Ict & E-Commerce for Hospitality Industry

According to Laudon & Laudon (2014), information systems help company obtaining and analyzing customers’ data and information, recording business data and transactions, analyzing and budgeting current and future sales and activities of company. Sales patterns basis business needs to be monitored by information system, attention needs to be paid on updating sales price, checking on low inventories, and timely delivery to each store.

The literature below is a research about self-checkout machine in Tesco supermarkets, and it aims at answering; the reasons that Tesco has changed, importance of self checkout systems in Tesco and challenges faced by the self checkout systems. TESCO is a chain of supermarkets stores originally from the U.K; they have expanded rapidly over the past few years. These stores are of general merchandise that carries everything from clothing, deckchairs, groceries, petrol stations, wines, consumer electronics, DVD and CDS. TESCO has stores in North America, Asia and Europe that operate under the TESCO brand. It operates hypermarkets, supermarkets and convenient stores. TESCO services allow their customers to do their shopping from the comfort of their chairs; because delivery is done to their homes, and it also offers internet shopping services.

According to an article “Technology’s Effect on Hotels and Restaurants: Building a Strategic Competitive Advantage”, Kountromanis who is the author highlighted that internet is being used by majority of the world’s population therefore information posted on the web regarding the business service provided by an organization is significant. Not only that, any organization can gain competitive advantage by structuring into a customer-centered focus organization allowing the companies to know their own strengths and make further improvement to their weaknesses. In addition, companies will be able to extract information regarding customers with the help of network sites such as LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and Snapchat.

Providing a self-check-out machine to save the customer’s time. Also, these machines will reduce the expenses that will be paid for the labours.

Marriott is renowned for its elegant and comfortable hotels and resorts. The company caters to a targeted customer base, ranging from the frequent corporate business traveler to the family enjoying their occasional weekend get-away. Marriott has continued its rise in the lodging, contract services, and restaurant industries. The company continuously strives to meet the needs and wants of its customers while strategically maneuvering the rigors of today’s competitive and ever-evolving market of glamorous destinations and convenient services. In order to remain relevant in a highly-competitive environment, Marriott must strike that successful balance of minimizing costs, and gaining and effectively

Technological environment shows that there is more Point of Sales systems available with electronic shelf labels and scanner. In addition, self-checkout registers and advertising through mobile apps are getting more common.

My Ict system will be used mostly by four people the manager, the cashier, the employees, the stock keeper. My system is going to be used by the manager because he will have to look at the day to day profit or loss that we are making at that is on my Ict system. The cashier uses the system so that each item can be deducted from the stock page which will overall give up out total cost. Also, the employees need my system so that if a customer is looking for an item they can give the item code to the employees and they go on my Ict system and enter the code if that item is in store then the costumer can buy that item. Moreover, the stock keeper will also need to use the Ict system due to he will have to track the order which can be done in the system because the order

An information system is a base in today’s business world. Everything is electronic. In various businesses, the survival and ability to succeed strategic business goals is challenging without extensive use of information system. Businesses improve the efficiency of their operations in order to accomplish higher profitablity. Besides that, information systems are important tools available to managers for achieving higher levels of efficiency and productiviy in business operations. For an example, Zara uses the PDA technology to gather customer feedback and input.

A common way of decreasing the amount of inventory a business holds on a daily basis is implementing a just-in-time inventory process. A Just-In-Time inventory system means that the business gets the materials for a product, as they are demanded. “The electronic data

There are some functions of this system are tracking the stocks of the products, tracking about suppliers, and the storage time. So, it helps to control level of inventory and maximize the use of warehouse space of a company. (Mohan)

For value to the customer marketing strategies, quality maintenance and upkeep, and productivity is also necessary. To provide the greater satisfaction to the customer excess sell, merchandise buys and web presence is must. Information technology in the business has become marketing tool and that can direct marketers to the customers straight. With the use of online database, software, human resources, trends and techniques of IT business can grow longer with no limitations.

While, Marriott International Inc. has hotels in nearly 90 countries, and 19 different brands; As well as a reward program with nearly 55 million members all over the world, and is still expanding. In Marriott International’s 2015 annual report, is a message to the shareholders. In its message the company’s future growth is stressed. In fact, Starwood Hotels & Resorts Worldwide are acquisitions of Marriott International and are currently being incorporated. Additionally, Hotels in Africa, Asia, Europe, and the U.S. are currently under new development or renovation; although, 77% of Marriott International’s rooms were in North America at the end of 2015 (as can be seen in figure 2 on page 7). Also, the company expressed its concerns on environmental sustainability, and its goals to become more environmentally conscientious. Furthermore, technological improvements thru ought the many hotels, and reward’s program were discussed. Such as virtual reality room service, improved Wi-Fi, mobile check in, and Apple Pay. This message gave shareholders information on the company’s financial standing, and ultimately a guide on how the company plans to boost revenue by appealing to customer wants and needs.

Centralised inventory data, orders and payment systems give the company the ability to monitor overall product and cash flows. Every shop will also use the same system to perform the same tasks.

The research reviews a wide range of literatures on Marketing and online marketing with an overlook over online marketing developing and its tools and how they are used in organizations. Collecting data about how the Hilton Hotels are making a use of the Online Marketing and its tools and how effective are they in their marketing plan, aiming to be able to determine online marketing effectiveness in marketing strategies in hospitality organizations.

The advantages of search engine marketing are that 85% of all traffic on the internet is referred from a search engine and about 90% of all users don’t look past the first 30 results. This is really advantages in the that the advertisement will not go on notice and have great potential for revenue. It’s also been said there's a clear measure of return on investment. The disadvantages to this kind of E-marketing is that unless someone goes and search something with the keywords then the advertisement won’t come up. Also, people do not search the web as often as they check their phone so the frequency and the exposure aren't as much as it could be. The advantages of the web 2.0 are that there will be a variance with people's experience with the company and if it is a great experience then they will let everyone know of the amazing service they received from that company. The disadvantages, however, are if the service they received from the company was terrible they will also be sure to let everyone that they know be aware of that. Nonetheless, that’s one of the challenges with services, two different people can be speaking of the same property. however, has two different perspectives. The best way to combat that would be to try and make most people happy so that the overall rating would be acceptable or good. The advantage of the email is that the advertisement is going to the person personal email this makes the guest feels somehow important or connected to the company. Allowing the consumer to be able to up-out of the email with no hustle is also very convenient. According to my experience, they also allow options such as receive emails less frequently, if that's where the issue is. Another great advantage of the emails is that people go to their personal email, and service much more often then they search the web which means more exposure and with that comes a higher probability of