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Some implications of computers for hospitality managers
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Some implications of computers for hospitality managers Paul R. Gamble Department o f Hotel, Catering and Tourism Management, University o f Surrey, Guildford, U . K .
This paper considers the importance of new developments in information technology in the context of the social and economic conditions of the 1980s and discusses some implications for productivity. The relatively limited role that this technology has played in the hospitality industry is outlined and changes in the skills and attitudes of managers are suggested. It is thought that the changes may be accompanied by greater centralisation of decision-taking and emphasis on planning roles. It concludes that decision-making is essentially a social and therefore a human process but that managers in this industry need to take a more active role in personal development in order to exploit the technology to the full. In this way, some of the current difficulties of the hospitality industry might be overcome with a lesser threat to employment. 'The purpose of an organization is to enable ordinary human beings to do extraordinary things. No organization can depend on genius; the supply is always scarce and unreliable.' (Drucker, 1977)
Computers as a cool medium
sweep all before it. He emphasised that a new information m e d i u m should never be regarded as simply an addition to an old one and that it does not just leave old media intact. It oppresses and changes them until they are forced to find new shapes and positions.
To be asked to make predictions at this m o m e n t about the impact of computers on the lives of managers in the hospitality business is to be put in rather the same position as those pundits of the early 1960s who were trying to assess the potential effects of television. The two problems have many points of similarity since both are concerned with the possible social implications of a new medium for information and indeed it could even be suggested that both media have many points in common.
In these terms, computers are an even 'cooler' medium than television. As devices, they can assume a wide range of attributes and as instruments for manipulating data they are on the same scale of importance as the introduction of writing or of printing. Linear or even serial presentation of data is no longer central to the orderly analysis of a problem. The new media of information technology of which computers are a part will call for a response which may change entirely the way in which organisations deal with information. It may affect the kind of work that managers undertake and the structure of the organisations in which it occurs.
One of the best r e m e m b e r e d commentators was Marshall McLuhan (1965) and it is worth recalling briefly some of the things that he had to say about the introduction of a new medium. He argued that television would offer the prospect of turning the world into a 'global village', linking together those who could and those who could not read. Since Gutenberg and the invention of printing, a form of intellectual order had been imposed by the linearity of printed material. Television would impose no such constraints. Unlike a printed page or even a radio broadcast, there was likely to be a high level of audience participation in the m e d i u m itself (the current debate on the effect of television reporting underlines the point). It was what McLuhan termed a 'cool medium' and as a result it would Int. J. Hospitality Management Vol. 1 No. 1 pp. 3-101982 Printed in Great Britain
Consider for a m o m e n t , the way in which organisations traditionally represent themselves on paper. Two classes of manager are usually distinguished. On the one hand, there are what Drucker calls 'result-producing' managers and on the other, 'information-producing' managers. The former are referred to as line managers and their relationships with other managers are drawn by 3
0278-4319182/010003-08503.00/0 O1982 Pergamon Press Ltd
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solid lines. The latter are called staff managers and where an information-providing role exists, this is shown by a broken line. If these two types of role are merged as a result of the new medium, how then shall the lines be drawn? The problem is neatly illustrated by the dichotomy that already confronts the role of 'financial controller' or 'accountant'. The task of managing money and supplying capital is result-producing, the job of a line manager. The task of producing management accounts which is to do with representing the activities of the hotel in terms of a financial model is, quite literally, a figurative exercise. Sometimes, one of these interpretations of role comes to dominate the other and the information potential of financial records is dissipated or lost within the organisation. For example, data on the comparative value of different market segments might be difficult to extract because the accountant is not orientated to provide it or to recognise its importance.
The information revolution Over and above the short cyclic movements in the economy so beloved by politicians and managers, economists have identified much longer cycles lasting fifty or sixty years. These are known as Kondratiev long waves. According to some interpretations (Barron & Curnow, 1979), the first of these was associated with the introduction of the steam engine and lasted from about 1780 to about 1840. Although early steam engines were initially used simply to drive pumps, this proved to have considerable economic significance in permitting the development of the canal system and in making possible deeper coal mines. The second wave was associated with the impact of railways and lasted from 1840 to 1890 and the third, linked with the development of the motor car and the introduction of electric power stretched from 1890 to 1940. Microelectronics and computing could now underlie the existence of a fourth Kondratiev wave. The characteristics of such a wave are distinct. In its first phase, as the new technology is being generated, it has little impact on the economy as a whole but creates a highly profitable sector that attracts heavy investment. Thus the 1950s and '60s saw a boom in consumer electronics and computing. In the second phase, the effects of the technology are disseminated. Some groups, especially those involved with exploitation of the technology, prosper greatly while others suffer either because their jobs are displaced or because they are not affected by the technological change in a way that allows them to participate in its benefits. These changes are not directly related to the technology itself but are to do with the slower response of the social system in adjusting to change.
Paul R. Gamble
Developments in photoelectronics have now made it possible for computers to be widely and cheaply available. The British Government, expressing its view of the technology said that 'if we neglect or reject it as a nation, the United Kingdom will join the ranks of the underdeveloped countries', (NEDC, 1979) and has established a Microelectronics Awareness Project (MAP) specifically to proliferate its use in manufacturing industry. The decade of the 1980s looks to be a time during which world economic growth will be slow and when unemployment levels will rise, a pattern which corresponds with the second phase of a Kondratiev wave.
Productivity and patterns of employment Between 1921 and 1939, the annual average level of unemployment in the U.K. was about 14% (although rates much higher were experienced by some regions). In 1944, a Government white paper, Full Employment in a Free Society, produced by Lord Beveridge marked a fundamental change in approach to the management of the economy. Instead of trying to reduce unemployment and stimulate profitability by reducing wage levels, the Keynesian view that unemployment was the result of deficient demand was adopted and attempts were made to try and stimulate demand by the use of public expenditure. The rate of unemployment did not rise above 3% until after 1970. Indeed, between the late 1940s and the mid-1960s, unemployment generally stayed between 1.5% and 2%. This was matched by an exceptional rate of growth (for the U.K.) in the Gross Domestic Product of just over 3%. This fell to just over 2% in the '70s and the prognosis for the '80s is even lower (Hudson Report, 1974). Perhaps one of the main underlying causes of this decline has been low productivity. Although labour productivity is often difficult to measure, especially for jobs which are mainly involved with providing services, it is a function of many elements including levels of investment, the general level of demand and the effectiveness of organisational structures. Labour productivity is therefore an interesting method of comparison which indicates that growth in output per person in the U.K. has been low in recent years (Jenkins, 1978) and this is shown in Table 1. Table 1, Comparison of productivity gains in some OECD countries Growth of output per person 1973-1977(%) W. Germany France Japan
10.1 9.4 7.2
Italy U.K. U.S.A,
2.7 1.3 0.1
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Two of the main benefits claimed by information technologists are increased productivity and increased performance. Unless output is increased in proportion to productivity i.e. unless demand for hospitality services increases, then the extra output will not be consumed and improved productivity implies a decrease in employment. It has been estimated by Ray (1978) that if U.K. rates of productivity were to match those in the E E C then unemployment would reach 16%. Microelectronics is just beginning to make its mark on the hospitality industry and the potential problem of increased productivity without increased demand is the nature of the challenge that its managers must face.
