i can't make up my mind

Here's the deal...

A few months back I switched this blog to Wordpress from Blogger. I felt the UI for Wordpress was better as well as some of the other stuff they offered. What I did not account for was my free blog was no longer free if I wanted to republish the layout with some customizations. For that I had to purchase Wordpress CSS editor...LAME!So I'm back to Blogger with a new layout and new RSS feed. For the 5 of you that actually read this blog sorry for the confusion. But I'm here to stay now!

By the way, if you want to know how I got the sweet Flash header leave a comment with your email address and I'll shoot you a message.

new digs

kevin sturm Consulting has been updated with a really awesome new site. Take a tour and you'll see what I mean. I think the new site expresses what differentiates my consultancy. The bottom line of which is "I am my brand."

When a company selects my firm to advise them on a technology solution, they get me...not just the business part of me, but the whole part. All my passion and all my enthusiasm. My passion for technology, and travel, and great customer service can't be separated from my passions about living life to the fullest, loving my family, and helping others. Without my other passions, my company is just like any other company...simply someone trying to make money. But I think (and hope) I'm more than just that.

My company is the avenue that allows me to live out my passions:

• Spending as much time with my family as possible
• Using my knowledge and experience to help others be more successful
• Creating freedom in my life to do the things I love to do
• Traveling...both for work and pleasure
• Being directly involved in technology and how it can change our lives for the better

I am my brand, and it became important that my website reflect that.

Thanks to the genius of a few folks over at Showit Fast, I was able to build this site myself WITHOUT ANY HTML OR FLASH coding. Given the current economic conditions I have to say saving the dinero on a web developer and graphic designer was a huge help. If your a consultant and wishing your website better reflected your brand, better represented your company, and allowed you to update it on a regular basis then go download Showit Sites.

Make sure to use the promotion code "SIMPLE" to get the first two months FREE. And if you have any questions email me because I'd love to help you get you started in building a site that matches your brand and simplifies your life.

sweating the small stuff - part two

I frequent this site to keep up with who is doing what, where and when in hospitality. I've found about half the content recently is either economic-doom-and-gloom or hopeful-economic-optimism. So which is it? If you've come to this site to find the answer, I don't have it for you. Sorry...

What I do have are tips on how to optimize your existing technology solutions to either increase profits or decrease costs. Today we are specifically focusing on lowering your Cash Cost.

Cash Cost is inclusive to each area your business incurs a cost in receiving cash. This includes cash accountability on the part of the employee and cash accounting on the part of management. Multiply this process for each individual employee that accepts cash and your Cash Cost can get expensive.

The prolific way to eliminate this cost is to go cashless. Many venues across the hospitality space have adopted this model: such as this one, this one, this one, and this one. But getting completely cashless requires cash, sometimes a lot of it. Instead, let's look at some small ways you can alleviate Cash Cost.

prevent cash theft
Most POS systems (probably yours too) have built in cash accountability to help prevent theft and cash counting errors. The first step in taking advantage of this is to ensure your employees are not sharing POS User Accounts. My experience is if employees get to share accounts, there is a good chance they have also get to share in an " unofficial" employee bonus pool. Second is to require employees to enter a Cash Drop at the POS. (Whether this is a blind drop or a not should be based on your business requirements and employee job function.) Requiring a cash drop allows the management staff to review system reports that highlight over/short employees saving time by focusing first on the problems.

increase credit transactions
Increasing Credit Card transactions is a good way to decrease Cash Cost (and is a type of cashless payment), but you need to do the math for it to make sense. Getting the most from your merchant services provider requires transaction volume and aggressive negotiation. If you are not sure about how to go about negotiating your fee contact a company like this that does it on your behalf and gets paid based on your savings. To make any meaningful savings here you should also have a software based payment solution integrated with your point of purchase system(s).

