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Statistically speaking, CIOs don't become CEOs. But it's not because they don't want it. Research shows that nearly half of CIOs aspire to become chief executive, but only four percent actually get there. Much more frequently, CEOs for the world's top companies - about half in fact - come up through C-level financial or operating roles (Vanson Bourne, 2012). Chris Laping, CIO of Red Robin Gourmet Burgers (www.redrobin.com), strongly believes this is because technology executives are too often focused on engineering and IT solutions to embrace their most valuable leadership quality: the ability to manage change. Technology leaders, he believes, possess powerful project management skills that can and should be leveraged across the business for even the most non-IT initiatives, with the particular role of being agents for change. Laping's official role at Red Robin is indicative of that practice: he's the company's senior vice president of business transformation and CIO. In that role, he oversees the company's technology, learning and development, enterprise project management and operations services teams. In this exclusive interview with Hospitality Technology, Laping shares how the technology team has taken on a business transformation role at Red Robin, and describes his overall vision for IT leaders. But it's not something CIOs are handed; they have to drive it, says Laping. Driving this change, perhaps, will also help more CIOs chase down their chief-executive dreams. HT: Let's start with some definitions: "business transformation" and "change agents" are pretty heady buzzwords that get tossed around executive boardrooms. What does business transformation really mean? LAPING: If you look at a classic Wikipedia definition of business transformation, it talks about people, process and technology. So when you push change through people, you usually do that through training. If you want to change business performan

"Jonas Project Management (PM) helps you steer away from traditional methods of project management like pen, paper and multiple spreadsheets. Our project management system is fully integrated with all aspects of the Jonas core system and is used to manage the workflow of a project from start to finish. Project Management tracks items that must be fulfilled under a contract, including RFIs, transmittals, submittals and change order requests."

Jonas management system is a high efficient system i have been using in my working place. Jonas Software is the leading provider of enterprise management software solutions to the Club, Foodservice, Construction, Leisure Fitness & Sports, Attractions, Metal Service Centers, Moving & Storage, Education, and Radiology/Laboratory Information Systems industries. Within these nine vertical markets, Jonas boasts 28 distinct brands, all of which are respected and longstanding leaders within their own domain. Jonas' vision is to be the branded global leader across the aforementioned nine vertical markets and to be recognized by customers and respective industry stakeholders as the trusted provider of Software For Life and as an ambassador for technology, product innovation, quality, and customer service. Jonas Software is the valued technology partner of over 10,000 customers worldwide in more than 15 countries. Jonas employs hundreds of skilled individuals consisting of a cross-section of industry experts and technology professionals. Jonas is headquartered in Canada and also operates offices throughout North America, the United Kingdom, Australia and the Caribbean. With the talents of Jonas employees spanning the globe, Jonas is proud to avail cost-effective training and consulting services to our entire client base.

Businesses may optimize the life cycle of a capital expenditure project by concentrating on three areas: capital strategy and portfolio optimization, project development and value enhancement, and project delivery and construction. Organizations must develop a transparent and carefully evaluated baseline and capital budget that provides a clear knowledge of the total capital expenditure budget for the next years, as well as realistic cost and time predictions for the organization's portfolio of capital projects. While claims on capital projects are relatively prevalent, smart management may keep them under control and allow owners to retain considerable value.

This article is focussed on the risk involved if the proper impact study is not undertaken prior to implementation of extensive IT projects. Several multinational companies were referenced in the article, highlighting failures with smooth implementation resulting in the loss of millions and sometimes billions. Below is a summary of some companies referenced in article and the impact of IT implementation gone wrong: 1. Levi Strauss: In 2003 Levi Strauss examined its technological capabilities and concluded that its systems were inadequate for its multi-national corporation operation within 110 countries. A budget of US$5 million was created for a system upgrade. Many challenges along the way resulted in the inability to sufficiently report financials resulted in three distribution canters in the USA closing for a week. As a result of this, the company lost US$200 million and the termination of the chief information officer in 2008. 2. Hong Kong Airport: IT problems resulting in glitches in flight information system and database for tracking cargo shipment resulted in a US$600 million loss between 1998 and 1999. 3. Hershey: About 10 years ago Hershey wanted to implement a new order taking system. Problems with implementation resulted in the inability of the company shipping US$100 million worth of candy in time for Halloween thus impacting the company's bottom-line of an 18.6% loss in earnings during the quarter. 4. Kmart: in 2000 Kmart embarked on aUS$1.4 billon IT modernization project. In the midst of the project Kmart discovered that the project had too many customized application which would result in an exorbitant maintenance costs. An additional US$600m was spent on integrating a supply chain management system. Failure of this project led to bankruptcy filing by Kmart in 2002. This resulted in the closure of 600 stores and the loss of over 60,000 jobs in the USA. 5. Auto windshield (UK): Auto windshield was considered to be the second largest auto glass c

This article introduces some green business initiative that is the projects to help enterprises use less resource to make money. With the development of the society, it is more important for us to protect the environment. The green business initiative is a good example to protect the environment. The article shows the greenbusiness.ie project offer an effective tool to help the company not only reduce the cost but also reduce the pollution. It also introduce the project that aimed to help hospitality industry solve the save resource problem. It list some projects like Green Festivals, Less Food Waste, More Profit to prove these program already save more money and resource. The Green Healthcare and SMILE (Saving Money through Industrial Linkage and Exchanges) are the other two examples of green business initiative.