Information technology and the hospitality industry So far it has been suggested that developments in microelectronics, which support the growth of something called information technology, represent a major force for change. The impact of this force can be expected to bear comparison with other significant advances in technology which are characterised in economic terms by a period of prosperity followed by a period of relative upheaval. The upheaval is associated with the need for adjustments in the social system as people and the organisations through which they work struggle to find new roles which are imposed upon them. In terms of the introduction of new ideas, bodies such as the O E C D (1969) have suggested that this can usefully be viewed as four sub-processes. Invention, which is the technological response to social and economic needs; innovation, in which the invention is applied to problems; transfer, occurring when innovation in one industry is accepted in another; diffusion, whereby 'best practice' gradually spreads. Although computer-based technology has been in use in the hotel industry for almost two decades, it is only in the last two years that its application could be described as approaching diffusion as shown in Table 2. ITable2. Use of cornputer-based front office systems in U.K. hotels
Year Pre-1978 1979 1980
Number of partially integrated front office systems Typical system in U.K. hotels cost (£) < about
10 50 > 200
250,000 25,000 15,000
As the technology diffuses through the hospitality industry during the 1980s when the whole of society enters a period of readjustment, it is
appropriate to consider how it might be affected. Two areas suggest themselves in this context: • the attitudes and skills of managers • the structures of organisations.
The attitudes and skills of hospitality managers The most fundamental stage in the acceptance of any new idea is not so much that new questions have to be asked but that new answers to old questions have to be absorbed. Innovators often have a very difficult time, as Christopher Columbus, brought home in chains and dying in poverty, would no doubt have been ready to affirm. Systems have a tendency to reinforce their own negative entropy, although change or innovation requires that wholly new approaches be adopted. Mythology is rich with examples of people who saw new answers to old problems: Newton and his apple; Watt and his kettle; Keynes and his holes in the ground. Yet there is little solace for such innovators, ridicule is cheap and scorn is plentiful. The problem is that the old systems, the old ways of doing things are well known and represent the familiar, The new idea attracts few defenders for its effects are speculative and abstract. The first and most important step in the acceptance of a new idea is the development of new insights. Once these new insights are available the rest is obvious. Once Columbus had returned, it was obvious that anyone could sail to the west until they were stopped by the land. Once the jet engine was invented, it was obvious that propellors were not the only way of inducing a heavier than air machine to fly. The sheer power of modern small computer systems has yet to be recognised even by many who are closely associated with that industry. A recent Home Office report recommending an expenditure of some £600,000 and a development period of five years has been criticised as wasteful on the grounds that small computers could be deployed rapidly and effectively for the police (Anon, 1981). A further illustration could be taken by referring to the fire at the MGM Grand Hotel in Las Vegas in January 1981 when distributors of small computers who happened to be present at an exhibition in another part of the city were able, within hours, to use their machines to trace most of the victims and the survivors. The hospitality industry needs to make an equally radical reappraisal of the way in which it might deploy this technology. Two examples of management misinformation systems lend themselves in evidence. The first of these is the set of procedures surrounding the operation of a hotel front office. Typically, they are based on the rituals devised earlier this century by the Whitney paper company of New
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York. Clearly the object of this m e t h o d is to consume as much printed paper as possible! Some decades ago, the Whitney system was ossified by the manufacturers of electro-mechanical billing machines and more recently it has been given an aura of technological sophistry by providing the framework for the development of computerdriven front office systems. No-one seems to have stopped to ask whether it is in fact a suitable basis for such procedures. Either slowly, from many pieces of paper, or quickly, from a computer, it presents a manager with a one-sided view of the d e m a n d for accommodation. The technology of the computer has been used to add little or nothing by way of m a n a g e m e n t information. This is not surprising, since the initiative for the use of computers in hotels did not come from the hotel industry. Most widely used hotel computer systems were developed by electronics companies. The systems were modelled on existing procedures and marketed to a grateful hotel industry on the basis of similarities, not differences. Thus the computer-based systems are no better than their predecessors at supporting decisions about revenue m a n a g e m e n t in the front office. As before, they give good information about occupancies over some future period but as before, they also present the manager with no data at all about the implications of a given decision on the room rate. The focal point of front office decision making is revenue m a n a g e m e n t and this can only be considered in the context of both occupancy and rate. What is worse is that the power of the computer is not used to heal some of the organisational wounds that fester under these methods.
Paul R. Gamble
As a consequence, a chef who may have ensured perfect conformity to standard procedures is confronted, after the event, with data which suggest that an error has been made. The frustrations associated with this situation can only be directed at fellow workers and future customers. Fresh consideration of this problem would recognise that control systems are only of worth if they direct behaviour to a planned performance. It might then be argued that in a food and beverage operation the focal point of control from every point of view is not inventory but the standard recipe. The task of updating the costs of each standard recipe every time an ingredient cost changes, quite beyond the scope of any manual procedure, is exactly the sort of job that needs to be done at electronic speeds. Both these insights are very obvious and both are well within the bounds of available technology. For £5500 or thereabouts any hotel can buy the hardware of a computer system with a filing capability in excess of five million characters which would be more than adequate for all but the largest hotels. (This assumes the use of the new mini-Winchester 5.25 in. sealed disk technology m o u n t e d in the chassis of an S100, Z80 based machine such as a North Star Horizon or Cromemco Z2. The filing capability could of course be expanded if required.) The difficulties reside in the correct identification of the problems on which they are to work and the need to commission the 'software', the computer programs, to provide the appropriate information.
The new insight that is required would recognise that data on current market conditions and the way in which current sales are responding to those conditions can be made equally available to the front office manager (traditionally responsible for rate) and the sales manager (traditionally responsible for volume). A further development would move the perspective of these procedures from a historical to a future orientation and this could make the difficult task of juggling occupancies and rates within the framework of a marketing plan a lot easier.
It is clear that as computer systems become increasingly c o m m o n , the chief effect likely to be seen is a heightened disparity between the mediocre and the good manager. The mediocre manager will remain so because that mediocrity consists in being unable to formulate the right questions or to choose the right action when given the information. The good manager will obtain more rapid access to relevant information. A manager's skill lies in the taking of decisions and computers will not affect the need for that skill, they will simply make it a more important aspect of the manager's role.
A second example of m a n a g e m e n t misinformation is dignified with the title of 'food and beverage control'. U n d e r conventional methods and at great expense, it is possible for some sort of comparison to be produced between the actual and the potential cost of a given meal service. Due to a lack of ability to take account of the effect of all ingredient cost changes on hundreds of standard recipes, the nature of the calculations on which such comparisons are based is usually founded on a series of simplifications so as to make it possible to produce a result in a reasonable time. These simplifications introduce considerable mathematical inaccuracy.
A change in the way in which computers could be used in hotels will also be accompanied by a change in the basis on which the use of computer systems is justified. In 1982, computers in hotels are being used by and large to do the work of clerks and secretaries. This form of use has an element of logic in that a computer can be perceived in terms of an electronic filing system. The justification for computers is therefore often thought of in terms of how many clerks or secretaries they can displace. Although there is little evidence that this is occurring in the hotel industry, it has certainly happened elsewhere, as shown in Table 3.
