Hospitality industry starting to embrace e-business

THE hospitality industry is beginning to embrace electronic procurement, resulting in huge supply chain cost savings - as well as other costs savings, said James Montgomery, md of Hospitality Technology International (HTI), a premier supplier of software solutions for the hospitality industry. "By using the Internet for e-procurement, the increase in overall efficiencies is expected to save companies millions of rands each year. We are now seeing purchasing managers gaining better control over their procurement - and businesses are cutting back on off-contract, or ad hoc purchases, a costly concern for any hospitality company." Adds Montgomery: "Hotels are now waking up and are now definitely starting to take advantage of the multitude of benefits that e-business offers, such as the web-based applications that are available to effortlessly upgrade purchasing systems, resulting in immediate benefits, including increased levels of customer service and cost cutting.” He said while being totally ‘Internet-centric’ is arguably not the route to go - as the dot.com crash has indicated - at the end of the day the successful business of the future will glean the best from both the traditional and the new-wave dot.com way of doing business. “These companies will operate as what are now referred to as ‘click-and-mortar’ organisations. They will not align themselves to one specific focus or way of conducting business,” concluded Montgomery. (Miguel de Sousa)