There are those unenlightened people in the hotel industry that will say that a property management system (PMS) is nothing more than a grandiose cash register.
That its only function is to account for the spend that a guest incurs during their stay and produce a folio upon departure. In fact, that claim could not be further from the truth.
Yes, it connects to a myriad of systems to track guest charges such as a point of sale system, call accounting, sales and catering system, and so on, but increasingly there is an obligation for the hotel PMS to do so much more.
As pressure is placed upon the PMS to go beyond the scope of a simple transactional tool, there needs to be a strategic shift in the technological deployment of the system the includes increased agility and responsiveness in the platform itself.
Software as a Service (SaaS) or cloud-based PMS within the hotel industry is the next frontier as more systems can now be facilitated via the Internet to whatever device the user chooses to conduct their business. The pricing and delivery models of SaaS PMS allows organizations to meet the specificity and intricacies of its needs.
SaaS PMS, faster, better, cheaper
In a special report, respected analyst firm Gartner states that as cloud-based alternatives to monolithic, on-premises ERP and enterprise applications continue to mature, on-premise ERP systems are quickly becoming known as ‘legacy’ software.
The report also warns that CIOs and application leaders must take action to address the fast-approaching reality of “legacy ERP.”
We hear the word “Cloud” being used within every industry today but this is just a method of storing and managing data without using on-premise machines. The real trick is how to deliver this technology to the hotelier in a cost-effective manner and also offer all the services they received when the PMS was on the property.
The benefits of a SaaS PMS are certainly plenty, but at a fundamental level they come down to:
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