Your hotel property management system (PMS) is the beating heart of your hotel – responsible for streamlining operations, optimizing guest service and maximizing revenue.
NB: This is an article by Jos Schaap, CEO & Founder of StayNTouch
However, like most technology, it has a limited lifespan. As technology evolves, so will your property’s (and guest’s) unique needs and goals; resulting in the inevitable necessity to reevaluate your current PMS. Even a once-invaluable PMS can eventually outlive its suitability; at that point, replacing your PMS may be a more effective decision than reworking it. Unfortunately, hoteliers often delay the replacement of this essential technology to the detriment of their productivity and profits.
Sticking with an outdated solution only leads to a drain on resources and the loss of opportunities while making a change to your hotel PMS can reinvigorate your brand, increase revenue, and drive loyalty. Here are five signs that it is time to change your PMS to ensure it remains and/or becomes a profitable investment.
Your Current PMS Is Showing Its Age
A common complaint about a PMS is a failure to integrate or fully implement essential new features and communication tools. Systems have gone a long way since they first emerged. Guest engagement functionality and mobility, for example, have become increasingly popular in modern systems, but legacy solutions often don’t offer it. Look for a system that is cloud-based and has data accessible to every department in real-time. If your current PMS does not have the mobile, self-serve, automation, or SMS features you need, then it is time to shop for a system whose functionality matches your current requirements.
Your Employees Are Always Frustrated With It
The true value of your PMS is fundamentally defined by the folks who use it on a daily basis. If your employees express frustration because the system is overly complicated and requires extensive onboarding or is unstable, slow and buggy with poor support offered by the vendor, it might be time to look for a new provider whose uptime and user experience is highly rated.
You Need Integration With More Third-Party Apps
In theory, any software platform can integrate with another. However, if your periphery systems don’t communicate in real-time with your PMS, and data from third-party solutions needs to be entered manually, you are putting a drain on resources, productivity and risking errors. Legacy systems require expensive and time-consuming interface development that could take months (or longer) and need constant updating every time you add a new app or features change. To maximize your scalability and future-proof your operations, look for an open-source, cloud-based PMS with configurable modules.
Vendor Support and Maintenance Is Costing You
You know it’s time for a change when your PMS when service and support are costing you time, money and productivity. On-premise systems entail constant upgrades which can get expensive, and many providers tack on hefty monthly fees for support, performance upgrades, and customizations of their software. If you invest in your own hardware, you have to put forward capital upfront. That is not the case with the cloud. A cloud-based PMS is built for high performance, data backups, reliability, security and turn-key monthly pricing which includes customer support, upgrades, monitoring, hosting and more. The cloud is also more energy-efficient than legacy infrastructures.
You Want a Better Return on Your Investment
Your PMS should not only save you time and money but also generate revenue for your business. From automated upsell and marketing to revenue management and analytics, you need a system that delivers a high return on your investment. If your system does not offer marketing automation, integrated booking engine, guest history/stay data, and simple dashboards with KPIs to better understand guests – you are missing out on reduced costs through better staff productivity, and higher revenues via better sales and more satisfied, loyal guests.
Replacing your PMS may seem like an extensive undertaking, but, if you are running into one or more of these roadblocks, the decision to delay the change may well cost you more than the investment required to make a strategic update.
Author Bio
Jos has a 20+ year track record in hotel software technology. He began StayNTouch with the vision of re-inventing the hotel PMS technology; making it simple, mobile and transitioning the software to the cloud. Prior to StayNTouch, Jos spent 17 years at MICROS Systems Inc. (Now Oracle Hospitality), as a Senior Vice President in charge of global product development and strategy for the Lodging and eCommerce divisions. During his tenure, MICROS’ hospitality products became the global market leader growing the company’s revenues from less than $300 million to $1.1 billion. Jos was responsible for introducing a number of new products enabling MICROS to enter all hospitality segments from limited to full-service hotels.