The best way to increase credit card transactions it to market it, but you also have to incentivize the consumer. This can be implementing a no-signature transaction policy (moot if we ever migrate to EMV) or joining programs that encourage customers to pay with their credit card (i.e. here and here).

implement gift cards
Offering gift cards creates the opportunity to decrease Cash Cost and encourage customer loyalty. However, this is the type project where scope creep can kill the initiative so be conscientious and realistic in defining what you are going to implement. There is a very good chance your point of purchase system (PMS, POS, etc.) or credit card solution offers or includes a gift card solution. It will most likely not offer all the bells and whistles of this or this or this, but the goal remember is to initiate low cost steps in decreasing Cash Cost.

customer account integration
This is an often overlooked but simple option to move in the cashless direction. Additionally, this option has the HUGE upside of tracking your customer's purchase habits. Again there is a good chance also your existing point of purchase solution some sort of customer account charge. For larger venues the better option is to implement an integration between the point of purchase system(s) and the customer account system(s).

The basis of this solution is an interface from your POS system to your customer account(s) system.

Property Management System to POS: guest transactions are paid with a room key and/or name
Membership Accounting to POS: member transactions are paid with a membership card and/or name

As with automated product/item depletion there is a very good chance your vendors already have the interface in place, meaning you can implement it with a minimal investment.

currency counting integration
If you handle enough cash to use currency counting machines another interesting option is to investigate an interface from the currency counting solution to the POS. I have only seen this integration implemented a few times, but it has proven to be a highly cost effective solution with a convincing ROI. It usually is accompanied with a higher investment cost however as this type of interface is generally custom integration that uses the POS Accountable Cash data, POS Cash Drop data, and Cash Counted data consolidated to a single report for simplified cash accounting.

If you have someone on the payroll that has the sole duty of counting cash and reporting discrepancies, this is probably a worth while option to investigate.

Obviously this list is not comprehensive, but hopefully stimulates some ideas. If you have successfully implemented other options or have other ideas post a comment and share your knowledge. In times like this it is worth it to share our experiences so we all come out ahead.

sweating the small stuff - part one

For whatever reason when revenue is up venues have the tendency to not sweat the small stuff. I guess it's because the small stuff doesn't amount to much when focusing on the big investments. But when revenue is down it's time to look closely at where your staff is spending their valuable time.

The next two posts will be dedicated to the "small stuff". Each has a minimal time and dollar investment with a quick ROI.

automated product/item depletion
Manually entering inventory depletion should only be necessary if you don't have a PC based POS solution (and even then it may not be required). If you do have a PC based POS solution (and who doesn't at this point) then now is the time to link the two system.

A basic overview of this interface is the POS system exports a text file (formats can vary) of product/item depletion. This file is then used by the inventory management system to decrement inventory amounts. A key prerequisite is a "Common Numeric Identifier" for each product/item that is shared; this is generally the SKU number. Chances are good the vendors you use already have a functional interface, and it's highly possible getting it turned on won't cost you anything (except maybe vendor support fees). If your vendors do not have an established interface you have a few options

option one
The first option is to work with one of your vendors to write a utility that meets the specifications of the other vendor. For example, your POS vendor writes an export utility that produces a file matching the import specifications of your inventory control vendor. Or, the inventory control vendor writes an import utility that uses the file format provided by the POS system. Most vendors have vast experience with this option, as it is the most common and generally preferred solution But, the price of this method can vary drastically among vendors.

Pros: vendor supported interface, highly scalable for large volumes of data
Cons: vendor may charge high price for development, any future changes to the interface require vendor time line

option two
The second option is to use a middle-ware utility to convert the standard POS export format to the standard import format for the Inventory Control system. There is a multitude of middle-ware applications available allowing someone with development experience to accomplish this. They range from free-ware applications to highly scalable solutions like Microsoft Biztalk. Be careful however as the price of this option can unexpectedly creep as interface iterations spiral out of control. The advantage is the opportunity to use the middle-ware application for other integration projects. The important point here is data mapping. Incorrect data mapping will lead to incorrect inventory depletion.

Pros: scalable for large volumes of data, use middle-ware software for additional interface engines
Cons: requires development experience, possible high cost of software and development

option three
The third option is to build a conversion utility with scripts, macros, and/or batch files. This process generally involves utilizing MS Excel and Visual Basic for Applications (VBA). I would only recommend this option when working with small volumes of data (no more than few hundred lines of data per executed export file) and when manual validation of the process regularly can be performed. Most IT resources (especially if they are a recent graduate with an computer related degree) have the experience necessary to build these utilities. The important piece here again is data mapping. Incorrect data mapping will lead to problematic inventory depletion errors and generally non-descriptive and unhelpful error messages produced by Microsoft.

