PERFORMANCE COMPARISONS AMONG FOOD AND BEVERAGE MANAGEMENT INFORMATION SYSTEMS IN HONG KONG HOTELS

Abstract

Computer-based information systems have recently emerged as one of the important tools for optimizing work procedure and improving service quality in the hotel industry. A fast and accurate information system can handle more than half of the procedural paper work and provide a wide range of management reports. However, the performance of an information system depends very much on its flexibility to accommodate changing business environments and severe competition. Hence, regular maintenance and after-sales service is essential for a satisfactory system. This paper focuses on an increasingly important system -the food and beverage cost control system in the hotel industry. A survey has been launched to review the existing Food and Beverage Cost Control Systems (FBCCS) operated in Hong Kong hotels. There were ten different FBCCSs namely as ACOM, Check, CIF, Fidelio, JD Edwards, Maxial, NCR, NEC, Pick, and Sun being covered in this survey. Among these systems, the features of Chinese Character ability, compatibility with other systems, on-line help, batch job support, on-line tutorial, training courses from developers, and hotline enquiry were inadequate. Detailed comparisons on the aspects of hardware/software, data/information, operational procedures, technical support and security matters among these ten systems were made. Only two systems, CIF and JD Edwards, were satisfactory in perrformance on these five aspects. The rest were performing satisfactory in three four aspects. These ten systems were further categorized by their hardware platforms. It happened that the perception of performance on Minicomputer driven stems is better than that of the PC-driven or Workstation-driven systems. This paper serves as a reference for hoteliers in evaluating their Food and Beverage Cost Control Systems, or for software developers and distributors in hancing their software.