InterContinental Marine Drive: IT All the Way

Located in close proximity to Nariman Point, the
InterContinental Marine Drive believes that IT has become an indispensable part
of the people-centric business of hospitality. "The driving force behind
systems is to ensure that errors are reduced wherever possible, with systems
supporting the back-end operations and ensuring that all processes are running
smoothly. Technology also allows for better records to be maintained; better
reports to be generated; minimize the chances of human error, and, most
importantly, reduce costs and make operations more efficient," says Romil
Ratra, general manager, InterContinental Marine Drive.

Perhaps it was this approach which made the hotels management
opt for deploying IT right from day one.

Citing an example, Ratra says that for the F&B sales the
hotel has a point of sale system (POS), Micros, which has three components.
"Earlier, the steward would prepare three copies of the orderone each
for the chef, cashier and waiter. Possibilities of an error due to
misunderstanding of the handwriting were enormous," Ratra says.

While using Micros POS, a steward simply takes an order on a
notepad and then goes to the POS terminal. He then creates a new table and feeds
in the order. This is done via menu item buttons on a touch-screen where he has
an option to feed in special instructions, if need be, from a pop-up Qwerty
keyboard. And, once the order is saved, a bill folio for the table is generated
and a copy is printed in the kitchen. There are duplicate copies of these
prints. One is for the waiter to pick up food and serve it on the correct table
and the other for the chef to prepare the food. And at the end of a meal, the
bill is printed from the POS terminal on the attached bill printer.

Driving Business

Technology is used in all the areas of the hotel right from taking orders
(POS) to booking reservations (PMS) to even streaming music in the hotel lobby.
"Since a hotel uses a considerable amount of food and beverage, physically
tracking their availability is an impossible task. It is for solving this
problem, that we use a Material Management System. This too is interfaced with
Micros for enabling minute tracking of F&B costs," says Ratra.

The back office functions are taken care of by Prism for payroll
processing by Alif Management Services, which in turn is linked to Alif Boss,
the accounting software. Even the accounting system recently went online with
the introduction of online payments to vendors and suppliers, thus saving time
and effort that went into signing piles of cheques.

At a more macro level, a good amount of business that comes to
the hotel is system generated, whether their own website, third party
intermediates or online booking portals linked to the hotels GDS interface.

ITs all about Service

Like most hotels, the InterContinental also provides its guests Internet
services on demand through a Malaysian system called FCS. Even the lighting
systems have a software-driven interface with an internal clock function.

The music too is done via streaming from various servers to all
the areas of the hotel. The hotel has engaged a service provider who has a
password protected website and the provider loads music as per the managements
brief onto the website

The usage of technology at the InterContinental Marine Drive has
yielded tangible results like lower costs of operation, improved tracking of
processes and flattening out problems, ensuring smoother day-to-day operation
for the management.

Stuti Das

stutid@cybermedia.co.in