Group items tagged

This article contains information about the talks that will be occurring between the U.S. and China about hacking and cyber-security. According to U.S. officials, there is a "daily barrage of computer break-ins and theft of corporate and government secrets." These attacks are assumed to be from China. The objective of these talks is to establish some rules and behavioral standards between both countries under the topics of security and "commercial espionage." No changes are suggested to be made immediately, but the U.S. hopes that the talks can result in a small, constant change between the countries. These talks will begin in July. This article seemed important in my opinion since the topic of this week in class was about cloud computing. If these two countries participated in a similar business function and used cloud computing to store important information, there could be arising issues. All of the important information could be jeopardized by hacking. By both countries coming to an agreement on the terms of cyber-security, this could possibly open up new opportunities for both countries to work together or expand businesses to one another. This does not mean that hacking will stop in its entirety. However, it could be the beginning of the step in the right direction.

This article by Jaikumar Vijayan from CIO.com is very interesting because it provides a challenging question between personal privacy and public security. The government program code-named PRISM is the motive in which the government is using to gather statistical information. In my opinion, extreme privacy without scrutiny is not more valuable than the safety of Americans or other would-be victims. I don't think it is completely accurate that the stated companies such as Google, Skype, Facebook, Microsoft, etc. don't provide the "back door" for government agencies because they have loyalty to both consumers and the government. Completely free reign and unfettered access to government agencies is a stretch, but to say security agencies have absolutely no right to look for evidence or track suspicious activity for relevant threats and possible attacks is completely unfounded and uneducated. It would be a much larger folly for governments to not track terrorist activities and let their networks run free then to not study behaviors and contacts. Otherwise, people of bad intentions would communicate easily and freely without consequences and proper agencies have no leg-up on potentially dangerous situations. The American people have their right to privacy, but the founding fathers never could have imagined a world where it is so easy to exchange information, tactics or events so quickly. Even contemporary technical analysts and engineers couldn't fathom the technology we have now just 30 years before the internet became publicly accessible. And if they did it is safe to assume they're security measures would have been the priority of American lives than somebody scared of having their facebook messages or Google e-mail snooped on. After all, if you're not a terrorist, and surely you aren't if you're reading this, what is there to hide?

AN HRIS system is a computer program that allows a company to electronically store information about their employees. HRIS eases the work of managing daily employee related issues. HRIS stores a large collection of databases on employees and employee issues. Information included in the databases include employee names, their contact information, and any training they may have received. HRIS systems make it more efficient for a company as it can process payroll and benefits information electronically rather than having to rely on the traditional pen and paper. Storing information in the databases makes it more secure against the potential of tampering and theft.

This article describe some advantages of HRIS, such as data storage, ease update and efficiency. HRIS has huge data storage, it can easy to track employees' working behavior; ease update, HRIS is a computer system, it can easy to delete can update any data; and in some field, it can be a replacement of handwriting.

This is a recent article from Kelly, co-founder of Click mail Marketing, in which she suggests three tips to get started as an eMarketer. She suggests that should add a click to chat link to your email, use cookies to spur email offering and sales, and to create customer loyalty newsletter.

This brief article is taken from Forbes and in it Paul Dunay offers 10 Predictions (or expectations in some cases) for the year in e-commerce. It has been seen that e-commerce has grown year to year, specifically on Cyber Monday which shows people are spending more online. The predictions range from consumer expectations to the use of personal data collected by companies. In my opinion the predictions are very straight forward and almost assumed in today's technological world in regards to customer expectations. The prediction of companies using data they have collected to help improve their e-commerce experience is very intriguing however, and suprising that this is not common practice already. It will be very interesting to see if & how these predicitions develop, especially with social media and the use of personal data. Overall it's an interesting article and provokes some good thought on e-commerce.

the choiceadvantage system is the same as the WebRezPro. they are both doing the guest reservation, financial management, data collection and remote access. the choiceadvantage is cheap as the WebRezPro. many countries' hotels has installed this system. also the choiceadvantage has a cooperation wiith Microsoft software. this behavior makes the choiceadvantage more professional. it is also a web-based solution so it is cheaper than the traditional PMS. low maintenance fee and easily operation are the advantages of this kind of system. thereby the choiceadvantage and the WebRezPro are the competitors.