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However, it can be argued that as hotel managers develop new insights into the decisions that they need to take and as they come to recognise what the computer can offer by way of removing constraints of volume, time and complexity, so computerbased procedures will affect not only how hotels operate but also the structure of their organisations. The relationship between technology and organisation structure identified by Woodward in another field, has not yet been explored in the context of hotel operation. With these insights, measurement of performance in terms of cost displacement will become obsolete and other criteria will be developed. As the use of the new procedures becomes more central to the functioning of the organisation, the links
which the information system of the hotel forms with the external environment will become more extensive. This will cause fundamental changes in the basis of competitive differential between hotel companies. Competition currently based on mere possession of information will move to a point where huge data banks held and maintained centrally by a posts, telegraphs and telecommunications agency or other national (or even international) body are accessed in some way by local computers. Thus teletext systems like Prestel or Captain could give everyone access to the same data. Advantage will then depend on the way in which those data are analysed and interpreted. A scenario for this kind of development is illustrated in Table 4.
Table 3. Majorareas of occupational change in West Germany 1970-1976 (I. L. 0., 1979) Per cent change Reason
Occupation
Job change
Secretaries & typists Mail clerks, telephonists Despatch workers, checkers
-46,400 -45,300 -41,400
-10 -10 - 10
Text/word processors Electronic mail Automated packaging
+269,000 +30,300 + 161,70
+ 10 +50 +40
Automated administration Software developments More computer-based equipment
Office managers Data processing workers Technicians
Table 4. The changing orientation of computer-based procedures in hotels
Application
Evaluative criteria
Examples of technique
Present
Medium term
Long term
Backof house accounting
Accom. management
Determination of marketing mix
Payroll Inventorycontrol Electronic Whitney
True standard cost F&Bcontrol Effective use of guest history & market information
Optimal resource allocation F&B production scheduling
Clerical displacement Reduction of loss or waste Improved records
Improved customer relations Cash flow management Personnel stability Identification of trends
Optimal use of people & capital Improved realism in forecasting Improved short term goal achievement
Stochastic digital modelling Bidding strategy Linked list files Linear programming
Manpower planning Inductive forecasting Materials management
Process control
Integrated data st ructu res (entity classes)
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Possible implications for the structure of hospitality organisations A change in the basis on which c o m p u t e r systems are justified, indeed in the attributes which are specified for those systems, implies some corresponding changes in the goal formation processes of those organisations which use them. It leads to a different model of the structure of those organisations altogether, that of an information processing model. This is rather similar to changes that have occurred in the representation of models of buyer behaviour. What sort of structure would be appropriate for a hotel that sought to change its products in response to the interpretations of the e n v i r o n m e n t derived by its information system? In the short term, such a structure m a y be related to concepts first put forward m a n y years ago. Classical theories of organisation structure were largely f o u n d e d on the postulate that in a hierarchy information flows upwards and decisions flow downwards. Thus Taylor, Fayol, Urwick and others took the view that since only those in management roles were likely to possess the necessary overview for decision-taking, this function should be centralised and that the range of discretion at lower levels of the hierarchy should be limited. T h e r e are a n u m b e r of difficulties with this model in practice, if it is e m p l o y e d in an organisation where decision-taking is 'supported' by conventional methods. It overlooks the fact that objectives may exist which are different and distinct from those of a technical nature and implies the need for a large n u m b e r of contingent decisions which subordinates are willing and able to draw on as circumstances change. It imposes a rigidity which is undesirable when managers are faced with making decisions u n d e r what Ansoff (1968) describes as conditions of partial ignorance. Ansoff argues for a means by which a system of objectives may be established so as to allow for unforeseen events. This corresponds closely with the earlier work of Gross (1964). These factors tend to act in favour of a wider range of discretion at lower levels, in the expectation that, when faced with a decision, workers or managers will recognise that their interests broadly correspond with those of the organisation. It would appear that this underlying trend of moving from a centralised to a decentralised structure is also reflected in the way that c o m p u t e r resources are m a d e available. Two decades ago when the purchaser of a c o m p u t e r was using a rule of thumb of £1 per byte* of main m e m o r y , machines were big and very expensive. The huge investment which they represented had to be loc*A byte is a unit of capacity for computing devices. Characters (letters or numbers) are represented in memory by one or more bytes.
Paul R. Gamble
ated centrally so that it might be used on a batch basis as intensively as possible. Batch-based systems are inconvenient and slow but they do lead to high machine utilisation. Nowadays, a byte of main m e m o r y costs less than lp and the trend is towards networks of small computers which may be 'backe n d e d ' ? by a larger processor. The current term for each small c o m p u t e r is a work station or a user station and this describes it very well. Each manager is able to use the power of his own work station to attack a problem, without reference to any other user. If a bigger machine is n e e d e d the job is loaded down the line to the 'back-end' which sends the answer back to the local work station when it is ready. This kind of approach is fast, convenient, powerful and cheap. How then does this technology disturb the underlying social and cultural t h e m e of a devolved, democratic and above all decentralised decisionmaking structure? The answer brings us back to M c L u h a n and to the criteria and the techniques described in Table 4. The new m e d i u m is indeed changing and supplanting the old and structures must change as a consequence. The case is well put by Simon (1979). The computer is making major contributions to raising the level of expertness [sic] in decision-making on complex matters. It is doing this however, not by concentrating the decision process at higher levels of management but by either (1) facilitating the construction and use of system models that can incorporate system structure and system behaviour or (2) permitting the assembly of expert knowledge in large data banks that can be consulted readily from any organizational location . . . . In other words, the centralisation of decision taking is implicit in the way that the system is designed and design is the key word. The hospitality industry still has to learn the lesson learned so painfully by companies such as British Leyland. The lesson is that quality has to be designed into products, it cannot be inspected into them. Given the choice between managing the logistic or the h u m a n side of enterprise, the service industries have tended to come down far too heavily on trying to manage outcomes, to standardise performance, by working through people. The new technology makes a different balance of effort possible and allows for what Levitt calls a production-line approach to service (1972). This approach has already been adopted by the fast-food companies which have been successful because they have, among other things, shifted the emphasis away from operational managers to
tLiterally 'at the back of'. More conventionally, small computers are used to 'front-end' bigger machines, that is they organise some of the work so that the big machine is used more efficiently. A back-end is a reversal of this position, the large machine is used perhaps to organise a set of files shared by a number of small machines or to handle large jobs.
Computersfor hospitalitymanagers planning managers. The layout, the equipment, the procedures and the training all integrate to ensure that the easiest way to do a job is the way that it was planned by the company. More intelligence is built into the equipment in recognition of the semiskilled, transient, largely uninterested work force that may be responsible for its operation. Quality control is built into the design, there are no inspections by sous-chefs on the hot plate in a fastfood restaurant. To some extent it is a psychological question as to whether such moves are perceived in terms of centralisation. Given the framework of a corporate financial planning model, the unit manager is able to construct a marketing plan. Prompted by the computer the necessary data are considered more rigorously, constrained by the model, departures from policy are contained. Nevertheless, inputs are made at local level, they take account of local conditions, and ownership and involvement are possible. The dichotomous need to centralise for coordination and to make effective use of scarce expert resources yet to decentralise so as to avoid dysfunctional behaviour, is completely supported through the deployment of a computer network.
