Imagine being able to have the dining and wine preferences of your club’s members available at your fingertips, or pushing a few buttons on a computer to determine which members prefer vegetarian entrees and then tailoring an intimate gathering for select groups. Or predicting which members are most likely to resign, well in advance of them making that fateful decision. Or projecting future dues revenues by age group and member class, based upon historical trends. These technologies exist and will only continue to advance. With business intelligence software, clubs are able to use this information to create a more personalized member experience.
Business intelligence software isn’t the only technological trend clubs are catching onto.
Individuals and businesses large and small have been benefiting from advances in technology. Private clubs are no exception, even if late to adopt technological offerings. “They are now catching up rapidly,” says Bill Boothe, director of club technology consulting services for RSM McGladrey Inc., in West Palm Beach, Fla. “The whole fabric of clubs is changing and they are becoming more technologically sophisticated.”
The latest technology trends, says Boothe, include hiring full-time information technology staff, enhanced business intelligence software, improved network and physical security, wireless connectivity, advanced Web sites for members, point of sale technology in the dining room and clubhouse, and emergency planning. Those on the leading edge of technological innovation utilize increasingly robust business intelligence measures, offering daily snapshots of club operations. “Clubs need to understand their technology needs,” says Boothe. “And map their technology future.”
A delicate balance must be found between tradition and innovation with technology serving a member purpose and as a management tool, not just adopting technology for the sake of invention. “We have to use technology where it makes sense for clubs,” says Phil Kiester, general manager of Farmington Country Club in Charlottesville, Va.
Hiring IT Experts
One growing trend in the industry is the increasing number of clubs recognizing the need for and significance of hiring an on-site IT professional. Lots of people think the ‘computer guy’ is simply the one who fixes the computer when it crashes.
In private clubs the information technology role is often relegated to the financial executive, a problem as clubs become more dependent on technology, says Boothe. “Less than 10 percent of clubs have full-time professional information technology staff on site,” he says. “IT responsibilities need to be redefined. In the old days it worked to have the controller serve as the IT lead; today it doesn’t.”
Kiester admits that when he first arrived at Farmington in 1996, he wanted reports that the club’s software wasn’t capable of generating. “It was a challenge living with technology in the late ’90s,” he says. “I drove my controller crazy, asking about integrating information not available with off-the-shelf programs. Given the layout of our club—125,000-square-foot facility, several satellite locations and overnight guest rooms— the challenge of managing information for members was more difficult.”
Enter Curtis Kidd, Farmington’s full-time information technology manager. “When I first got here eight years ago my big project was to develop daily mini-profit and loss statements which we did on massive spreadsheets for the better part of five years,” says Kidd. “Then a few years ago I started working on automating this process.”
By hiring full-time information technology professionals, club leaders are exploring ways to streamline business practices and member services with leading edge digital tools such as business intelligence software, physical security and monitoring, wireless connectivity, point-of-sale technology and advanced Web sites for members. And in the last five years or so, a handful of progressive clubs have recognized the value of an on-site IT professional. They take club challenges and find solutions; they beef up Internet security, and sometimes they even make club managers’ daily operation dreams come true.
Kiester now gets his daily profit and loss reports; John Crean, general manager of the Broken Sound Club in Boca Raton can plan and develop innovative emergency response measures for his hurricane loaded location, and Alan K. Dutton, general manager of the Yale Club in Manhattan brainstorms with his IT staff ways to best manage the technology needs of this 11,000-member city club.
“I think the mindset of general managers is that an IT manager is someone you call when the computer crashes,” says Dutton. “But Nadeem Rehman, our IT director, is involved in operations; he can identify ways to make things better.” A similar sentiment was expressed by Crean. “Rich is one of the best IT directors in the country,” says Crean about Rich Guastella. “Broken Sound Club needed someone with his caliber … he has allowed us to improve the lifestyles of members.”
Business Intelligence
Business intelligence is vital to the success of clubs and is one trend clubs are using to improve customer service and increase the bottom line. Today, progressive clubs want to mine existing data about members to better serve their needs and retain membership. Technology has evolved to make this much easier for clubs. Most club software stores personal data—birthdays, children’s names, workplace, travel—about members and their families. Some club management software allows users to quickly access data and turn it into useful information for decision making, presentations or other purposes. Business intelligence software can function as a decision-making tool that automatically initiates actions without human intervention. Data mining tools allow users to extract historical data collected in other modules of the software through an ODBC (open database connectivity) driver. Users are then able to use a third-party ODBC-compliant tool to define and produce custom reports.
The problem for clubs and innovative managers is that the dreams of ‘What if?’ often surpass existing club software capabilities. While data mining tools are available, they are often not as integrated or minute as managers would like. “Where it keeps coming up short is its ability to give a single snapshot of members,” says Kiester, adding that Farmington has outgrown their existing software. “We want to know who our users are, who orders the salad bar. We want to look at member habits, and our software is not able to aggregate data that way.”
Managing Daily Operations
Technology for back-house operations at a club is one of the most effective and key components to managing daily operations. Much like Kiester’s desire for daily club reporting more than a decade earlier, club managers today want real time access to reports culled from data stored in club computers. This wish for instant information stems partly from increasing pressure from board and committees to produce more analytical information quickly and partly because being able to get a daily club snapshot helps with budgets and planning for small and large clubs alike.
