Evolution of Common Home/Office Technology Used for Online Training

Component 1990 1995 2000 2002-6

Hardware 8600 series40Mb Disk16Mb/RAM

PentiumI&II1Gb Disk32Mb/RAM

Pentium III10Gb Disk128Mb/RAM

Pentium IV40Gb Disk356Mb/RAM

Software DOSW3.1ProComm

W95ISPBrowser

W/MEISPBrowserVideo Editor

W/XPISPBrowserVideo Format

Coding Unix HTML Editor/Courseware Courseware

Connectivity 9600 Baud 28kb/s 56kb/s 200>kb/s

Host Server Interface Unix Website Courseware- Platform Courseware-Platform

Generation/Online 1 G/OL 2 G/OL 3 G/OL 4 G/OL

Table 8.1

System Software General Use Applications Specific Use Applications

DOSWindows

UnixLinuxJava

Word ProcessorsSpread Sheets

Data BasesMedia PlayersPresentations

Computer Aided DesignComputer Aided Manufacturing

Point of SaleProperty Management Software

Global Distribution Software

Table 8.2

Remote Employees

Back Office

Front Office

Internal Employees

Suppliers Guests

Figure 8.1

Remote Employees

Back Office

Front Office

Internal Employees

Suppliers Guests

Figure 8.2

Remote Employees

Back Office

Front Office

Internal Employees

Suppliers Guests

Figure 8.3

B2B

B2E

B2C

B2E

E-Business Systems

ERP

SCM Transaction Processing CRM Service Up-sell Cross sell

Functional Systems

Back Front

EDI EAI

Figure 8.4

Management Standard Reports

Periodic Scheduled Reports—Standard reports generated on periodic bases. Examples include: Night Audit reports—daily. MTD budget reports—weekly. Variance reports—monthly.

Exception Reports—Produced and distributed when something out of the ordinary occurs. Flash and Pop-up reports are examples.

Demand Reports– Sorted and specialized reports available to managers through database report generators and SQL.

Push Reports– Exception information “pushed” through the network to the workstations of all managers with a need to know. Similar to exception reports but distributed to a more specific group of managers.

Table 8.3

Online Analytical Processing (OLAP)

Automated analyses in environments that include data warehouses linked through a DBMS with data mining features.

Consolidation—Chain home offices providing information by property, by city, by region, by district, by nation.

Drill-Down—The opposite of consolidation. The chain home office can identify top producers at specific properties in ranking order and compare them with regional or national performance.

Slicing and Dicing—Breaking information into segments or niches.

Table 8.4

Decision Support Systems (DSS)

Statistical software used to perform complex analysis of multiple variables. An example is a yield management program used to compare variables to enhance revenue management.

What-If Analysis—Considers hypothetical scenarios. For instance, what if a disaster occurred in two major cities that immediately stopped business and leisure destination travel?

Sensitivity Analysis—Specialized What-if analysis. For instance, how would different group profiles impact hotel retail sales?

Goal-Seeking Analysis—Referred to as “How-Can” analysis. For example, how can we increase sales by 10% over the same period last year?

Optimization Analysis—Provides templates for decisions to maximize profit or revenues. Again, Yield Management is a perfect example.

Table 8.5

Field

Record

Records

File

Database

Transaction Processing

Process Control

Management Reports

File

File

Point of Sale System

Input ReportsFigure 8.5

Security & Energy Mgmt.

HRIS

Accounting & Finance

PMS

POS

Convention Mgmt. System

DBMS

Figure 8.6

Housekeeping & Engineering

Sales & Marketing

Accounting & Finance

Front Office

POS

Convention Mgmt. System

PMS

Figure 8.7

Reservations

Night Audit

Hotel Front Office

Concierge

Inventory

EngineeringHousekeeping

Revenue Management

Pricing

Reservations

Internet

GDS

Direct Call

PMS

PricingBooking

Settlement

Cashier

Status

Check in/out

G. History

Folio

Credit Card

CIA

Master Folio

Group Block

Room Info

Hskp. Req

Eng. Req

Audit

Key Cntrl

Currency

General Info

Figure 8.8

Folio

Room Keys

Security

Information

Point of Sale (POS) Network

Casual Restaurant

Entertainment

Signature Restaurant

Lounges

Banquets

Room Service

Recreation

Retail ShopsPOS ServerPMS

Night Audit

Front Desk

Mgmt Report

Guest Folio

Figure 8.9

Restaurant POS Network

Cold Station

Lounge

Terminal

Terminal

Terminal

Service Area

Service Area

Hot Station

Hot Station

Hot Station

Dining Room

OfficeMaster

TerminalPOS to PMS

POS to Chain

POS to EDI

Figure 8.10

Restaurant/Retail POS/EDI System

Master Terminal

Inventory

Purchasing

Storerooms

Hot StationHot Station

Outlets

AccountingVendors

Master Terminal

Master Terminal

Master Terminal

Orders

Electronic Purchase Orders

ReceivingDelivery

Reconcile order and invoice

Electronic Billing

Figure 8.11