NFS Hospitality technology solutions

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?