NFS Hospitality technology solutions

The Oxford English Dictionary defines collaboration as “work(ing) jointly on an activity or project.” Collaborative working is, therefore, the act of people working together toward common goals.

In a recent survey by the Economic Intelligence Unit, of 1,656 executives from 100 countries, the majority said that collaborative working is vital to the future of their organisations.

The survey also reported that “increased collaboration will be a defining feature of the company of 2020. Executives expect to see a lot more collaborative problem-solving inside and outside their firms, and clear majorities intend to create employee incentives to encourage collaboration across functions (79%) and with external stakeholders (68%).”

With Rendezvous Workspace it is now possible to bring together all the pieces of the collaborative jigsaw. Whether it is booking a video conference to facilitate collaboration across continents, to booking hot desks for an impromptu half-hour meeting, to booking a boardroom for a formal AGM, Rendezvous Workspace can handle all these differing scenarios with consummate ease.

Given the importance of face-to-face interaction in collaborative working, many organisations are designing workspaces with collaboration in mind. Research by Judith Heerwagen in her article, Collaborative Knowledge Work Environments, has shown that office layouts with the greatest number of connections to other spaces had more interaction with other workers.

Due to the disparate nature of today’s modern workforce, it is imperative that the tools are in place to enable collaboration. NFS’ Rendezvous Workspace scheduling software has been specifically designed to schedule all workspace within the modern office environment. It offers a flexibility previously not achieved by scheduling software tools designed purely for diarising meeting rooms.

There are a number of benefits to be gained from collaborative working as it helps people work together to achieve results, including:

• Lowering the costs of communication, through affordable or free tools
• Eliminating the need to travel to external meetings
• More co-ordinated and knowledgeable teams, armed with updated documents at any location, at any time
• More efficient and effective working methods due to advanced online tools

Organisations using Rendezvous Workspace have found a tremendous increase in collaborative working, which in turn has led to greater knowledge sharing and, in turn, faster decision-making.

If collaborative working is here to stay – what tools do you have in place to make the most of this opportunity?

Providers of club management software to private member clubs across the UK, on 4^th April NFS Hospitality held its first Private Member Club Meeting at The Naval Club, in London’s Mayfair.

Club operators – including Army and Navy Club, Caledonian Club, East India Club, Home House Club and Fly Fishers Club – gathered for an afternoon of discussion, networking and great food & drink.

The topical speakers for this debut event included Andrew Ball of HaysMacintyre, Gary Panter of Phyllis Court Club and Luis Desouza, CEO of NFS Hospitality.

Rosanna Long, PA to Luis Desouza, also attended the meeting and says Gary Panter’s and Andrew Ball’s presentations went very well. “Andrew spoke about recent financial changes for the business, and Gary talked about his experience with NFS implementing our system.”

Steve Salter, Head of Golf & Leisure for NFS Hospitality and PGA Member, gave a presentation about membership retention and how technology can help private member clubs achieve this. He showed how NFS’ club management software specifically handles this key and current topic, which resulted in some lively discussion about ways in which private member clubs address their current membership retention issues.

Steve also held a discussion on how technology can assist clubs with delivering high-end customer service, with the majority of clubs agreeing that good staff is the number one priority here. However most also agreed that technology can help brand-new staff to better understand members – and quicker – and that it can definitely speed up service for long-term staff.

“In general the mood was good,” continues Rosanna, “and most people agreed that private member clubs need to move forward with the times and modernise.”

NFS plans to host a series of similar Private Member Club seminars over the next twelve months, including different speakers and different topics, but still with the aim of providing a friendly forum for private member clubs and their technology providers to discuss the latest issues concerning this niche sector of the leisure industry.

The public sector is currently in a state of flux as the UK government plans to push through over £95 billion worth of cuts over the next five years.

Within this political and economic context, it is imperative that councils find more ways to not only generate incremental revenue but also to instigate effective cost control, better resource management and streamlined operational management.

Many councils are generating additional revenue through hospitality and events, and in order to do so they need to have systems in place that enable them to capitalise on booking enquiries, effectively utilise their space, streamline their admin processes and manage their retail catering operations.

NFS have been providing solutions for the public sector for many years – primarily their Rendezvous scheduling software and Aloha point of sale software.

One recent scheduling software implementation was for Cardiff City Council, who have found that Rendezvous has delivered tremendous benefits – in some areas cutting admin time by 75%. Crucially, the system also gives them a competitive advantage as they now have the sales and marketing information they need to move forward.

Councils benefitting from our point of sale software include Cambridge City Council and Huntingdonshire County Council. Kudos Hospitality, the catering company for Cambridge City Council, have found that Aloha brings tremendous operational benefits; for example, they can now update menus across all their sites at the push of button. The solution is proven to work robustly in demanding environments such as the Cambridge Corn Exchange, where it’s vital that tills don’t fail during intermissions at live events.