Deploying a monitoring and control system as part of this project offered many advantages, including: Showing the public the impact of investing in a renewable energy project Providing an effective means of assessing the long-term performance, determining maintenance needs, and maximizing the ROI of the project Enhancing the project's educational value for students. Overall, the project has reaped important benefits for education, business, and industry: The green home illustrates the use of renewable energy and supports its benefits with solid performance data. The project demonstrates how educational institutions can extend their reach throughout the country and around the world, conducting long-term research, bringing short-term real-time data into the classroom, and educating and training the future technology workforce. The systems exemplify the influence of sophisticated, electronic tools such as Web-based portal software.

To create a global resource for the hospitality finance industry, Hospitality Financial and Technology Professionals has begun development on a global hospitality accounting system users guide. HFTP is the only global association dedicated to hospitality finance and technology and our Global Board is investing heavily to create a benchmark that stakeholders can use to compile accounts, compare regional differences and define the value of a hospitality operation.

This article was pretty brief, but it stated that Hospitality Financial and Technology Professionals has begun development on a global hospitality accounting system users guide. This would create a global resource for the finance industry. Frank Wolfe, HFTP's CEO, says that the company is the only global association dedicated to hospitality finance and technology. They are hoping to create a benchmark that stakeholders can use to compile accounts, compare regional differences and define the value of a hospitality operation. What I found interesting about this article was that it greatly involved final year bachelor students at Ecole Hôtelière De Lausanne in Switzerland performing research for this project. I also think that a global hospitality accounting system users guide would be beneficial, especially since many managers/employees do not have the strongest training or skills in a financial or technical area.

HFTP (Hospitality financial & technology professionals) begins developing a global hospitality accounting system users guide. This kind of users guide is totally new to the hospitality industry and currently there is no global resource like this. The global guide will provide the hospitality industry with a glossary of inventory terminology, accounting charts and other accounting-related information. This project is developed using technology that can provide users with a benchmark that stakeholders can use to compare regional differences and define the value of hospitality operation. This project is a three-step process. First, bachelor degree students from all over the world who are interested in this project will work as data collector. Second, the assembled and analyzed data will be processed into professionals in different regions all over the world to create new sample charts. Finally, the initial guide will be published in multiple languages and distributed globally. This new accounting system technology is predicted to help the hospitality industry increase the ability in financial management, accounting, cost control and the sharing of global accounting data sources.

According to the results of "2012 Energy Efficiency IT report", based on 760 IT professionals' view, on cutting energy costs, buy greener gear than to get high-ROI green initiatives. Implementing Energy-star-qualifying equipment got more potential ROI. Server consolidation and virtualization also ranked high among already deployed green-tech projects. And the 8 popular green-technology projects are: server/storage virtualization, consolidating servers, implementing hardware with more efficient processors, implementing energy star-qualifying equipment, deploying more energy-efficient networking equipment, employing energy-efficient ups, employing new cooling approaches,  increased use of hosted services.

CEOs of companies struggle with the decision of investing more in IT rather than in advertising or research/development tools. When and if investing in IT the question would be what kind of projects should have the focus. Recent studies have helped determine that since 1995 there has been significant positive profitability in IT investments. This research indicated that IT investments have a larger profit impact than spending money on advertising. IT investments are creative and use new technology that may help attract new consumers. Some IT projects however work better than others. They can be used to support sales by customer satisfaction and customer retention strategies. As more companies invest in IT investments, profitability increases due to competition. In conclusion business owners should focus on IT projects that will have potential growth in revenue over projects that only focus on cost savings.

The article show us that when planning a convention, meeting planners consider how to incorporate a range of emerging new technologies for the program. MPI used a fog screen. The imagined possibilities for fogscreen technology, an emerging new technology, include the projection of corporate logos, messages and other images. Event and meeting planners should know about future technologies and how/when to use them in various programs. As part of the MPI WEC 2008 opening reception sponsored by Meetings by Harrah's at Caesar's Palace, Las Vegas, attendees walked through a fogscreen of the MPI logo as they entered the opening cocktail reception. Caesar's Palace's objective was to showcase how they can change the environment of a static room, explained Reina Herschdorfer, executive director of catering/conventions and events for Caesar's Palace. Fogscreen technology is an emerging technology that is dry, so attendees and guest will not walk through the fog and get wet.

