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The Keys to Marriott's Success Long before the economy went south, Marriott had a reputation for finding creative ways to wrest the most value from every IT dollar.

The devil is in the details—success is in the system.-The Spirit to Serve Metrics drive Marriott. Talk to an IT associate on any given day, and he can tell you exactly how much business the company processed via its systems that week per second ($3,568 when this reporter visited).When implementing the PeopleSoft enterprise service automation module for project tracking and time reporting within IT, for example, programmers developed a tool so that project and productivity metrics are automatically computed after time is entered. Another rule for metrics is to make sure that the right people get the right data in a form that’s meaningful to them. "You need to measure a lot of things, but the trick is to publish the right information to the relevant audience," says Melnick. "Having Marriott.com up and running is not as important as the dollars running through it," explains Keppler. Melnick adds, "For each system we try to focus on the core metrics. And that changes. What might have been important the day you go live becomes a nonevent a few weeks in." For example, five years ago the critical metric for Marriott.com was uptime. Today, it’s how much business the website books. Last year, metrics fueled the IT department’s decision to invest in an upgrade to the site that would make it easier to reserve rooms. Today, more than 75 percent of rooms booked online come through Marriott.com, saving the company $12 million annually.Keeping its eye on the numbers lets Marriott revisit business cases for IT projects each quarter. "The project itself may not change that much, but something external may happen—something like SARS, something from the competition," Melnick explains. "Just because you start a project and it’s on track doesn’t mean you want to keep the same pace. There may be something that comes up that’s even better." Success is never final.-The Spirit to Serve Though the IT department’s resourcefulness is helping keep Marriott afloat during hard times, Wilson and his peers aren’t taking anything for granted. They say they can’t let their culture of resourcefulness wither away when the economy turns around. They’re reminded of how easy it could be to let their guard down each time they flip through Mr. Marriott’s book in which he quotes Somerset Maugham: "The unfortunate thing about this world is that good habits are so much easier to give up than bad ones."But Wilson believes the principles and procedures put in place for prudent and resourceful IT decision making should keep the company on the straight and narrow and ahead of the competition."I have a firm belief that the only real sustainable competitive advantage we can get with IT is making sure our people understand conceptually what IT can and can’t do and apply it better than competitors," Wilson says. "Anything we do in IT, a competitor can install. What they can’t capture that quickly is having a team of people throughout the company that really gets this and follows it all the way through. That’s sustainable."Marriott has valued resourcefulness—on paper if not always in practice—for decades. But resourcefulness is not an end in itself. It’s a tool one uses in the ongoing construction of value, a project that’s never finished. Or, as Mr. Marriott says succinctly in his book, "Success is never final."

Now, as most economic indicators begin to trend positive, companies are once again ramping up their IT projects. Long term solutions are necessary at the scale required for sustained operations and cost effectiveness.

In this article, we look at three options – IT consulting firms, IT outsourcing companies, and cloud systems integrators

There’s also the reality that many of the larger consultancies really aren’t positioned to efficiently or cost effectively help organisations implement necessary IT strategies. Their areas of expertise lie in assurance services, taxation, management consulting, advisory, actuarial, corporate finance and legal services, to name a few.

In the world of information technology (IT), the green movement is taking shape. There are numerous opportunities for IT professionals to take leadership roles in helping their organizations to adopt sustainable practices. Technology is a tool to provide solutions, but regrettably, technology can also be a source of the problem due to factors like energy consumption and the environmental impacts when disposing of obsolete or broken technology (i.e., e-waste). Therefore, we will need to look at situations and technology usage via multiple lenses to try to assess the net impact to determine if the outcomes are truly desirable and positive versus negative. This often requires asking tough questions and looking for possible unintended consequences before decisions are being made

Like any business initiative, green IT projects will require strong commitment from an organization’s top management and investment in time and resources at all levels.

In order for tourism to prosper, we cannot afford to let our environment erode.

This study aims to determine the feasibility of IT investment in hospitality and determine the value and tangible/ intangible benefits from IT implementation.

Nowadays hospitality thinks that technology can improve business effectiveness and efficiency. Hospitality in Indonesia, especially Jakarta was competing to provide the best service in terms of information and technology. Moreover, implementation of IT is one of strategies to improve hotel performance

Based on previous research, IT implementation at the hotel has been started since 1980s until 1990an, many hotels that invest millions of dollars for information technology about 4.4 million dollars

Maini said the bank would fund projects in IT services, defence, hospitality, tourism traditional healthcare, marketing, logistics under focus on the services space; sustainable development that will focus on helping MSMEs use energy saving technologies

more than 70 percent of the respondents indicated that they would be increasing their IT investment in the coming year

Most organizations realize that in order to grow their companies and revenues they need to invest in technology and systems that will create operational efficiencies, improve the customer’s experience, and help generate sales.