Some development implications for hospitality managers There is no doubt that the prospect of technical change appears very daunting to some managers in the hospitality industry. Any change implies difference and suggests that a new repertoire of behaviours must be learned. It therefore poses not only the intellectual problems associated with a learning process but also the psychological problems of anxiety. On occasions such feelings can be extreme and some writers have likened the confusion caused by the unplanned introduction of technical change to that caused by a bomb explosion (Mumford and Banks, 1967). In some of his earlier work Simon and his collaborator Allen Newell, often seemed to take a position calculated to cause such concerns. Their initial studies into human problem-solving took a rather parochial view of man's potential capabilities and ascribed the apparent complexity of man, as a behaving system, to the complexity of the environment in which he found himself. Pointing to the existence of machines which can learn and create, Newell (1976) suggested that computer technology offers the possibility of incorporating intelligent behaviour in all the 'nooks and crannies' of our world so that we could use it to provide wisdom for each decision. Considerable argument could surround the notion that computers can actually create information or even whether the term 'decision' is appropriate in connection with the output of a computer-based procedure. It can be asserted that
9 the very process of turning information into decisions is essentially a social one. There are many aspects of human experience that are difficult to encode in information structures no matter how complex they might become. The emotional impact of touch, the consequences of being treated as human by other humans, even the kinds of knowledge that appear to be superficially communicable have been shown to be not altogether so (Weizenbaum, 1976). The information content of any message contains more than just instruction and can depend on the nature of the sender and the receiver, the expectations that exist as to the kind of message that will be received, the state of knowledge of the receiver and many other things, as communication theorists have long explained. For the moment then, it may be that computers are not entirely able to displace hospitality managers. It is still important for those managers to realise what that technology has to offer. This was very cogently explained in a recent series of advertisements for a microcomputer called an Apple II. A comparison was drawn between the mechanical efficiency of the various propulsion systems used by different living creatures and it appears that man ranks well down in such a list. However, apparently a man on a bicycle is twice as efficient as any other animal and the advert goes on to explain that the personal computer is like a kind of bicycle, it makes man more efficient. The successful development and implementation of computer-based tools in the hospitality industry now depends very much on the willingness of managers to abandon the comfortable role of information providers and move into the less comfortable role of decision-takers. The tedious work of assembling data and forming them into reports can be delegated to a machine. The capability for analysing and interpreting will increasingly become the focus of the management role. Application of computer-based procedures in the hospitality industry means that managers must begin to perceive the devices as intelligence amplifiers and not simply as electronic clerks. True gains in productivity and efficiency will not be obtained unless hotel and catering organisations recognise and exploit that extra dimension offered by information technology. The computer can not only record and recall restaurant reservations like a head waiter but it can schedule arrival times for optimum throughput, plan seating patterns and control the flow of orders to and the production of food in the kitchen. From such information, managers must train themselves to 'see all the angles'. The hospitality industry has been fortunate in having a work force that is basically well-disposed to the introduction of computer technology. The clerks and secretaries that have been asked to work
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Paul R. Gamble
with these machines seem to perceive them in general in a positive, non-threatening way, as well they might. By consigning the technology to the role of simple data manipulation managers can keep it at arm's length. It then acquires the same sort of status as a typewriter. If the price/performance characteristics of the current generation of eight bit microcomputers is to be used to alter the productivity of managers then managers must learn to interact with it directly. The power of a low-cost financial modelling package such as Visicalc (Trademark of Personal Software Inc.) can only be released to someone who is confident to drive it. Ten years ago, large companies might have considered spending tens of thousands of pounds to provide such a resource that is now available for less than two. Though the serious question as to whether they can be deployed in the existing organisational context must be considered.
In summary therefore, managers in the hospitality industry are in a position to deploy small computer systems to their advantage, especially in these difficult times. However, to utilise the full potential of this investment it is necessary to redefine problems more precisely, to specify requirements more rigorously (perhaps even more aggressively) and to develop skills both in working directly with machines (keyboard skills) and in the use of the more sophisticated decision-making techniques that these machines bring within reach. By this method, computer technology can be used to enhance productivity in the hospitality industry with a lesser threat of labour displacement by acting to remove some of those factors which currently inhibit performance.
Acknowledgements In the production of this paper, I am indebted to Professor P.
W. Nailon of the Department of Hotel, Catering and Tourism Management at the University of Surrey, for his valuable comments and observations. However, 1 must reserve for myself errors of fluency and logic which may be present.
References Anon (1981) Computer for police is far too expensive. Daily Telegraph, 18 June. Anon (1974) The U.K. in 1980, The Hudson Report. Assoc. Business Programmes. Ansoff, H. I. (1968) Corporate Strategy, pp. 47-71. Penguin, London. Barron, I. and Curnow, R. (1979) The Future with Microelectronics, pp. 39-42. Francis Pinter, London. Drucker, P. F. (1977) Management, p. 366. Pan Books, London. Gross, B. M. (1964) The Managing of Organisations. Vol. II, p. 477. Glencoe, Riverside, N.J. International Labour Office (1979) Specifications: microprocessors and robots, Discussion Paper, Vienna, in Thornton, P. and Routledge, C., Managing the manpower aspects of applying microelectronics. Int. J. Manpower 1,7. Jenkins, P. (1978) The map for Britain's journey into the Third World. The Guardian, 27 September. Levitt, T. (1972) Production-line approach to service. Harvard Business Rev. 50, 41. McLuhan, M. (1965) Understanding Media: the extensions of the man. McGraw-Hill, New York. Mumford, E. and Banks, O. (1967) The Computer and the Clerk, p. 16. Routledge & Kegan Paul, London. N E D C (1979) Progress Report 1979, 6, Electronic Components Sector Working Party, NEDC, London. Newell, A. (1976) Fairytales. A CM SIGAR T Bulletin, No. 57, November. O E C D (1969) Gaps in Technology. Paris. Ray, G. F. (1978) UK productivity and employment in 1991. Futures, p. 91, April. Simon, H. A. (1979) The consequences of computers for centralisation and decentralization. The Computer Age: a twenty year view, Dertouzos, M. L. and Moses, J. (eds), p. 226. M.I.T.Press, Cambridge, Mass. Weizenbaum, J. (1976) Computer Power and Human Reason, W. H. Freeman, San Francisco.
About the Author Paul Gamble is Senior Lecturer in Management Studies in the Department of Hotel, Catering and Tourism Management at the University of Surrey. His teaching and research interests lie in the development of information systems based on small computers and he has been involved in the design and implementation of several such systems in the hospitality industry. He has taken an active role in the development of Computer Assisted Learning techniques for hotel and catering education, has acted as consultant to both electronics and hotel and catering companies on a number of topics and has worked overseas for two United Nations Development Programmes concerned with developing tourism and hotel infrastructures.
