both a timing and cost perspective. Customization should be considered only if you can’t satisfy your requirements with an off-the-shelf solution. Think of it like buying a made-to measure suit. It will cost a bit more and involve more time (and potential inconvenience), but the result will be a perfect fit. Just be sure to go into it with your eyes open. Ensure Options for Growth (scalability) It is important to consider your growth or rollout plans when selecting a PMS. Choose a solution that allows you to leverage your investment for many years as you add more rooms or amenities or as you add new properties. By selecting a system that can expand as you do, you will eliminate the need to replace the system and retrain your staff. That can equate to huge savings in time and money. Take Ownership One of the most common reasons cited by vendors and resellers for client dissatisfaction is due to the lack of commitment to the project by the client. The clients in these cases did not assign appropriate resources to keep abreast of the project and see it through. As a result, the vendor/reseller was left to make judgment calls leading to what was likely an unanticipated outcome by the client. every process and report and generally do everything that you do now plus all of the new features that helped you select your new PMS. Only when you are confident that it works as you require should you go live. Situations like this are entirely avoidable. Take ownership and responsibility for the success of the project. As discussed earlier in this document, be sure that the person(s) in charge has sufficient authority to make decisions and keep the project moving forward. Provide Good Training Test Before you Launch With any mission critical application you should carry out extensive testing before launching it into a production environment. You will want to test every component for a reasonable period of time to ensure that everything is functioning properly and no aspects of the workflow have been overlooked. Push every button, run Your staff will be the key to the ultimate success of your PMS. Proper training will ensure that they are able to take advantage of all of the features that helped you select your system. With staff turnover it is likely that you will experience feature erosion as information gets passed from one user to the next. You can avoid feature erosion by providing periodic refresher training classes to existing and new staff members. By including retraining as part of an ongoing maintenance program for your PMS you will maximize your investment by taking advantage of the full feature set and the benefits that it provides. About UniDevCo UniDevCo has been an application software developer for more than 14 years providing business intelligence software for the SMB market. UniDevCo products are distributed world-wide and have been focused on the ACCPAC® Accounting client base. These products are widely sold and supported. UniResMan was first introduced into the South African market more than eight years ago to rave reviews and is widely used to this day. More recent history has seen a major re-engineering of UniResMan to implement it with the latest industry tools and technology and with a feature set that meets the demands of today’s challenging hospitality environment. UniResMan is now a fully integrated Windows based property management system that ranks among the best in the business. At UniDevCo, we believe that a robust system coupled with reliable service is paramount. Therefore, we rely on the most innovative use of proven technology to bring you systems that you can trust to build your business. We are proud of this distinction as well as our commitment to our business partners, clients and the industry in general. How to Choose a Property Management System UniDevCo, Inc. 2420 Haywood Avenue West Vancouver, BC V7V 1Y1 604-926-3215 www.UniResMan.com Copyright © 2004 UniDevCo, Inc. All rights reserved. UniDevCo, the UniDevCo logo, UniResMan and the UniResMan logo are trademarks of UniDevCo, Inc. All other marks are registered trademarks or trademarks of their respective companies.