Roundtable: IT Managers

This month's IT managers embraced the opportunity to get a few issues and complaints off their minds

IT teams are the true unsung heroes of the hospitality industry. Few people are more crucial to the successful day-to-day running of a successful hotel and yet get so little credit for their efforts.

Try to imagine, if you will, a modern hotel without internet, without computers enabling the connection between the diverse departments, without printers to provide billing, without internet booking to bring in revenue.

All those elements and many more are the purview of the IT team, which is tasked with both keeping technology running, and looking for new ways of exploiting developments to provide better services to guests. But getting this level of importance from senior management, said the IT managers at our recent roundtable held at one of Kempinski Hotel Mall of the Emirates’ ski chalets in Dubai, is not always easy to come by, as hotels look at IT as a pure support function.

Among the many issues discussed, IT teams believe that a seat at the decision-making table is long overdue, as well as finding ways to differentiate properties through new systems and strategies, rather than merely buying in technology.

Which arm of senior management should IT report to — the finance department or the general manager?

Haitham Natour: We should be reporting directly to the GM. If you reach this level, you have already created your IT image and this will be respected. Acting only as a support department and ensuring that systems run 24/7 is our basic skills set. We as directors should be doing more to improve things in hotels.

Prasanna Rupasinghe: In terms of Kempinski as a chain we report to the general manager, but we’re pretty much independent in terms of the IT infrastructure. Traditionally IT has never been managed by business; rather they have been supporting technical aspects. With the change of the industry, IT has to be a part of business and strategic thinking rather than focused on technical things.

What we are seeing today is that IT is your lifestyle.

Five years back we would have been system administrators, but now we are looking at completely transforming the business processes and driving them from within. IT has to have that background — only then can it move forward.

Soroush Nazemi: IT used to be a utility. You always need electricity. Now it’s different. IT used in a hotel can make you competitive compared to all others. At Hyatt, we report to finance. What interests me is not who you report to that makes IT respected or not; it’s what you deliver that makes your department respected.

IT started in banks in the 1980s when they realised that computers could do the job much better. Who in the bank has the most control? Finance. IT started reporting to finance from there. But we are not communicating only to finance, we communicate to everyone else. It’s the communication part that matters, not who you report to. I report to finance but I communicate with managers in all the different markets.

PR: Finance are not as guest oriented. They always look at the amount that you spend. You cannot bring a return on investment for everything you do in IT.

HN: If what I implement will improve the business and increase the revenue, he [the CFO] will have to agree. He has no choice.

SN: This is the whole deal. You guys need to make them agree with you. I don’t need to report to you because I’m reporting to them already! They feel like I’m a part of their department, so it becomes very easy for them to approve the projects that we have.

HN: Reporting to the finance [officer] means that you are one step lower compared to the other departments like HR, engineering and sales and finance. Why would you want to be one step lower?

Imran Khan: In my hotel, I report to finance directly.

Rashed Iqbal: At Shangri-La, we report to the general manager. It is important to me because we can highlight all concerns directly with the general manager. If you go one step down reporting to finance, your issues and requirements are not conveyed directly. If you’re reporting to finance, they normally think about money first and don’t consider the importance of the actual functionality.

How do you approach senior management with your requirements?

RQ: We have to give a business case of course, they don’t understand the technical things. If you are conveying the requirements to the management, they are more likely to understand compared to finance.

HN: There is one thing we are all delivering the same – we are supporting all the departments and guests and ensuring that they are happy, whether they are reporting to finance, engineering, it should not make any difference when it comes to our duties.

At IHG, we used to report to finance. Now the group sees us as a strategic department that is no longer just a cost centre. It’s about technology, guest experiences and so on. I attend the revenue meeting, the yield meeting which is more than just preparing a budget.

PR: Finance looks at it from the scope of money rather than services. If you don’t have influence with senior management and simply go to finance with a request to improve services, you have to show ROI, which again is not always easy. When you report to the GM or corporate IT, you have the ability to put a business case across which they understand. On the other hand, GMs in today’s world are not traditional in their way of thinking. They are more technology oriented, they have seen the other parts of the world where people are interacting with the technology. When you report to a general manager, you can convince him by explaining where the world is moving. When you talk to finance though — after all what has changed in finance in the last 10 years? The way of functioning has remained the same since the 1990s.