The FogScreen is an extraordinary display option that offers a seamless projection area made, as the name suggests, of dry fog. Using ordinary water, a flat thin layer of mist is created, onto which you can make high-quality projections - that you can walk through. The fog feels cool and dry to touch and, by varying the density of the fog, different effects can be created to suit the venue and your purpose.  The screen is created by using a suspended fog generating device with no frame around, and works with video projectors. The fog they use is dry, so it doesn't make you wet even if you stay under the Fog Screen device for a long time.  The fog is made of ordinary water with no chemicals what so ever. With two projectors, you can project different images on both sides of the screen. It is a display device which is the application of computer graphics. With Fogscreen, planners are able to make better visual effect and encourage more participation and engagement of attendees. However, Fogscreen hasn't been widely used in terms of high prices. 

"Recent global data released by TravelClick projects 2015 to be a record year for bookings through global distribution systems, the channel used when guests book through traditional travel agents. TravelClick is projecting 62 million bookings through GDSes in 2015, which is up from 61 million in 2014 and 42 million during the depths of the recession in 2009. According to the data, a total of $12 billion in revenue was booked across all channels in the second quarter in the top 50 global markets, encompassing 69 million roomnights. GDS bookings covered 16.3% of those bookings. The highest portion of bookings came through direct bookings (36.9%), followed by Web bookings (22.5%). Central reservations system bookings (12.8%) and OTA bookings (10.2%) represent the remaining portion. GDS bookings have managed to hold their share of transient bookings through the past two years, staying steady at 19.1% during the second quarter of each year. The total revenue from transient bookings in the top 50 markets during the second quarter grew year over year from $11.5 billion in 2014 to $11.8 billion this year. " This article elaborates the rise in current and predicted bookings by GDS systems in the Hospitality industry. Over 12 billion dollars in revenue has been recorded thanks to the rise of GDS systems. This revenue has managed to hold on to a steady rise since over the last 5 years. If projections are correct, revenue in top markets will only grow larger.

This article provides information about a sustainable renovation that has revamped the Sheraton Suites. The HVAC technology that was constructed in the guest rooms has restored a fan coil unit refurbishment project. AirRevive, according to the article, is the leader in sustainable HVAC refurbishment and re-commissioning services. A 1989 IEC guest room fan coil was restored for the guest room renovation project. It is supposed to add about 1 decade to the lifespan of the units. Doing this renovation adds to guest satisfaction and comfort. These are the some of the most important factors in the hospitality industry. The indoor air quality is no loner compromised and will no longer leave guests susceptible to harmful allergens. The President of AirRevive states that this renovation is a cost efficient way to tune up. It saves energy and reduces operating expenses. There is an attractive ROI associated with the effective and efficient completion of the project.

This is a very interesting read on Europe's thriving development pipeline. Even with the pandemic they are growing substantially year over year.

In 01 Mar 12 someone share a article about the global hospitality accounting system. That article talks about how the Hospitality Financial and Technology Professionals (HFTP) are in the process of making a user guide for the global hospitality accounting system. This article is an update that publish recently. It shows where does the project stand right now and what is next for the project. However, the first part of phase one- covering the UK and continental Europe- is now well in progress.

HFTP's Global Hospitality Accounting System Users Guide will set a global method for hospitality industry.   Recently, research is being conducted into current practices. This research will identify who is doing what in different parts of the world, with a view to establishing best practice and providing practical guidance for students, practitioners and professionals involved in the industry.

Hospitality Financial and technology professionals was developing a global hospitality accounting system in the past year. Their fist step is to cover the UK and continental Europe. The second step is to do search about South and central America and cover them. The third step will begin for China and India, and the last two segments will be Russia and North America. This is quite a large program. If the program was completed, a globally accepted method that financial professional, ownership structure, investors and benchmarking information services can use to support  efficient operations will be formed, and a globally accepted method to monitor investment performance from region to region will also be formed.

RFID, event applications, wearable technology, virtual reality, and social media are upcoming popular uses for event planners. With RFID event planners are able to keep better track of the guests attending the event as well as keeping them more involved. I first heard of this a few months ago when attending an event and it described that a chip with RFID was placed inside the wristband-type ticket. For me, the most interesting thing is the wearable technology! Imagine an event where you can have directions given to you or a layout of the event right on your wrist! Also, the watch can notify you of events happening within an event or you can see order your food or see the menu. To know that soon enough it will be a norm for everyone to have some type of wearable technology and that event planners can truly get the guests involved through this use is exciting.

This article introduces four new advances to technology that help ease the process of event planning. Projection mapping, 5G, Branded multi-use apps, and event diagramming.