This article is interesting and in my opinion inspiring as well. According to the article "65% of Copenhagen's hotel rooms, representing nearly half the city's supply, have a globally recognized eco rating". IN the year of 2009, the United Nations climate change summit took place in this city, which started the rise of all the green hotels in Copenhagen. All of the hotels that participated in this summit had to be green certified which rose the percentage of green hotels by 30%. According to the Danish hotel, restaurant and tourism trade association there is also higher demand for green hotels by leisure and mainly business guests. Companies want to make sure that they take their employees to green certified hotels to show their support and awareness of sustainable behavior. The Crowne Plaza Copenhagen Towers hotel is truly represents a green hotel with first groundwater-based heating and cooling system and the largest solar panel coverage in northern Europe. The hotel also uses all kitchen waste and has it turned into organic fertilizer. Even smaller hotels in Denmark are turning towards being green and taking the matter seriously. "We practice this with energy-saving devices, sorting of (garbage), recycling of paper and organic foods. And we work with suppliers who share our beliefs," says owner of a small hotel Nicolas Hall. I enjoyed reading this article as it relates to the video we watched this week about who should take responsibility in waste management. I stated that the nation should take action in this matter but here we can clearly see that even companies can make a huge difference as they are the drivers of the economy and they can decide which product to choose.

The article highlighted states that every business should have a cash management system either POS or cash register. The traditional cash registers will be adopted by smaller business; however, more developed systems should use a POS. The cost could be high but the life expectancy of the system is very long. To make a decision about which POS system to choose, the decision maker needs to do his/her homework to determine the business' needs including how much it will grow in the future. The system will benefit the business to generate detailed reports, track inventory, easy menu updates and others.

With the development of technology, there are many softwares and machines help business imporved. The POS is a good system, which chould be used in the hospitality and retail industries. It has the ability to save money, quickly process a customer's transaction and accurately keep records. However, it charged more than installing a cash register. When considering about whcih one need to adopt, it's better for the business do a self analysis first. No matter what kind of technology we use, we need focus on provide personalized and customer focused service.

if the owner use the cash register, he can get the money directly. he does not need to take out the money out of the bank when he faces to the emergency situation. also the cash register is more reliable and more real. it does not have high risks of fraud and cheat except the fake money. compare to the POS system, the Pos system is convenient and easy operation. customers only need to swipe the credit/debit card that they can pay for the goods. so the customers do not need to bring much money when they are out of home. it is safe for the customers. nowadays, everywhere can receive the master card and almost everyone has one or more debit/credit card. this behavior promotes the development of POS system. easy to carry and consume make people use this way to buy the goods instead of using the money.

Hilton Design Studio (HDS) is an interactive design tool for hotel owners, developers and designers to create unique interior design spaces based on the Hilton brand.  It's a really smart way to maintain design consistency while simultaneously allowing owners and designers creative freedom.  And since it is a low-cost innovation and seemingly user-friendly, I think this hotel design technology will become mainstream for other large hotel chains.  It seems like it could also be tweaked to act as a training module for HR purposes.

In hotels, international eMarketing is very significant because this service industry ensures sales by connecting and interacting with consumers across the globe. So the writer of this article introduse his/her opinion about that Facebook could be a international eMarketing tool, in order to attract international leisure travelers and increases potential sales. Also, the author mentioned that the internet exposure is a determinant of eMarketing adoption, the eMarketing is a kind of varying use of viral marketing, and the social networking websites which mapping social connections to widen relationships and spread information. There are seveal benefits and several ways of using the social networking website to promote the hotels.

I pretty believe that social medias are playing an important role in marketing of hotels, such as facebook. But something I have to say that facebook can not been accessed all over the world. The simple example is that we can not use it in China. The thing I mean that social media also have some negatives and we need to improve.

It is clear that touches that are guest specific will make a guest feel important and at home. It is important that upcoming technologies keep customer convenience in mind as new features are developed.

The article talks about how to build guest loyalty. There is one thing I like is that "Establish a two-way value proposition". By doing this, both of the business property and the guests feel like they get something valuable which helps with cultivating guest loyalty. It also give tips for hospitality properties to stand out from other competitors.

Completely agree, building special relationship between hotel and customer and having a file of information for each customer can help doing statistic researches and sales increase.

Proximus Mobility a hyperlocal proximity marketing was recognized as one of the top 10 innovative technology companies in Georgia. This new technology is not only improving the marketing and advertisement of new products and services in the industry, but also is putting Georgia on the map. Proximus Mobility is a location based proximity marketing software that provides advertisements in a relevant high value digital content to consumers' mobile phones when they are near the point of sale.

