Software Solutions In The Front And Back Office Area For Hotels.

An interview with Hermann Nübel in the November issue of the "Gastronomie" (Huss-Medien GmbH) magazine.

Who usually takes the administrator functions in medium-sized hotels?

To define mid-sized hotels under the criterion “organizational structure”, as part of a major hotel chain or one that has no connection with hotel chains, then the answer is: It depends ... private-owned hotels are those that are controlled and operated by the one who invests the working capital. It is not surprising that many of these entrepreneurs undertake the tasks themselves or delegate administrative functions, but to leading employees. Often, this high level of responsibility is “"accidentally” assigned to external service providers.

For example, the technician of a hardware supplier then takes the simple tasks such as; from the hotel reservation program, to the uploading of the data given new rights and to establish security policies ... It also happens that some private hotels may belong to a corporate network - an aluminium factory or a shipping company - the administration will be by the parent company of the hotel. As a hotel consultant I am not aware of data collection on this issue, but we in our operating practices have encountered just about everything, down to hoteliers, who simply give every employee administrative rights ...

The standard should be that the rights of the individual structures are defined and systematized course of operations are adjusted. That is - with an exceptional programmatically experienced hotel manager in the hotel – and if there is non then it is a classic task for outsourcing to a management consultancy specializing in gastronomy.

What are the most common error in software used?

Two mistakes we meet again:
1. The hardware is not adapted to the needs of advanced software
2. The software is used incorrectly or only 10% of their possibilities.

Example: The server has been bravely running for five years, one is pleased about the good investment of time. In parallel, the hotel software has been upgraded four times, additional modules have been purchased, the property management now also runs on the system and the database has swollen to more than 20,000 records. No wonder that the system has become slower and slower? Because it is so slow, employees prefere to work with paper and pen instead of the system thus work is done twice: One writes first and later enter it into the system, or usually instead of the slow text feature in the hotel program everything is simply written in an external text editor ...

The second error is found, unfortunately, especially in the medium described above hotels more often. Because training is costly, it is given a minimal budget, even worse, is the frequent change of personnel in the industry - also at the front and the back office - even this minimal knowledge is often lost after two years when the employees leave. We know many companies that just go bad because no one computerized a reservation system that we can really use. Additional expenses, slowing orders, duplicate records which are impossible to make statistic of, false and erroneous entries in the master data are the consequences.

Walkthroughs are really beneficial? If yes, why? / If not, why?

Total solutions should be always economically examined in the context of comparing offers. Everything from one source is advantageous if the provider guarantees safety, service and system stability. In any case, it makes sense to examine every hotel individually. It depends on the IT expertise in house, the staff structure, the turnover, the company's goals. There are still cases where we recommend the good old reservation plan...

What services does your company offer?

The hotel Nübel mbH – which is incidentally celebrating its tenth anniversary this year - is specialized in the hospitality industry. Our expertise is to know the hotel industry with its special features: a service around the clock, 365 days a year, has a maximum lifetime of 24 hours (for each day on which a bed is not occupied, you did not really need to buy a reservation system and construct a million-dollar hotel building ...). We advise and give results-goal-oriented help to deploy resources. We employ specialists in training, controlling and marketing. The result for the hotel is always an increase in returns, often up to 200%. In the field of software, I am personally responsible as the managing director. On our website – by the way is the number one placed company under the search words “hotel consultation” or “hotel pre-opening” in Google for detailed offers and products: http://www.nh-hotelberatung.de.

What advantages does your software have, in contrast to competing products?

We prefer to use no software. As a neutral hotel consulting company, we first examine existing hotel software and website in accordance with objective criteria. We then individually adapt it to the operation and its current situation, we will obtain various offers and present them with their advantages and disadvantages to our clients.

Hermann Nübel
Managing Director Nübel Hotel GmbH