Some implications of computers for hospitality managers Paul R. Gamble Department o f Hotel, Catering and Tourism Management, University o f Surrey, Guildford, U . K .
This paper considers the importance of new developments in information technology in the context of the social and economic conditions of the 1980s and discusses some implications for productivity. The relatively limited role that this technology has played in the hospitality industry is outlined and changes in the skills and attitudes of managers are suggested. It is thought that the changes may be accompanied by greater centralisation of decision-taking and emphasis on planning roles. It concludes that decision-making is essentially a social and therefore a human process but that managers in this industry need to take a more active role in personal development in order to exploit the technology to the full. In this way, some of the current difficulties of the hospitality industry might be overcome with a lesser threat to employment. 'The purpose of an organization is to enable ordinary human beings to do extraordinary things. No organization can depend on genius; the supply is always scarce and unreliable.' (Drucker, 1977)
Computers as a cool medium
sweep all before it. He emphasised that a new information m e d i u m should never be regarded as simply an addition to an old one and that it does not just leave old media intact. It oppresses and changes them until they are forced to find new shapes and positions.
To be asked to make predictions at this m o m e n t about the impact of computers on the lives of managers in the hospitality business is to be put in rather the same position as those pundits of the early 1960s who were trying to assess the potential effects of television. The two problems have many points of similarity since both are concerned with the possible social implications of a new medium for information and indeed it could even be suggested that both media have many points in common.
In these terms, computers are an even 'cooler' medium than television. As devices, they can assume a wide range of attributes and as instruments for manipulating data they are on the same scale of importance as the introduction of writing or of printing. Linear or even serial presentation of data is no longer central to the orderly analysis of a problem. The new media of information technology of which computers are a part will call for a response which may change entirely the way in which organisations deal with information. It may affect the kind of work that managers undertake and the structure of the organisations in which it occurs.
One of the best r e m e m b e r e d commentators was Marshall McLuhan (1965) and it is worth recalling briefly some of the things that he had to say about the introduction of a new medium. He argued that television would offer the prospect of turning the world into a 'global village', linking together those who could and those who could not read. Since Gutenberg and the invention of printing, a form of intellectual order had been imposed by the linearity of printed material. Television would impose no such constraints. Unlike a printed page or even a radio broadcast, there was likely to be a high level of audience participation in the m e d i u m itself (the current debate on the effect of television reporting underlines the point). It was what McLuhan termed a 'cool medium' and as a result it would Int. J. Hospitality Management Vol. 1 No. 1 pp. 3-101982 Printed in Great Britain
Consider for a m o m e n t , the way in which organisations traditionally represent themselves on paper. Two classes of manager are usually distinguished. On the one hand, there are what Drucker calls 'result-producing' managers and on the other, 'information-producing' managers. The former are referred to as line managers and their relationships with other managers are drawn by 3
0278-4319182/010003-08503.00/0 O1982 Pergamon Press Ltd
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solid lines. The latter are called staff managers and where an information-providing role exists, this is shown by a broken line. If these two types of role are merged as a result of the new medium, how then shall the lines be drawn? The problem is neatly illustrated by the dichotomy that already confronts the role of 'financial controller' or 'accountant'. The task of managing money and supplying capital is result-producing, the job of a line manager. The task of producing management accounts which is to do with representing the activities of the hotel in terms of a financial model is, quite literally, a figurative exercise. Sometimes, one of these interpretations of role comes to dominate the other and the information potential of financial records is dissipated or lost within the organisation. For example, data on the comparative value of different market segments might be difficult to extract because the accountant is not orientated to provide it or to recognise its importance.
The information revolution Over and above the short cyclic movements in the economy so beloved by politicians and managers, economists have identified much longer cycles lasting fifty or sixty years. These are known as Kondratiev long waves. According to some interpretations (Barron & Curnow, 1979), the first of these was associated with the introduction of the steam engine and lasted from about 1780 to about 1840. Although early steam engines were initially used simply to drive pumps, this proved to have considerable economic significance in permitting the development of the canal system and in making possible deeper coal mines. The second wave was associated with the impact of railways and lasted from 1840 to 1890 and the third, linked with the development of the motor car and the introduction of electric power stretched from 1890 to 1940. Microelectronics and computing could now underlie the existence of a fourth Kondratiev wave. The characteristics of such a wave are distinct. In its first phase, as the new technology is being generated, it has little impact on the economy as a whole but creates a highly profitable sector that attracts heavy investment. Thus the 1950s and '60s saw a boom in consumer electronics and computing. In the second phase, the effects of the technology are disseminated. Some groups, especially those involved with exploitation of the technology, prosper greatly while others suffer either because their jobs are displaced or because they are not affected by the technological change in a way that allows them to participate in its benefits. These changes are not directly related to the technology itself but are to do with the slower response of the social system in adjusting to change.
Paul R. Gamble
Developments in photoelectronics have now made it possible for computers to be widely and cheaply available. The British Government, expressing its view of the technology said that 'if we neglect or reject it as a nation, the United Kingdom will join the ranks of the underdeveloped countries', (NEDC, 1979) and has established a Microelectronics Awareness Project (MAP) specifically to proliferate its use in manufacturing industry. The decade of the 1980s looks to be a time during which world economic growth will be slow and when unemployment levels will rise, a pattern which corresponds with the second phase of a Kondratiev wave.
Productivity and patterns of employment Between 1921 and 1939, the annual average level of unemployment in the U.K. was about 14% (although rates much higher were experienced by some regions). In 1944, a Government white paper, Full Employment in a Free Society, produced by Lord Beveridge marked a fundamental change in approach to the management of the economy. Instead of trying to reduce unemployment and stimulate profitability by reducing wage levels, the Keynesian view that unemployment was the result of deficient demand was adopted and attempts were made to try and stimulate demand by the use of public expenditure. The rate of unemployment did not rise above 3% until after 1970. Indeed, between the late 1940s and the mid-1960s, unemployment generally stayed between 1.5% and 2%. This was matched by an exceptional rate of growth (for the U.K.) in the Gross Domestic Product of just over 3%. This fell to just over 2% in the '70s and the prognosis for the '80s is even lower (Hudson Report, 1974). Perhaps one of the main underlying causes of this decline has been low productivity. Although labour productivity is often difficult to measure, especially for jobs which are mainly involved with providing services, it is a function of many elements including levels of investment, the general level of demand and the effectiveness of organisational structures. Labour productivity is therefore an interesting method of comparison which indicates that growth in output per person in the U.K. has been low in recent years (Jenkins, 1978) and this is shown in Table 1. Table 1, Comparison of productivity gains in some OECD countries Growth of output per person 1973-1977(%) W. Germany France Japan
10.1 9.4 7.2
Italy U.K. U.S.A,
2.7 1.3 0.1
Computers for hospitality managers
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Two of the main benefits claimed by information technologists are increased productivity and increased performance. Unless output is increased in proportion to productivity i.e. unless demand for hospitality services increases, then the extra output will not be consumed and improved productivity implies a decrease in employment. It has been estimated by Ray (1978) that if U.K. rates of productivity were to match those in the E E C then unemployment would reach 16%. Microelectronics is just beginning to make its mark on the hospitality industry and the potential problem of increased productivity without increased demand is the nature of the challenge that its managers must face.