If your organisation is looking to move forward with your events business then please contact us today.

Last week some of our US team attended the IFMA Facility Fusion Show, held at The Westin – Boston Waterfront, in Boston, Massachusetts.  This very popular event brings together industry experts, educators and exhibitors whose aim is to provide attendees with proven strategies, solutions and action plans that can be implemented immediately.  Indeed, on their website – www.ifmafacilityfusion.org – the Organisers state: IFMA Facility Fusion addresses the facility issues that keep you up at night.

Natalie Appleton, US Head of Operations for NFS, says that exhibiting at the show, which focuses exclusively on the needs of Facility Managers, was both successful and exciting.  This will be another annual IFMA event in which NFS and the Rendezvous suite of scheduling software solutions will continue to participate.

Natalie reports that the wide-ranging exhibition was sold out.  It seems the Rendezvous Workspace room, resource and workspace scheduling software solutions showcased on the NFS stand attracted great interest, and many attendees – from diverse markets including Corporate, Educational, Healthcare and others – considered them a potentially a good fit for their Organisations.

“Some of the most positive feedback was the flexibility of Rendezvous, as well as the ability to specifically configure the software to support exact needs,” Natalie comments.  “Another solution to which people reacted positively was our newly released Rendezvous Workspace Mobile, with its iPad interface.  This was the solution’s first airing in the US, and it certainly raised a few eyebrows.”

NFS will be back at IFMA Facility Fusion in 2012, and looks forward to this year’s upcoming IFMA World Workplace Conference & Expo, in Phoenix, AZ.  This is the biggest and oldest show for facility management and related professions, and the much respected event addresses current and future issues and challenges that impact Facility Management.

We hope to see you there!

NFS recently sponsored the Tech and Trends 2011 executive briefing at the stunning Herman Miller National Design Centre in London. This was a sold-out event which attracted some of the major decision makers in the workplace management world.

As part of an interesting discussion programme centred around the latest trends in technology and workplace management, David Mapps, Sales Manager for NFS, delivered a stimulating and powerful presentation focusing on how vitally important it is for Companies to manage their space both in terms of maximising the return on their real-estate investment and reducing carbon emissions. One startling fact that David left the audience with is that, in some cases, over 50% of office space is under-utilised.

During the course of the presentation, David also touched on how our scheduling software has been designed to manage what is becoming an increasingly disparate and fragmented working environment. Workers now require a solution to their scheduling needs, encompassing the need to book hot desks and video-conferencing sessions as well the more traditional meeting rooms. Increasingly workers also want to integrate their bookings with their MS Outlook calendars and across several hardware platforms, such as iPads.

Following the briefing sessions, David and the team met with several of the delegates and conducted a series of product presentations. There was a tremendous response from visitors with particular interest being expressed in our range of mobile scheduling software solutions. Its ease of use and full MS Outlook/Exchange integration proved particularly congruent to participants’ needs.

In summary, the event proved to be very fruitful for both sponsors and visitors, with many new and exciting relationships forged as a result.

However, if you missed the opportunity to attend and are interested in the new technology entering the market over the next few years, we have recently added David’s presentation to our You Tube channel for you to enjoy at your leisure.

Feel free to visit our website where you can download additional resources and gain a good overview of the event.

The next event we are attending is at the IFMA Facility Fusion Show in Boston, MA, the 23-25 March. Please visit Stand # 525 to meet our team and see our ground-breaking mobile version of the Rendezvous Workspace room and resource scheduling solution.

We now have a new White Paper available to download for free. The Modern Workplace is the Mobile Workplace zooms in on a new generation of mobile worker; one who can hold any job title and who expects to be able to work from anywhere, at any time.

Our White Paper examines how this new mobile worker needs to work in a mobile workplace, also referred to as flexible workspace, hoteling, hot-desking or alternative workspace. Whatever you call it, this new way of working is steadily taking hold.

In order to manage your mobile workforce effectively, you will need flexible workspace-scheduling technology that can not only manage your traditional spaces – such as walled offices, cubicles and meeting rooms – but also new types of spaces – such as touchdown desks, collaborative space and video-conferencing & telepresence space.

Our Study also highlights the opportunity for mobile employees to schedule any type of space on their mobile devices, especially smart phones and iPads. With the new Workspace Mobile interface for Rendezvous Workspace, workers can use their iPads to search for and reserve any type of space to which they have access, and make changes to existing reservations.

Are you uncertain about how best to manage your new mobile workforce?

Our Workspace Mobile and Rendezvous Workspace solutions can help by allowing you to provide employees with the right mobile technology and the right scheduling tools, to manage the right types of space.

Find out more by downloading The Modern Workplace is the Mobile Workplace, our free white paper.

NFS are attending the Technology & Trends 2011 Executive Briefings for the first time ever and invite you to come and join us at this London event, which takes place 8^th and 9^th of March.

