Company insight
Recovery starts with a flexible IT platform
With a complex infrastructure of IT systems across individual hotels and the groups to which they belong, it can be difficult to get a clear view of how a business is performing and which changes have a real impact on success. Dan Clibbens, operations director at Percipient, discusses how operators can see the present clearly to create a better future.
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rocurement, PMS, EPOS, accounting and many more systems make up the complicated IT infrastructure upon which hospitality businesses depend. Amid this complexity, it can be hard to understand how all parts of the business interact and how operational changes can affect performance.
“Usually the internal back office solution is quite old, so connectivity is difficult, but also there are all these disparate systems in a hospitality business and nothing really brings them together to provide an overall view,” says Dan Clibbens, operations director at Percipient. “With the pandemic, these systems need to be brought together because operators have to make decisions quickly,” he adds. “They can’t wait too long or their revenue will suffer, and they have to keep the lights on.”
The word ‘percipient’ means ‘having good insight or understanding’. That is precisely what the company aims to help hotel operators achieve, bringing back office systems together in a way that provides flexibility, deep insight and a quick view of the impact of operational changes. “The landscape has changed,” says Clibbens. “There is a labour shortage, and Brexit has changed things in terms of who is available and what the costs are. So, operators need to get more from less, and there is uncertainty around the pandemic. There has not been much investment in back office systems for many years, so there is huge interest in investing in the cloud and the resilience it offers. “The challenge is to choose the right platform and at the right cost,” he continues. “There is a clear need to have a hub that brings these systems together,
Hotel Management International /
www.hmi-online.com
to share data that supports growth forecasts and performance measurement.”
Best-of-breed without the baggage Percipient is a provider of cloud-based business management, accounting and finance software. It uses the latest cloud technology to integrate clients’ finance systems and automate processes, so they can work better, faster and smarter. It uses Sage Intacct cloud finance software with a flexible API, to deliver the advantages of a powerful cloud-based accounting system with standard connectivity to a wide range of other best-of-breed platforms.
other systems built into its core. Yet the software and cloud-based access, which proved vital during the pandemic when so many people worked remotely, are only part of the solution.
Sector experts to the rescue Percipient offers an in-depth understanding of the specific needs of the industry. “The industry is trying to get the right people to work in the right areas, and there is a focus on cost and margins, so operators need to know how to compete in a time of resource shortage without pushing up costs too much,” says
“What we offer is data and analysis that is timely, accurate, promptly delivered and reliable.”
“With a best-of-breed approach to back office solutions integration can be a problem, or operators can trade off not having the best solutions to ease implementation,” explains Clibbens. “We say, ‘go and get the right systems for you and we will make it work; retail, spa, booking systems and everything else.’ They are all different and need to be knitted together. “You can disconnect one operational system and replace it with a new one, but you can keep your financials intact and in one place,” he adds. “Accountants like audit trails and data, financial records going back a long way, so Sage Intacct supports change to the business whilst keeping those historical records, you won’t lose the anything, just plug in something new.”
Sage Intacct is a best-of-breed financial system with reporting and connectivity to
Clibbens. “We have the experience of the sector that other vendors might not have. “A lot of people have left the industry, so they are trying to entice people to come back,” he adds. “What we offer is data and analysis that is timely, accurate, promptly delivered and reliable. We know how to knit things together and, more specifically, how this industry needs things to be knitted together. We provide a sound foundation that can scale up and evolve with operators as they choose new systems that suit their business.” With good insight and flexibility to choose systems without worrying about integration processes or losing finance data, operators now have a platform that can help them stay competitive as the sector recovers post-pandemic. ●
https://percipient.co.uk 35
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