Every property has a different IT supplier. What head office loses
Hotel groups in Ireland tend to grow one property at a time. Each hotel arrives with its own broadband contract, its own IT company, its own PMS version, its own way of doing things that worked for the previous owner.
Two or three properties in, head office has a problem that does not appear on any invoice.
What you cannot see
- Which properties are backing up, and whether anyone has tested a restore.
- Which have a firewall that is still supported, and which are running on something a previous supplier installed in 2016.
- What each property is paying for connectivity, and whether two of them are paying the same supplier different prices.
- Where the same fault has been fixed three times at three properties by three different people.
- Whether a guest data breach at one property would be noticed by anyone at group level.
Each general manager knows their own property. Nobody knows the estate.
Replacing every supplier is not the answer
The instinct is to standardise by moving every property to one supplier. In practice this is disruptive, expensive and often unnecessary. Some of the local suppliers are good. The problem is not their competence, it is the absence of a standard and a view across them.
What works instead
- One standard, written down. What every property must have: segmented networks, supported firewalls, tested backups, documented connectivity, a named owner for each system.
- One review across the estate. Each property measured against the standard, with a short list of gaps and costs.
- One view for head office. A simple board showing every property against the standard, updated as work is done.
- Local suppliers kept where they are good, working to the standard, with somebody at group level holding the whole picture.
This is the approach behind our hotel groups work. It is also how we approach a single property: as one environment, not a collection of contracts.
Where to go next
- Hotel groups
- Infrastructure. Servers, networks and backups reviewed as a whole.
- Tell us how many properties and what keeps repeating
FAQ
Should a hotel group move every property to one IT supplier?
Not necessarily. The problem is usually the absence of a group standard and a single view, not the local suppliers. Set the standard, review every property against it and keep good local suppliers working to it.
What should a hotel group standard cover?
At minimum: network segmentation between guest and operational traffic, supported firewalls, backups with tested restores, documented connectivity and contracts, and a named owner for each system at each property.
How does head office keep a view without a large IT team?
A short written standard, a periodic review and a simple estate board showing each property against the standard. The work is mostly organisation, not technology.