This article shares the technology innovation with meeting/convention operations and how these technology help offer better guest satisfaction.

The financial crisis of 2007-2008 is considered by many economists to be the worst financial crisis since the Great Depression. It resulted in the threat of total collapse of large financial institutions, the bailout of banks, and downturns in stock markets around the world. The bursting of the U.S. real estate bubble, which peaked in 2006, caused the values of securities tied to U.S. real estate pricing to plummet, damaging financial institutions. Prior to this crisis strategies to develop new hotels or acquire existing assets with a small percentage of cash out of pocket were plentiful. Today to secure funding it may take 30%-40% of hard cash to move a deal forward. The Small Business Administration (SBA) is offering a way to leverage funds at well below market rates for major renovations and new construction with as low as 10% cash down. The catch? Some money-saving energy efficiency or renewable energy measures must be in the mix. Millions of dollars in SBA 504 loans have been available for decades to help small businesses grow. The greening of the program began when the Energy Independence and Security Act of 2007 added 3 public policy goals that could qualify businesses for a loan for construction, renovation, or refinance to: 1.Build a new facility (or retrofit an existing building) that consumes at least 10% less energy. 2.Incorporate sustainable design such as LEED into the new construction or renovation projects or building purchases. 3.Incorporate the production and use of renewable energy onsite for the business and/or for the local utility. Another area the 504 green loan program can assist the hospitality industry is to bring cash to the table for major renovations. Hotel franchise companies have been lenient over the past several years on product improvement, as not many hoteliers have had the financial ability to perform major renovations. In the past several months the need for franchise companies to protect their brand have

HFTP is short for Hospitality Financial and Technology Professionals. It is working with members of several organizations, including EHL, HFTP's Research institute at the University of Houston, Hong Kong Polytechnic University and Hospitality Professionals Association. From the article, HFTP has start developing a global hospitality accounting system users guide. The global guide will provide the industry with a comprehensive glossary of inventory terminology, charts of accounts and will benchmark common allocation for specific regions of the world. The project is planned as a three-step process. 1. Final year bachelor students at Ecole Hoteliere De Lausanne (EHL) in Switzerland working on their Student Business Project are gathering data, surveying hotel operations and assembling terms of reference. 2. Once the data is assembled, it will be distributed to regional teams of industry professionals that are chaired by industry consultants. These teams will develop sample charts of accounts and common allocations for their specific areas. 3. The team chairs will finalize the project by authoring a discussion on similarities or differences of allocations. The initial guide will be published in English, with plans to distribute globally in multiple languages.

It is important to lay down a technology investment strategy that aligns with the specific goals of your organization and avoid investing in "pie in the sky" with no guaranteed returns. It will be easier to identify technologies that can help your business if you have a clear picture of where you're heading and what steps you must take to get there. Once you've set down your business strategy, you should appoint a member of your organization to track IT trends and advancements in the marketplace. Sit down with this person and list the sky technology areas they should be monitoring based on your business needs. Once you have projects in mind, talk to a trusted IT advisor and run a cost analysis. Create a short list of IT investments that you can not only afford, but will also help you achieve your stated business goals. Do a risk analysis of significant project you consider to undertake. Make sure the project is coming in on time and on budget. Finally, continue to update your IT investment plan and monitor new technology developments.

Great article talks about what companies should do if they want to invest the technology. Companies will surfer great risk if the company is blindness in investment. The company should firstly Clearfield their business strategy know what kind of the technology needed by the company. Advisor from professional people and the cost analysis is also important. Base on this analysis hotel can find better technology with less risk.

This article is a must read for any company looking at a new software implementation. At my last job I was part of the implementation team and we had to set up, test, and install our new software system. We had an implementation team in place but we didn't have a great plan in place before we started and it showed. We were all rarely on the same page and we each had our task list and did it without really communicating with one another. I ended up leaving the company before we were done but I know the actual "go live" date ended up being about four months later than the original target date.  If we had had more of a plan in place at the start I'm sure the implementation would have gone more smoothly. From personal experience, I can attest to the validity of this article. Researching and mapping out a plan is as important as researching and choosing the best software for your company.  

Hoteliers are expecting a lot more out of their PMS's such as data acquisition, integration with other systems, mobile capabilities, and social media. This article describes some of the different directions hoteliers are taking based on their specific focus and desired results. Some of the advantages and disadvantages of cloud based PMS's are discussed such as mobility, internet connection redundancy for rural vs. urban areas, and multiple system integration. The increasing role of social media is also explored and the degree to which it should be utilized by the hospitality industry. There are many possibilities including using social media posts to mine guest reviews, as well as the ability to book your hotel on Facebook and receive a confirmation via text. I apologize for the diminishing hi-lighting towards the end, my tool bar is having some issues!