Fewer than 10 percent of the companies surveyed reported that that they would be reducing their IT spend.

Iger planned to pump nearly $1 billion into this venture, called MyMagic+, a sweeping plan to overhaul the digital infrastructure of Disney’s theme parks, which would upend how they operated and connected with consumers. At the core of the project was the MagicBand, an electronic wristband that Iger envisioned guests would use to gain entry to Disney World and access attractions; make purchases at restaurants; and unlock their hotel room doors. It would push the boundaries of experience design and wearable computing, and impact everything from Disney’s retail operations and data-mining capabilities to its hospitality and transportation services.

Disney World, Parks’ crown jewel, seemed to be losing its luster. According to multiple sources, certain key metrics, including guests’ “intent to return,” were dropping; around half of first-time attendees signaled they likely would not come back because of long lines, high ticket costs, and other park pain points. Simultaneously, the stunningly fast adoption of social media and smartphones threatened the relevance of the parks. If Disney wanted these more tech-oriented generations to love it as much as their parents, who had grown up with fewer entertainment alternatives, had, it would have to embrace change now.

There were the endless lines for rides, food, and bathrooms; parents juggling maps, hotel keys, baby carriages, and bottles of SPF 75; and kids pulling families on long treks to try to visit every attraction. The park was filled with complications, such as a tiered ticketing system with wonky rules.

Industry experts have projected staggering growth rates in leisure and unmanaged business travel bookings via the mobile channel: from $753 million in 2011 to $1.4 million in 2012, according to PhoCusWright research.

And yet, a careful analysis of all the industry stats and projections reveals a very interesting picture that not all hoteliers fully understand: The majority of the mobile bookings, roomnights and revenue are generated by tablet devices, not by smartphones.

Three distinct device categories constitute the three screens to which hoteliers should pay special attention in 2013: desktop, mobile and tablet.

"Currently, there is not a global resource like this," said Frank Wolfe, CAE, HFTP's CEO.

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:

HFTP 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 (HOSPA).

Last year, #MURTEC introduced MURTALKs, concise 20-minute presentations that deliver big insights. On March 8, 2017, Stephanie Nardini, senior director of IT, Jersey Mike’s Franchise Systems, will deliver one such MURTALK as she describes the agony, ecstasy, risks and rewards of going all-in with a large-scale technology project in her presentation titled: "Thinking Big with IT: Implementing Large-Scale Projects."

She will illustrate how to take a company-wide initiative from inception to successful implementation, all while navigating proprietary technology, vendor partners and multiple stakeholders.

Now in its 22nd year, the Multi-Unit Restaurant Technology Conference (MURTEC) produced by Hospitality Technology, has become the “Gold Standard” event for education and networking in the restaurant technology industry.

A growing number of companies are making green IT initiatives a higher priority and have dedicated budgets

Green IT is moving up the corporate agenda. While green IT initiatives typically are viewed as middle-range priorities in business, 37 percent of firms currently rate green IT as an "upper-half organizational priority."

"Green IT remains a fuzzy concept to many," the study noted.

nsufficient maintenance will render a lower profit for owners and investors even if they have no intention of selling the hotel.

“If you don’t have [a preventative maintenance program], you don’t have control of your maintenance budget,”

Facility managers should estimate the cost of larger improvement projects—or capital expenditures—as best as they can for the next five years. Planning for these long-term jobs usually requires some kind of reserve fund, although owners and investors tend to set aside less than they should.

A host of technologies and service concepts have come on the scene as of late: "smart" coolers, third party delivery, artificial intelligence, computer vision and biometric identity verification

Moderator Bill Moxey, director of strategy and planning at PepsiCo Inc., made one thing clear at the outset: Thousands of locations will be adding unattended retail concepts and technologies in the near future as the consumer's preference for self service is stronger than ever.

Consumers wanted to know exactly what they were getting… and they didn't feel pressure about somebody asking if they wanted a side."

No industry has a bigger stake in protecting the environment and local communities than the travel industry.

And so it makes sense that the STLN has decided that its first project is focusing on a wonky sounding thing called “destination stewardship.”

The initiative will push destinations to improve governance, help travel companies decide where to do business, and, when the project’s last phase rolls out, allow us travelers to assess the social and economic impact of our trips.