This article showed how online marketing analytic tools have become sophisticated and help hoteliers to develop more effective marketing strategy. For example, Adobe Site Catalyst has developed its segmentation capabilities that allow users to quickly dissect a slew of visitors to unveil special characteristics otherwise you would not be able to notice. This is a revolutionary way of data mining which was not in our marketing text book. As opposed to that Google Analytics is free, you have to pay to use this SiteCatalyst. Whether it is worth your dollar is depending on your size of business and branding strategy. 

This article is an introduction about the CRM software in Hospitality Industry. CRM software is a helpful tool to improve the interaction with hotels' customers, clients, and sales prospects. I will give a brief about how CRM software bring the benefits to hotels and the how it secures the imformation of the hotels' customers. Customers relationship management software helps hotels increase sales by enabling them to understand the relationships with their customers, other businesses, and some potential customers. It meets almost requirements of hotels, such as sales goals, satisfying customer nees and demands, managing customer loyalty programs well, and making central reservations. It is definitely automatic system that offers a lot of functionalities, not only for the customers services, but also for the management of the inventory systems and maintenance orders. How it works? It can record customers' behavior and gusto, analyze them and give the strategic methods of incorporating businesses. And how to secure CRM information exchanges? It is based on a highly scalable permissions tree. You just can protect resources when you open up the information resources based on organizational need. And what is more, audit trail of every item in the system also can protect the information resources in this system. Now, CRM system is improving all the time. The system will offer a more scalable solution which is suitable for the businesses. And it is getting more flexible as the businesses needs to be.

In today's society, online booking is definitely a major form of reservation in the hospitality industry. Thus I think it will be profitable for the companies to understand why some customers booked and others just visited their website and left without booking. These kinds of information can be achieved with the aid of software, as shown in the article. This article is related to software utilization in monitoring the user journey on websites. Hotel chain Villa Plus decided to increase its properties by 40%, and because of this, Villa Plus began to implement IBM's sophisticated analytics software, instead of Google Analytics they had used. With the IBM's software, Villa Plus can track and understand customer needs and behavior across its website. These understandings help the company to advertise the right properties to the right people on the websites. Villa Plus is expecting this to result in high occupancy rates as well as a great return on investment.

I like this Villa Plus, I think it can help customers as much as possible to get what they want and filter what they don't want, it can save time for valuable customers because they can get what they want at one time instead of searching from different websites or even leave without reservation. I also use online booking every time, I think this Villa Plus also can help me a lot next time when I book online again.

Nowadays, online booking is very popular. But hotels still face with low occupancy rate. I think this IBM software is good. It can help solve this kind of problem. Advertising the right properties to the right people on the websites and result in high occupancy rates as well as a great return on investment.

In today's society, being green is very important to many consumers but not all. The green conscious consumers have come to expect that the companies they do business with have the same beliefs. A companies green initiatives could be the deciding factor for some whether or not they frequent a business. Hospitality businesses must be aware of these green expectations from their consumers. They also must know how to communicate specifically to their green consumers explaining their specific green practices.. The article supports this when it states: "Green consumers are reasonably distinct in terms of identifiable characteristics and behavior patterns. Targeting specific marketing strategies to potential green consumers is likely to be more effective than directing these strategies to the entire population by assuming that all members of the population are potential green consumers," Unfortunately, it sometimes can be rather difficult to target green guests. It is much harder to identify these types of guests in comparison to non-green conscious guests. Also about 75% of green conscious guests aren't willing to really impact the comfort level of their stay to save the environment. Green guests may be green conscious but studies have shown they aren't really willing to give up the comforts such as daily housekeeping, high-pressure showers and fresh linens instead of reusing sheets during an extended visit. The article supports this when it states: "Although industry research has shown that a significant percentage of hotel guests would prefer to stay in a hotel that cares about the environment, guests are not always that predictable. Barber noted that a study by a major national hotel operation opposite findings: 75 percent of their guest respondents said they would not give up daily hotel room service activities." This is why green initiatives specifically targeted at green consumers are essential. The green consumer even though they may no

Hotel Reservation Software is making online booking easier. The advantage of Hotel Reservation Software is that it can show rooms availability, it eliminate double booking, and it provides the availability to reserve specific rooms while giving instant confirmation. The software keeps personal information secure, maintain costumer data base and create custom reports. The crucial part of the technology is it security feature and it is user- friendly. Hotel Reservation Software enables communication between all hotel depart, making booking quicker and easier and provide useful financial and customer reports.