Some clubs are using this information to tweak and fine-tune operations. The evolution of club management software has played a key role in the club’s ability to not only operate more efficiently, increase revenues and decrease costs, but also to create an unparalleled member experience.
Daily reports provide the food and beverage supervisors at Farmington Country Club with information about schedules, payroll and budgets. “Our line supervisors can compare forecast and actual sales with staff schedules and move quickly to change things,” says Kiester. “We can tell right down to too much spent on busboys at Farmington Grill.”
Multiple companies have developed software specific to the club industry. Modules offered as components of these software packages generally include club membership and receivables, accounting, POS, retail management and specific elements for golf, food and beverage, banquet and catering, hotel, marina, and spa/fitness management operations.
The Yale Club has been shopping for a new software program for the last three years. The decision does not rest on Dutton and Rehman alone; a technology and finance committee was formed at the club to help.
The Yale Club will proceed cautiously. “We are not willing to take the risk,” says Dutton. “We want to see these systems employed in a large city club and see them operating as an integrated program.”
Some clubs are looking for advanced technology that not only helps in managing daily operations, but also can improve services for members. One of the bigger hurdles for the Yale Club is giving members the ability to make online reservations for the club’s 140 guest rooms.
Providing online tee times is another technology program that not only provides 24/7 member service, but also reduces the telephone calls to the pro shop and helps pro staff better manage the tee sheet.
Sometimes it’s a small technology fix that improves club operations and internal controls. Missing packages at Broken Sound prompted the development of a computerized tracking system. When packages were delivered to the club, after going to a central location, they were picked up by various staff. But too often the wrong packages were picked up and lost sometimes for weeks. After some brainstorming and problem-solving, IT came up with a low-cost plan: Following delivery by UPS or FedEx, packages are again scanned with a handheld computer; when an employee picks up the package they digitally sign for it in front of a security camera.
Security Enhancements
Technology requires security and these days, club security requires technology. This trend in technology security provides a number of protections for the physical plant at clubs. At Broken Sound there are 42 real time security cameras, and Crean can even keep tabs on the club when he goes home to Ireland by using his laptop.
Some clubs now use biometric hand scanners for recording employee hours. At the Yale Club, the system allows security to know exactly who is in the building for security or emergency purposes, says Rehman. “The system also prevents “buddy punching”—employees punching in/out for each other.”
And many are now opting for computerized key systems that use a similar hand-scanning technology. At Farmington, keys are computerized in a key box. When a staffer picks up a key, their hand is scanned for that key. So if the bar manager picks up the bar keys and lends them to someone else, the bar manager is still responsible.
In addition to the physical plant, clubs worry about network intrusions; and experts say clubs need to consider beefing up security. With threats such as phishing, turning a computer into a bot to unknowingly do the work of a cyber criminal, viruses, trojans, spyware, and more, clubs are taking notice and beefing up their network security (see story on page xx for more information). Firewalls, anti-virus software and a knowledgeable IT director all work together to protect the network and keep clubs from becoming a target of cyber criminals.
Currently, the Yale Club receives about 250,000 daily e-mails, 95 percent of which are junk, says Rehman. But there’s a fine line with spam filtering. E-mails sometimes get sent to spam that shouldn’t. So Rehman monitors security threats and adjusts filtering accordingly.
Emergency Planning
Using technology for emergency planning and disaster recovery is another top trend at clubs. For folks at the Broken Sound Club, memories of Florida’s 2004 hurricane season linger. Charley, Frances, Ivan and Jeanne came in rapid succession. “After Frances and Jeanne,” says Crean, “we realized we needed a way to communicate with our members without power.”
The biggest problem during hurricanes is that most members have evacuated and the club—without power—has no means to keep members updated about the impact of the storm on the club. For out-of-town members, the club needs to provide a way to let them know when the club will reopen. To keep the lines of communication open with club members, Guastella added a back-up satellite powered by a generator (although they are looking to replace the generator with solar panels), and when power goes, all phones get switched to the satellite. With the use of a device called Magic Jack, they are able to bypass phone lines (which are often affected by storms and power outages) and make calls over the Internet. Magic Jack plugs into the computer’s USB port, much like Vonage or Skype, and a landline is plugged into the jack. Now in the case of evacuation or other emergency, there is an 800-hotline for members to call for information.
It’s critical that clubs implement disaster recovery plans, and while hurricanes may not be the issue, a host of unknowns could virtually stop club operations. At Farmington, like most clubs relying on technology, a system failure could be catastrophic. That’s why Kidd put in back-up recovery to create snapshots of the club’s servers. And it proved valuable when a recent simple e-mail gateway upgrade crashed the club’s server. “We really can’t run very long without our system because there are no cash transactions on the property,” he says. “If that system is offline, we can’t do business. We would have to handwrite each sale for entry when the system is back online.” With back-up recovery, the server was restored to its pre-gateway state in less than five minutes. “It would have taken me four to five hours to rebuild the server,” says Kidd.
Clubs have seen a number of advances in technology throughout the years. While historically known for lagging behind the technological revolution, with the proper education and understanding of the options available and opportunities to improve operations and member satisfaction, more clubs will likely follow suit of the more progressive ones that have been implementing new technology for a number of years now. With the help of IT professionals, clubs will only continue to realize the benefits of keeping current with technology and using it to their advantage.