Information technology and the hospitality industry So far it has been suggested that developments in microelectronics, which support the growth of something called information technology, represent a major force for change. The impact of this force can be expected to bear comparison with other significant advances in technology which are characterised in economic terms by a period of prosperity followed by a period of relative upheaval. The upheaval is associated with the need for adjustments in the social system as people and the organisations through which they work struggle to find new roles which are imposed upon them. In terms of the introduction of new ideas, bodies such as the O E C D (1969) have suggested that this can usefully be viewed as four sub-processes. Invention, which is the technological response to social and economic needs; innovation, in which the invention is applied to problems; transfer, occurring when innovation in one industry is accepted in another; diffusion, whereby 'best practice' gradually spreads. Although computer-based technology has been in use in the hotel industry for almost two decades, it is only in the last two years that its application could be described as approaching diffusion as shown in Table 2. ITable2. Use of cornputer-based front office systems in U.K. hotels
Year Pre-1978 1979 1980
Number of partially integrated front office systems Typical system in U.K. hotels cost (£) < about
10 50 > 200
250,000 25,000 15,000
As the technology diffuses through the hospitality industry during the 1980s when the whole of society enters a period of readjustment, it is
appropriate to consider how it might be affected. Two areas suggest themselves in this context: • the attitudes and skills of managers • the structures of organisations.
The attitudes and skills of hospitality managers The most fundamental stage in the acceptance of any new idea is not so much that new questions have to be asked but that new answers to old questions have to be absorbed. Innovators often have a very difficult time, as Christopher Columbus, brought home in chains and dying in poverty, would no doubt have been ready to affirm. Systems have a tendency to reinforce their own negative entropy, although change or innovation requires that wholly new approaches be adopted. Mythology is rich with examples of people who saw new answers to old problems: Newton and his apple; Watt and his kettle; Keynes and his holes in the ground. Yet there is little solace for such innovators, ridicule is cheap and scorn is plentiful. The problem is that the old systems, the old ways of doing things are well known and represent the familiar, The new idea attracts few defenders for its effects are speculative and abstract. The first and most important step in the acceptance of a new idea is the development of new insights. Once these new insights are available the rest is obvious. Once Columbus had returned, it was obvious that anyone could sail to the west until they were stopped by the land. Once the jet engine was invented, it was obvious that propellors were not the only way of inducing a heavier than air machine to fly. The sheer power of modern small computer systems has yet to be recognised even by many who are closely associated with that industry. A recent Home Office report recommending an expenditure of some £600,000 and a development period of five years has been criticised as wasteful on the grounds that small computers could be deployed rapidly and effectively for the police (Anon, 1981). A further illustration could be taken by referring to the fire at the MGM Grand Hotel in Las Vegas in January 1981 when distributors of small computers who happened to be present at an exhibition in another part of the city were able, within hours, to use their machines to trace most of the victims and the survivors. The hospitality industry needs to make an equally radical reappraisal of the way in which it might deploy this technology. Two examples of management misinformation systems lend themselves in evidence. The first of these is the set of procedures surrounding the operation of a hotel front office. Typically, they are based on the rituals devised earlier this century by the Whitney paper company of New
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York. Clearly the object of this m e t h o d is to consume as much printed paper as possible! Some decades ago, the Whitney system was ossified by the manufacturers of electro-mechanical billing machines and more recently it has been given an aura of technological sophistry by providing the framework for the development of computerdriven front office systems. No-one seems to have stopped to ask whether it is in fact a suitable basis for such procedures. Either slowly, from many pieces of paper, or quickly, from a computer, it presents a manager with a one-sided view of the d e m a n d for accommodation. The technology of the computer has been used to add little or nothing by way of m a n a g e m e n t information. This is not surprising, since the initiative for the use of computers in hotels did not come from the hotel industry. Most widely used hotel computer systems were developed by electronics companies. The systems were modelled on existing procedures and marketed to a grateful hotel industry on the basis of similarities, not differences. Thus the computer-based systems are no better than their predecessors at supporting decisions about revenue m a n a g e m e n t in the front office. As before, they give good information about occupancies over some future period but as before, they also present the manager with no data at all about the implications of a given decision on the room rate. The focal point of front office decision making is revenue m a n a g e m e n t and this can only be considered in the context of both occupancy and rate. What is worse is that the power of the computer is not used to heal some of the organisational wounds that fester under these methods.
Paul R. Gamble
As a consequence, a chef who may have ensured perfect conformity to standard procedures is confronted, after the event, with data which suggest that an error has been made. The frustrations associated with this situation can only be directed at fellow workers and future customers. Fresh consideration of this problem would recognise that control systems are only of worth if they direct behaviour to a planned performance. It might then be argued that in a food and beverage operation the focal point of control from every point of view is not inventory but the standard recipe. The task of updating the costs of each standard recipe every time an ingredient cost changes, quite beyond the scope of any manual procedure, is exactly the sort of job that needs to be done at electronic speeds. Both these insights are very obvious and both are well within the bounds of available technology. For £5500 or thereabouts any hotel can buy the hardware of a computer system with a filing capability in excess of five million characters which would be more than adequate for all but the largest hotels. (This assumes the use of the new mini-Winchester 5.25 in. sealed disk technology m o u n t e d in the chassis of an S100, Z80 based machine such as a North Star Horizon or Cromemco Z2. The filing capability could of course be expanded if required.) The difficulties reside in the correct identification of the problems on which they are to work and the need to commission the 'software', the computer programs, to provide the appropriate information.
The new insight that is required would recognise that data on current market conditions and the way in which current sales are responding to those conditions can be made equally available to the front office manager (traditionally responsible for rate) and the sales manager (traditionally responsible for volume). A further development would move the perspective of these procedures from a historical to a future orientation and this could make the difficult task of juggling occupancies and rates within the framework of a marketing plan a lot easier.
It is clear that as computer systems become increasingly c o m m o n , the chief effect likely to be seen is a heightened disparity between the mediocre and the good manager. The mediocre manager will remain so because that mediocrity consists in being unable to formulate the right questions or to choose the right action when given the information. The good manager will obtain more rapid access to relevant information. A manager's skill lies in the taking of decisions and computers will not affect the need for that skill, they will simply make it a more important aspect of the manager's role.
A second example of m a n a g e m e n t misinformation is dignified with the title of 'food and beverage control'. U n d e r conventional methods and at great expense, it is possible for some sort of comparison to be produced between the actual and the potential cost of a given meal service. Due to a lack of ability to take account of the effect of all ingredient cost changes on hundreds of standard recipes, the nature of the calculations on which such comparisons are based is usually founded on a series of simplifications so as to make it possible to produce a result in a reasonable time. These simplifications introduce considerable mathematical inaccuracy.
A change in the way in which computers could be used in hotels will also be accompanied by a change in the basis on which the use of computer systems is justified. In 1982, computers in hotels are being used by and large to do the work of clerks and secretaries. This form of use has an element of logic in that a computer can be perceived in terms of an electronic filing system. The justification for computers is therefore often thought of in terms of how many clerks or secretaries they can displace. Although there is little evidence that this is occurring in the hotel industry, it has certainly happened elsewhere, as shown in Table 3.
