With the rise of innovative hotel software in a radically changing era, trend lines continue to slope in favor of an integrated hotel management system that emphasizes mobile and guest-driven processes, all managed above location in the cloud. But there are many organizations who continue to stick to the on-prem status quo.

This hesitancy to change is a barrier for many organizations to see the benefits to their businesses in the long run, particularly in an era when alignment across all hotel properties is as essential as ever. To help address that, here are 4 common hospitality cloud software myths to better understand and then dispel while competing in a fast-moving and constantly evolving hospitality industry that is set to face new challenges.

It's not just about technology, it's all about responsibility

The technical aspect of different delivery methods described in the previous blog post in this blog series of, is of course an essential part of the factors to consider when choosing the right ERP solution for your company. However, what is perhaps even more important to understand is the division of responsibilities between supplier and customer when it comes to the different options. There are major differences between the delivery methods, but there may also be differences within the specific method.

ERP Delivery methods from a responsibility perspective

Below Håkan Strömbeck (Senior Industry & Solution Strategy Director at Infor), describes the different ERP delivery methods from a responsibility perspective. The description is made from a general perspective for all option, except for the "multi-tenant" option which is described based on how things work at Infor.

Building a Power Team:

The first major step in the journey toward adopting a new ERP system for your organization is assembling an effective project team. A well-appointed team can help you not only select the best possible ERP system suited to meet your organization’s needs but also mitigate employee resistance and secure leadership buy-in.

Assembling an all-star team for your ERP project is critical to your implementation success, so do not take these decisions lightly.

The evolution of supply chain business models has been accelerated by unprecedented disruptions. As a result, there has been a clear shift from analog supply chains models of the past into a trajectory towards a digitalized ecosystem. These new business models recognize and necessitate the move to a digital and integrated supply chain that provides visibility and ease of use for consumers.

This journey is about moving towards a world where all parties participating across your network are connected to a single version of the truth. Supply chain thinking is shifting from ‘linear supply chains’ to ‘supply chain eco-systems’ propelled and supported by digital technologies.

Gartner has established a five-stage model of the journey to supply chain maturity, ranging from manual, analog systems to a fully digitalized ecosystem. Key differentiators along this evolutionary chain include consideration of data and collaboration, with the ultimate goal of integrating data across multiple systems to achieve a fully connected ecosystem that provides transparency and visibility for your company both internally and externally.

As industry attitudes and consumer behaviors change, so does the challenge of sustaining a business in the fashion industry. The global health crisis has accelerated the need for fashion and retail brand owners to reconsider their current business models to satisfy their digitally native consumers while maintaining omni-channel supply and ensuring sustainable production.

Whether large or small, fashion brands can turn these challenges into opportunities by transforming their business models. How does your organization meet the expectations and desires of today’s digital consumers? Are you still using old technology that might have served you well in the past but is now beyond its shelf life? If you already have an ERP system in place, there’s a good chance it’s no longer able to keep up with your business needs and growth aspirations.

A critical lesson many organizations have learned when measuring the success of analytics initiatives is that speed of deployment and widespread user adoption are key factors to consider. These are key benefits of analytic applications delivered with or embedded in ERP systems or business applications.

Analytic applications provide pre-built business intelligence (BI) and analytical capabilities that promise to democratize analytics because most of the hard work in transforming data to insights has already been done. However, the historical challenge these applications faced was that they weren’t built with agile cloud technology or modern data architectures that could keep up with the growing complexity, scale, and changing requirements of the line of business (LOB)-driven analytic requirements.

Why settle for anything less?

Distributors often operate behind the scenes, making sure other businesses have what they need. The projects they support continue because tools, equipment, and supplies are where they needed to be. Patients have procedures because instruments are available. Structures are built because materials are ready. Restaurants can serve customers because food, drinks, plates, and pots are on hand.

Recent events revealed just how critical the distributor’s role is in the supply chain. In reality, it’s extremely complicated to seamlessly move such high volumes of goods. Especially as expectations and behaviors have evolved in the last decade, distributors have had to adapt their solutions, processes, and levels of service.

Historically, many distributors would customize enterprise resource planning solutions to meet their unique requirements. This approach, however, created an unwilling in-house IT cottage industry dedicated to supporting the infrastructure and modifications, instead of strategic initiatives. We see this during evaluations with prospective Infor customers; when distributors compare our CloudSuite solutions to their current footprint, we typically discover that hundreds if not thousands of their current modifications would no longer be needed. Because our solutions are designed for the distribution industry, the best practices those companies require are built in. For example, when HVAC and industrial product distributor, EMCO, moved to CloudSuite Distribution Enterprise, the company removed over 4000 modifications. EMCO no longer needed to maintain customizations and project manage long upgrade initiatives. That fluctuating, unpredictable overhead goes away forever because EMCO’s new mutli-tenant cloud solution is automatically updated monthly. Their technology is always current and always adding new distribution functionality to align with nuances and needs of this industry

The ability to execute, seamlessly and in real-time, is critical as your company works to develop a continuous supply chain. Being uniquely capable of connecting multiple facets of this execution -- not just to an order management system but also to TMS for transportation management and WMS for warehouse management will be key components to implementing continuous supply chain execution.

Integrated multi-party source-to-settle process

Sourcing execution or the ability to establish real-time connectivity to suppliers is key. What we are really speaking to here is the need to orchestrate end-to-end physical and financial operations between order management, global trade management, transportation, warehouse, product traceability, and even payables management.

Streamlined manufacturing

Manufacturing execution is focused on streamlining processes, driving better decision making and gaining productivity. Supply chains must optimize and automate the manufacturing process from raw materials and components to finished goods. Having the ability to anticipate and optimize lead times is crucial for downstream improvement.

The future of planning is connected, intelligent, and continuous. Yet many companies remain so far away from this vision, it often seems unachievable. With many planning processes being so siloed and disconnected from execution, they can feel ineffective.

Fortunately, evaluations of the planning landscape reveal many organizations are adopting technologies that move towards a de-siloed, network-based approach to planning. For these companies, the primary goal centers around connecting planning capabilities to “a single version of the truth.” To optimize planning capabilities, it crucial to achieve this connection at the enterprise level as well as into the broader supply network.

But to do this involves using integrated business planning (IBP) or sales and operations planning (S&OP) to collaborate and analyze, perform demand planning to improve forecasting, optimize supply planning, and facilitate synchronization. Each of these areas are critical to a successful planning process and are more powerful when integrated and connected across a network.

An estimated $350 billion of invoices are typically involved in supply chain finance programs. Known as "reverse factoring," this process assists suppliers in obtaining the capital needed to keep supply chains humming, as described by Aite Group. Opposed to traditional receivables financing or factoring, reverse factoring is driven by the buyer and its relationship to a bank or finance provider, with capital being made available to suppliers based on the relationship parameters.

Banks are happy to step in, within specific jurisdictions and credit profiles. Research firm Coalition reports that banks logged approximately $12.7 billion in revenue in the first half of 2020 via total supply chain finance volumes. However, limitations are significant, and often times, the suppliers that need financing the most are excluded from such programs.