4 Steps to Help Hoteliers Upgrade Legacy Systems
In an age of rapid digitalization, all businesses, including hotels, are simply expected to integrate the latest technologies to solve problems and deliver seamless customer service. Each year, many new solutions enter the market, but of all these, the cloud has been one of the most innovative and talked about over the last decade. Yet it is rarely adopted by smaller hoteliers.
This is surprising since managing the modern-day hotel has become increasingly complex and traditional legacy property management systems only add to the complexity. Additionally, they come with long-term overhead costs associated with frequent upgrades and maintenance. In contrast, moving to the cloud removes that cost burden and by integrating cloud technology, hoteliers of all sizes can better understand the data at their fingertips, allowing them to improve performance by using the latest machines and processors, and plug services like personalisation, and entirely new payment mechanisms from third parties.
But despite its benefits, many hoteliers are nervous about making the change and are still operating on unsustainable legacy systems. Taking that first step towards cloud-first systems may be daunting, but it is more straightforward than you might think.
- Do your digging.
Hoteliers should talk to different cloud providers to get an assessment of whether their products and technology can migrate easily to cloud. It is important to understand the market presence of a potential cloud provider and ensure they cover all markets required for your business. You will need to find out their cost structure for your technology to ensure you can move an Oracle Database from on-premises to cloud, without incurring penalties.
- Map out realistic timeframes – and stick to them.
The timeframe of full cloud integration can broadly differ for each hotel, but it entirely depends on how much effort owners can spare to focus on the project. After you have found the cloud provider best suited to your needs, work closely with them to create a timeline that makes sense for you and your staff. Consider staff training and data migration when you make this decision.
- Don’t skimp out on training your team.
Naturally, the skills needed to operate cloud systems are significantly different from on-premise, as are the ways of working. Hands on training is crucial to make this change work for your guests, so be sure to introduce workshops and open discussions amongst staff. These will let you troubleshoot any user issues they are encountering. In a decision as big as this, you do not want to neglect their user experience.
- Analyze data, improve the customer experience and reap large rewards.
Once you have made the upgrade, this is where you can begin unlocking the benefits and reap the rewards from your move. There is a huge opportunity here for you to analyse data that will help you map out the visitor journey. Once you have a good idea of the current holes in this journey, then you can work with your provider to decide which services and tools you should opt for/download to allow your team to automate. All of this will benefit your visitors and the bottom line.
As the hospitality industry develops to attract customers post-covid, legacy systems will start to become a technology of the past. And with the industry being so unpredictable in the current hospitality climate, cloud systems will offer hotels the greatest flexibility for the future. The shift to composable commerce, which has become so popular in the retail sector has well and truly made its way to hospitality, and it is here to stay. It is time for hoteliers to be bold and start adapting - or risk being left behind.