Computers for hospitality managers
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However, it can be argued that as hotel managers develop new insights into the decisions that they need to take and as they come to recognise what the computer can offer by way of removing constraints of volume, time and complexity, so computerbased procedures will affect not only how hotels operate but also the structure of their organisations. The relationship between technology and organisation structure identified by Woodward in another field, has not yet been explored in the context of hotel operation. With these insights, measurement of performance in terms of cost displacement will become obsolete and other criteria will be developed. As the use of the new procedures becomes more central to the functioning of the organisation, the links
which the information system of the hotel forms with the external environment will become more extensive. This will cause fundamental changes in the basis of competitive differential between hotel companies. Competition currently based on mere possession of information will move to a point where huge data banks held and maintained centrally by a posts, telegraphs and telecommunications agency or other national (or even international) body are accessed in some way by local computers. Thus teletext systems like Prestel or Captain could give everyone access to the same data. Advantage will then depend on the way in which those data are analysed and interpreted. A scenario for this kind of development is illustrated in Table 4.
Table 3. Majorareas of occupational change in West Germany 1970-1976 (I. L. 0., 1979) Per cent change Reason
Occupation
Job change
Secretaries & typists Mail clerks, telephonists Despatch workers, checkers
-46,400 -45,300 -41,400
-10 -10 - 10
Text/word processors Electronic mail Automated packaging
+269,000 +30,300 + 161,70
+ 10 +50 +40
Automated administration Software developments More computer-based equipment
Office managers Data processing workers Technicians
Table 4. The changing orientation of computer-based procedures in hotels
Application
Evaluative criteria
Examples of technique
Present
Medium term
Long term
Backof house accounting
Accom. management
Determination of marketing mix
Payroll Inventorycontrol Electronic Whitney
True standard cost F&Bcontrol Effective use of guest history & market information
Optimal resource allocation F&B production scheduling
Clerical displacement Reduction of loss or waste Improved records
Improved customer relations Cash flow management Personnel stability Identification of trends
Optimal use of people & capital Improved realism in forecasting Improved short term goal achievement
Stochastic digital modelling Bidding strategy Linked list files Linear programming
Manpower planning Inductive forecasting Materials management
Process control
Integrated data st ructu res (entity classes)
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Possible implications for the structure of hospitality organisations A change in the basis on which c o m p u t e r systems are justified, indeed in the attributes which are specified for those systems, implies some corresponding changes in the goal formation processes of those organisations which use them. It leads to a different model of the structure of those organisations altogether, that of an information processing model. This is rather similar to changes that have occurred in the representation of models of buyer behaviour. What sort of structure would be appropriate for a hotel that sought to change its products in response to the interpretations of the e n v i r o n m e n t derived by its information system? In the short term, such a structure m a y be related to concepts first put forward m a n y years ago. Classical theories of organisation structure were largely f o u n d e d on the postulate that in a hierarchy information flows upwards and decisions flow downwards. Thus Taylor, Fayol, Urwick and others took the view that since only those in management roles were likely to possess the necessary overview for decision-taking, this function should be centralised and that the range of discretion at lower levels of the hierarchy should be limited. T h e r e are a n u m b e r of difficulties with this model in practice, if it is e m p l o y e d in an organisation where decision-taking is 'supported' by conventional methods. It overlooks the fact that objectives may exist which are different and distinct from those of a technical nature and implies the need for a large n u m b e r of contingent decisions which subordinates are willing and able to draw on as circumstances change. It imposes a rigidity which is undesirable when managers are faced with making decisions u n d e r what Ansoff (1968) describes as conditions of partial ignorance. Ansoff argues for a means by which a system of objectives may be established so as to allow for unforeseen events. This corresponds closely with the earlier work of Gross (1964). These factors tend to act in favour of a wider range of discretion at lower levels, in the expectation that, when faced with a decision, workers or managers will recognise that their interests broadly correspond with those of the organisation. It would appear that this underlying trend of moving from a centralised to a decentralised structure is also reflected in the way that c o m p u t e r resources are m a d e available. Two decades ago when the purchaser of a c o m p u t e r was using a rule of thumb of £1 per byte* of main m e m o r y , machines were big and very expensive. The huge investment which they represented had to be loc*A byte is a unit of capacity for computing devices. Characters (letters or numbers) are represented in memory by one or more bytes.
Paul R. Gamble
ated centrally so that it might be used on a batch basis as intensively as possible. Batch-based systems are inconvenient and slow but they do lead to high machine utilisation. Nowadays, a byte of main m e m o r y costs less than lp and the trend is towards networks of small computers which may be 'backe n d e d ' ? by a larger processor. The current term for each small c o m p u t e r is a work station or a user station and this describes it very well. Each manager is able to use the power of his own work station to attack a problem, without reference to any other user. If a bigger machine is n e e d e d the job is loaded down the line to the 'back-end' which sends the answer back to the local work station when it is ready. This kind of approach is fast, convenient, powerful and cheap. How then does this technology disturb the underlying social and cultural t h e m e of a devolved, democratic and above all decentralised decisionmaking structure? The answer brings us back to M c L u h a n and to the criteria and the techniques described in Table 4. The new m e d i u m is indeed changing and supplanting the old and structures must change as a consequence. The case is well put by Simon (1979). The computer is making major contributions to raising the level of expertness [sic] in decision-making on complex matters. It is doing this however, not by concentrating the decision process at higher levels of management but by either (1) facilitating the construction and use of system models that can incorporate system structure and system behaviour or (2) permitting the assembly of expert knowledge in large data banks that can be consulted readily from any organizational location . . . . In other words, the centralisation of decision taking is implicit in the way that the system is designed and design is the key word. The hospitality industry still has to learn the lesson learned so painfully by companies such as British Leyland. The lesson is that quality has to be designed into products, it cannot be inspected into them. Given the choice between managing the logistic or the h u m a n side of enterprise, the service industries have tended to come down far too heavily on trying to manage outcomes, to standardise performance, by working through people. The new technology makes a different balance of effort possible and allows for what Levitt calls a production-line approach to service (1972). This approach has already been adopted by the fast-food companies which have been successful because they have, among other things, shifted the emphasis away from operational managers to
tLiterally 'at the back of'. More conventionally, small computers are used to 'front-end' bigger machines, that is they organise some of the work so that the big machine is used more efficiently. A back-end is a reversal of this position, the large machine is used perhaps to organise a set of files shared by a number of small machines or to handle large jobs.
Computersfor hospitalitymanagers planning managers. The layout, the equipment, the procedures and the training all integrate to ensure that the easiest way to do a job is the way that it was planned by the company. More intelligence is built into the equipment in recognition of the semiskilled, transient, largely uninterested work force that may be responsible for its operation. Quality control is built into the design, there are no inspections by sous-chefs on the hot plate in a fastfood restaurant. To some extent it is a psychological question as to whether such moves are perceived in terms of centralisation. Given the framework of a corporate financial planning model, the unit manager is able to construct a marketing plan. Prompted by the computer the necessary data are considered more rigorously, constrained by the model, departures from policy are contained. Nevertheless, inputs are made at local level, they take account of local conditions, and ownership and involvement are possible. The dichotomous need to centralise for coordination and to make effective use of scarce expert resources yet to decentralise so as to avoid dysfunctional behaviour, is completely supported through the deployment of a computer network.