Pros: internally owned, can quickly be implemented, low cost investment
Cons: internally owned (yes it can be both), not scalable for large volume of data, high chance of failure

reviewing your ROI
To calculate your ROI estimate how much time is spent reviewing sales and product mix reports and how much time is spent entering depletion into the inventory system. For convenience use monthly estimates. Next, calculate the Estimated Monthly Task Cost of this process using the hourly rate of employee(s) performing the task.

Estimated Monthly Task Cost = (time reviewing reports X hourly rate) + (data entry time X hourly rate)

Based on which of the three options you choose to implement calculate the Total Project Cost. If your vendor charges a recurring support fee for the interface in Option One, don't forget to include that in the Total Project Cost. Also, if you choose Option Two and pay for a recurring support fee for a middle-ware application don't forget to include that in the Total Project Cost. (If you plan on using it for additional projects you may want to only include a fraction of the support fees.)

ROI = Estimated Monthly Task Cost / Total Project Cost

This is how long in months it will take you to recoup the Total Project Cost, allowing your employee(s) to focus on other revenue generating activities. You may even find your ROI is less than one month!

If you don't have the experience or time to implement this interface give me a ring, I'd be happy to help! ;-) But don't forget to include the cost of the consultant in your Total Project Cost.

If you are wondering about an integration capability post a comment and I'll cover the details in a future post. Even if you think it is probably not possible, it may be. I've seen a parking garage gate interfaced to the POS cash drawer...so almost anything is possible.

information entertainment gets healthy with an apple a day

I did an interview with Josiah Mackenzie on his Hotel Marketing Strategies Blog. In the interview Josiah asked me a question about how information entertainment is changing the guest experience, with specific reference to Microsoft Surfaces. I think Surfaces is cool, but I'm not convinced it's functional at the current price point (check out the full interview here). His question prompted me to do a little more research on some rumors about Apple's move into hospitality.

I liked these rumors for two reasons. First, Apple already has guest experience nailed. If you doubt me spend some time in an Apple Store. From architecture, to music, to hands-on-play, to service Apple knows how to manage the guest experience. Second, I'm a tech junkie and an Apple lover (both the mac and honey crisp kind).

What I found really excited me.... I may book a trip just to experience what I saw. Apple has partnered with Nanonation to provide some seriously awesome digital media content to guests. Most of their website revolves around digital signage, but via Apple's website you can register to watch a demo on how they are changing the face of in-room entertainment. And this isn't future in-room entertainment, it shows what is available now!

To get all the nitty-gritty details you really need to watch the presentation. You can do so by going here and then click "Watch the presentation". That will take you through a series of steps to register your info with Apple (you will need to setup an account). There is a also a single page pdf you can download here.

if you don't have time to watch the video here is my synopsis of the benefits.

1. A really awesome graphical user interface that is very easy to use, allowing your guests to buy services, research local attractions, and all the while allow you to store their search information making their future searches more guest-centric.
   
   
2. Through use of the Mac mini (a 6 x 6 x 2 computer) you can use the LCD HD TV that most likely is already in the room. And you get the awesome Apple Care warranty option. This also means the hardware and software platform for your In-Room Entertainment is the same as for your Digital Signage in the main areas.
   
   
3. The potential benefits of how this technology will migrate to the iPhone and iTouch is SWEET! See your entire schedule and be able to book reservations for any hotel amenities on your iPhone through an app that integrates with your room details.
   
   
4. Very intuitive and highly functional interactive channel guide for TV viewing.
   
   
5. A movie guide that is more advanced than the current solutions you generally see in hotel rooms, offering more flexibility and a richer user experience typical to that of a Mac.
   

If you're interested in implementing a new and different in-room entertainment or digital signage solution give me a call. Together we can find out of this solution is right for you.

For more information about kevin sturm Consulting please visit my website or email me.