Outrigger Hotels And Resorts

Ahlam BELGHALI Soffia DOMINGUEZ Glodie MPAKOU-SOLO Hugo SELLEN Miguel VILLALOBOS

Assess the current IS resources of Outrigger (use bullet points or a table, put it in the appendix) Advantages points Centralized IT infrastructures Good use of technology Central Reservation Office All the departments are regrouped in one software All the information are updated every night Competitive advantages in the processes Improvements points Dependence on airline activity

To be continued.

What are the Outriggers critical (focus on the business not the IS) success factors (use bullet points, put it in the appendix)

Important geographical expansion Services adapted to the different customers needs o Different prices o Different kind of accommodations Important investments in assets maintenance Good communication between the different business unit, regardless the time zone Loyal customers Strong name recognition Long term relationship with the travel distribution network Deep local acknowledge and community ties Good employee relations

To be continued. Position Outrigger on the strategic impact grid (use a figure in appendix)

Factory

Support

Strategic

Turnaround

Information Technology played a major role in decision-making in the Outrigger Hotels IT infrastructure was evolved to contribute the goal of IS strategy. From the analysis of strategic impact grid we can see that Outriggers company is based by IS and it has used all quadrants as shown in the appendix. Support Quadrant: The firm needed to improve its IT infrastructure a decision made by the managers. The first system used by the company was Stellex, which Durocher brought as the first IS system, it works to administrative operations. They used this Quadrant because IS Stellex is used to support operations. - Factory Quadrant: In this quadrant the firm intention is to use more modern electronic devises instead of fax machine to organize and improve effectiveness and efficiency. The used the IS to perform important roles like accounting, payroll HR, or analysis, collected first by Stellex. - Turnaround Quadrant:

The company had to upgrade and initiate IT infrastructure when they realized it was necessary, so they hired Durocher to bring the IS, which was the most important decision for the company. Then IS team has developed the systems by planning to be implemented effectively. One of the advantages was that, aat th beginning old employees train new ones, but this was not appropriate because old ones had the double of work and could possibly dont do both well, so this new system promise major satisfaction an cost reduction.. - Strategic Quadrant: Outriggers firm uses E.piphany system for several intelligent strategic purposes, this system able to do forecasts and generate business indolence both at the source of business and at guest levels (Piccoli 2008). This system can be used for communicating with customers to acknowledge the special customers, giving the visiting history of the guests which is really important to realize the return guests rate; also, E.piphany can be accessed by a web interface for marketing and operational analysis. Based on your analyses, what IS strategic initiatives would you propose for Outrigger?

After analyzing the case, we would like to propose to the company the following: Outriggers company had invested too much money in the IS, so it would be a big disadvantage to to have control of the situation, they have to be aware of the pros and cons of investing a lot in this area, they have to be on constant training and determine if there its a real adding value to the organization. Also, another thing, as being a big company its the training issue, it should be responsibility of the HR department to implement courses not only to know IS but also to improve other skills to the employees, and at last but not least take advantage of the website and start to build a stronger relation between costumer and company by internet opening a new way to communicate., and maybe later another IT investment could be to create an application for mobile phones.