Some development implications for hospitality managers There is no doubt that the prospect of technical change appears very daunting to some managers in the hospitality industry. Any change implies difference and suggests that a new repertoire of behaviours must be learned. It therefore poses not only the intellectual problems associated with a learning process but also the psychological problems of anxiety. On occasions such feelings can be extreme and some writers have likened the confusion caused by the unplanned introduction of technical change to that caused by a bomb explosion (Mumford and Banks, 1967). In some of his earlier work Simon and his collaborator Allen Newell, often seemed to take a position calculated to cause such concerns. Their initial studies into human problem-solving took a rather parochial view of man's potential capabilities and ascribed the apparent complexity of man, as a behaving system, to the complexity of the environment in which he found himself. Pointing to the existence of machines which can learn and create, Newell (1976) suggested that computer technology offers the possibility of incorporating intelligent behaviour in all the 'nooks and crannies' of our world so that we could use it to provide wisdom for each decision. Considerable argument could surround the notion that computers can actually create information or even whether the term 'decision' is appropriate in connection with the output of a computer-based procedure. It can be asserted that
9 the very process of turning information into decisions is essentially a social one. There are many aspects of human experience that are difficult to encode in information structures no matter how complex they might become. The emotional impact of touch, the consequences of being treated as human by other humans, even the kinds of knowledge that appear to be superficially communicable have been shown to be not altogether so (Weizenbaum, 1976). The information content of any message contains more than just instruction and can depend on the nature of the sender and the receiver, the expectations that exist as to the kind of message that will be received, the state of knowledge of the receiver and many other things, as communication theorists have long explained. For the moment then, it may be that computers are not entirely able to displace hospitality managers. It is still important for those managers to realise what that technology has to offer. This was very cogently explained in a recent series of advertisements for a microcomputer called an Apple II. A comparison was drawn between the mechanical efficiency of the various propulsion systems used by different living creatures and it appears that man ranks well down in such a list. However, apparently a man on a bicycle is twice as efficient as any other animal and the advert goes on to explain that the personal computer is like a kind of bicycle, it makes man more efficient. The successful development and implementation of computer-based tools in the hospitality industry now depends very much on the willingness of managers to abandon the comfortable role of information providers and move into the less comfortable role of decision-takers. The tedious work of assembling data and forming them into reports can be delegated to a machine. The capability for analysing and interpreting will increasingly become the focus of the management role. Application of computer-based procedures in the hospitality industry means that managers must begin to perceive the devices as intelligence amplifiers and not simply as electronic clerks. True gains in productivity and efficiency will not be obtained unless hotel and catering organisations recognise and exploit that extra dimension offered by information technology. The computer can not only record and recall restaurant reservations like a head waiter but it can schedule arrival times for optimum throughput, plan seating patterns and control the flow of orders to and the production of food in the kitchen. From such information, managers must train themselves to 'see all the angles'. The hospitality industry has been fortunate in having a work force that is basically well-disposed to the introduction of computer technology. The clerks and secretaries that have been asked to work
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Paul R. Gamble
with these machines seem to perceive them in general in a positive, non-threatening way, as well they might. By consigning the technology to the role of simple data manipulation managers can keep it at arm's length. It then acquires the same sort of status as a typewriter. If the price/performance characteristics of the current generation of eight bit microcomputers is to be used to alter the productivity of managers then managers must learn to interact with it directly. The power of a low-cost financial modelling package such as Visicalc (Trademark of Personal Software Inc.) can only be released to someone who is confident to drive it. Ten years ago, large companies might have considered spending tens of thousands of pounds to provide such a resource that is now available for less than two. Though the serious question as to whether they can be deployed in the existing organisational context must be considered.
In summary therefore, managers in the hospitality industry are in a position to deploy small computer systems to their advantage, especially in these difficult times. However, to utilise the full potential of this investment it is necessary to redefine problems more precisely, to specify requirements more rigorously (perhaps even more aggressively) and to develop skills both in working directly with machines (keyboard skills) and in the use of the more sophisticated decision-making techniques that these machines bring within reach. By this method, computer technology can be used to enhance productivity in the hospitality industry with a lesser threat of labour displacement by acting to remove some of those factors which currently inhibit performance.
Acknowledgements In the production of this paper, I am indebted to Professor P.
W. Nailon of the Department of Hotel, Catering and Tourism Management at the University of Surrey, for his valuable comments and observations. However, 1 must reserve for myself errors of fluency and logic which may be present.
References Anon (1981) Computer for police is far too expensive. Daily Telegraph, 18 June. Anon (1974) The U.K. in 1980, The Hudson Report. Assoc. Business Programmes. Ansoff, H. I. (1968) Corporate Strategy, pp. 47-71. Penguin, London. Barron, I. and Curnow, R. (1979) The Future with Microelectronics, pp. 39-42. Francis Pinter, London. Drucker, P. F. (1977) Management, p. 366. Pan Books, London. Gross, B. M. (1964) The Managing of Organisations. Vol. II, p. 477. Glencoe, Riverside, N.J. International Labour Office (1979) Specifications: microprocessors and robots, Discussion Paper, Vienna, in Thornton, P. and Routledge, C., Managing the manpower aspects of applying microelectronics. Int. J. Manpower 1,7. Jenkins, P. (1978) The map for Britain's journey into the Third World. The Guardian, 27 September. Levitt, T. (1972) Production-line approach to service. Harvard Business Rev. 50, 41. McLuhan, M. (1965) Understanding Media: the extensions of the man. McGraw-Hill, New York. Mumford, E. and Banks, O. (1967) The Computer and the Clerk, p. 16. Routledge & Kegan Paul, London. N E D C (1979) Progress Report 1979, 6, Electronic Components Sector Working Party, NEDC, London. Newell, A. (1976) Fairytales. A CM SIGAR T Bulletin, No. 57, November. O E C D (1969) Gaps in Technology. Paris. Ray, G. F. (1978) UK productivity and employment in 1991. Futures, p. 91, April. Simon, H. A. (1979) The consequences of computers for centralisation and decentralization. The Computer Age: a twenty year view, Dertouzos, M. L. and Moses, J. (eds), p. 226. M.I.T.Press, Cambridge, Mass. Weizenbaum, J. (1976) Computer Power and Human Reason, W. H. Freeman, San Francisco.
About the Author Paul Gamble is Senior Lecturer in Management Studies in the Department of Hotel, Catering and Tourism Management at the University of Surrey. His teaching and research interests lie in the development of information systems based on small computers and he has been involved in the design and implementation of several such systems in the hospitality industry. He has taken an active role in the development of Computer Assisted Learning techniques for hotel and catering education, has acted as consultant to both electronics and hotel and catering companies on a number of topics and has worked overseas for two United Nations Development Programmes concerned with developing tourism and hotel infrastructures.