The mini conference will offer a condensed review of the latest workplace technology and innovations from larger, international shows such as CES, ISE and CeBIT.  It will focus on what new technologies are emerging for the workplace in the next twelve months, and how these innovations could affect the business world.

The briefings are a fantastic opportunity for anyone involved to create effective working environments, and also learn about technology enablers and the drivers of change. What are the key technologies being adopted by organisations to enable workplace innovation? How can you future-proof your workplace strategies?

NFS will be giving a short presentation about the company’s innovations for 2011, including Workspace Mobile, our new iPad interface for the Rendezvous Workspace scheduling solution. We will also have a stand, which you are welcome to visit and see the technology in action.

To register, please click here, but be quick.  Places are limited and many delegates have already signed up.  These include a mix of Managing Directors / CEOs, Heads of IT, Group Directors, Global Head of Facilities, Sales & Marketing Managers and Heads of Strategy. Delegates represent some big-name organisations, including AXA Insurance, Barclays Bank, Royal Bank of Scotland, GlaxoSmithKline, Nokia Siemens, The British Council and the University of Salford.

See you there!

With our new, six-part eBook, Scheduling Technology – The Benefits, we hope to offer a comprehensive look at why organisations should consider implementation of an integrated software solution for room and resource booking, and the many business advantages they stand to gain through use of this technology. We also offer a checklist of features to look for when choosing a scheduling solution – because, after all, every business is unique, with its own set of requirements.

The first series of our eBook, Why Space Management is Important to your Business, focuses on the many benefits that are available to organisations that deploy a powerful scheduling solution.

Did you know that workspace scheduling solutions can save time, streamline operations,  increase productivity, reduce overall costs and also increase employee satisfaction? These are what we believe are the core business benefits of scheduling technology, and in the first part of Series One we explain how each benefit can be seen across organisations that use an integrated scheduling solution.

There are also a range of transformational benefits to be gained, including reducing operational costs, increasing mobility, offering better access, improving work / life balance and also lessening your environmental impact. A more detailed look at these benefits forms the second part of Series One.

But it doesn’t stop there. Here are some of the topics we’ll be following in later series:

• Scheduling Technology for the Mobile Workforce
• Managing Space Using Outlook Calendaring
• The Benefits of Video Conference and Telepresence Technology

Series One: Why Space Management is Important to your Business is now available to download on our website.  Click here to enter a few basic details – and start reading!.

Teleworking is a trend that was first mooted as long ago as the late Seventies. With the advent of mobile technology, broadband and cloud computing it has become more and more prevalent for today’s workforce.

TechCast, a virtual think tank based at George Washington University, forecasts that 30% of employees in industrialist nations will telework 2-3 days a week by the year 2019. They also estimate the market for related products and services at $400 billion a year.

Using figures released by the Telework Research Network (TRN), it has been suggested that employees’ productivity could increase by around 27%. Companies that have benefitted from teleworking include Best Buy and British Telecom, which have seen average productivity rise by 35% and 20% respectively.

Productivity increases due to various factors such as fewer interruptions, more effective time management, a sense of empowerment, and flexibility in being able to choose when to work. Teleworkers also tend to put in longer hours as they work through the hours not spent commuting.

Those adopting teleworking practices have moved away from the traditional and expensive notions of office space. They have enjoyed significant savings on lease/purchase costs, car park leases, furniture, supplies, maintenance, security and other related costs. Using a hoteling or hot-desking programme enables the increasingly nomadic workforce access to office facilities when needed.

As a result, is it has become increasingly important for these organisations to have an effective scheduling software solution to manage their finite resources. One such solution is Rendezvous Workspace. It is designed to enable bookings of hot desks, meeting rooms and video conferencing to be quickly made from anywhere in the world. Integration with Outlook ensures all bookings and communications to service staff can be processed instantly.

Our research has found that a number of companies have adapted Outlook beyond its standard email, calendar and task management functionality to encompass room and resource bookings. Whilst Outlook is a great solution as a personal productivity tool it doesn’t offer all the benefits, such as reporting and catering management, that a specific room booking solution does.

As many people spend a considerable amount of their day utilizing Outlook, for email and productivity, including such tasks as organising and confirming meetings, then it would make sense for them to use a room booking system which is seamlessly integrated with Outlook. This allows them to continue working uninterrupted.

Rendezvous Workspace gives you just this. A proven resource management solution tightly integrated with Outlook allows your employees to continue to use the interface they’re comfortable with, whilst providing easy access to all the feature sets of a powerful scheduling software solution.

Rendezvous Workspace is used by a number of companies, including leading law firm Wedlake Bell, who can testify to its benefits:

“The ability for our staff to make a room availability enquiry from within Outlook and to also request or book a meeting room and resources simply and efficiently will help with providing a better service to our team and also reduce the workload on reception,” comments Linda Webster, Head of IT.

Are you using Outlook as a scheduling tool?