Four Seasons Hotels and Resorts is a global, luxury hotel management company. We manage over 120 hotels and resorts and 50 private residences in 47 countries around the world and growing.
Central to Four Seasons employee experience and social impact programming is the company’s commitment to supporting cancer research, and the advancement of diversity, inclusion, equality and belonging at Four Seasons corporate offices and properties worldwide. At Four Seasons, we are powered by people and our culture enables everything we do.
The Manager, Hotel Information Systems (APAC) role will support key hotel information systems within the APAC region, with a primary focus on the Opera Property Management System (PMS), Simphony Cloud Point-Of-Sale (POS), Activity / Spa Booking systems, Membership systems and Retail systems. This position will serve as a regional subject matter expert for corporate and local support and initiatives to ensure interface integrity between local hotel applications and the corporate enterprise ecosystem. Responsibilities will include assessing new hotel staff-facing applications, overseeing new opening implementations and system upgrades while enforcing standards to align with the corporate strategic plan. The role will also involve managing regional vendor relationships / local dealers, including issue escalations, contract maintenance, and functionality enhancements. The manager will also oversee the Hotel Systems support team for the APAC time-zone, which includes providing technical guidance and ensuring timely resolution of system issues.
Job Description:
1) Project Management, Systems Planning and Implementation
· Assist regional project teams to select and implement hotel systems that support localization and local business requirements while aligning to the Corporate strategic goals.
· Provide oversight on new hotel openings including system contract reviews, implementations and integrations ensuring installations adhere to corporate Hotel Systems standards.
· Research and evaluate new hotel technologies as required by local hotel teams to support local government/legal requirements, improve guest experiences and increase efficiencies for hotel operations.
· Identify and implement software enhancements, tools and configuration to meet local regional business needs and business requirements.
· Keep an open communication channel with the Corporate Hotel Information Systems Team on local requirements and projects.
2) Vendor Management
· Manage regional vendors/local dealer relationships by attending regular account and development calls to review high priority escalated issues, contracts/pricing, and vendor roadmaps to align with Four Seasons long term strategies.
· Work with various software vendors to review, understand and improve hotel systems functionality to support new local requirements.
3) System Support and escalation
· Serve as the regional point of contact for APAC hotels to escalate urgent hotel system issues.
· Escalate high priority system issues to vendors/local dealers and internal teams Meet with Corporate Hotel Systems Team weekly to review and prioritize hotel systems escalated issues and enhancements.
· Work with Corporate internal teams (Hotel System Support Team) to identify possible solutions for high priority escalated issues.
· Act as a liaison between various local dealers/vendors to resolve system issues.
4) Systems Standards
· Bring forward new local hotel system configurations and version requests to the Corporate Hotel Systems Team.
· Drive core standards for all support hotel systems.
5) People Management
· Keep Corporate HSS team informed of all regional items related to hotel systems.
· Maintain relationships with regional business leads such as Sr. Spa Directors, F&B Directors, and Director of Rooms.
· Keep close relationships with regional office team.
· Represent as regional Hotel Systems SME on regional project teams.
6) Administrative
· Assist APAC hotels with invoice and contract discrepancies for corporately managed vendors.
7) Other
· Perform other projects as requested by senior management.
· Key Hotel Systems communication person for APAC office.
Education:
· Bachelor’s degree in business, and / or Information Systems.
Professional Qualifications:
· Extensive Opera PMS and / or Simphony Cloud POS experience is required.
Work Experience:
· Minimum 5 years’ experience with hotel systems.
· Excellent communication and leadership skills.
· Strong problem-solving and analytical skills.
· Ability to work independently and as part of a team.
Travel:
· Occasional.
Key Functional Competencies:
· Ability to translate business needs into software specifications and requirements.
· Project Management methodologies: ability to deliver project and tasks on time.
· Ability to understand, chart and direct inter-systems data flow and systems integration.
Key Competencies:
1) Communication
· Write and speak clearly, is concise and easy to understand.
· Effectively translate / explain technical requirements to business stakeholders.
· Deliver complex messages clearly and with sensitivity to others’ needs, cultures, background, and knowledge.
· Contribute meaningfully and concisely to meetings and discussions.
· Clarify issues to ensure understanding, listen attentively and ask follow up questions.
· Review written work for accuracy, tone, and grammar.
2) Delivering Results:
· Detail oriented, self-motivated and innovative.
· Take pride in doing a good job, work hard, stay focused and do what it takes to meet goals and objectives.
· Get clear on exactly what is required, know when and how to ask for help and support.
· Consistently look for feedback to drive performance improvement.
· Show initiative, look for changes or improvements in own work area and shows willingness to take on new responsibilities.
· Overcome obstacles without “ruffling feathers” and doesn’t give up easily even in the face of tough challenges.
· Deliver on promises and can be trusted to do what they say they will do.
· Tackle unforeseen problems and challenges with energy and persistence.
· Is prepared to go outside own area and work cross functionally to help resolve issues.
· Actively seek knowledge and skills to improve performance and continuously review own progress against goals and objectives.
· Ability to work under pressure and meet various deadlines in a fast-paced environment.
3) Flexibility And Adaptability:
· Respond enthusiastically and positively to changing needs and requirements.
· Actively support and participate in new programs, processes, and ways of working.
· Remain calm when things do not go as planned, or when plans or priorities change.
· Is able to multi-task and handle multiple assignments and priorities.
· Is open to trying new things and shows a willingness to change own ideas and perceptions.
· Readily accommodate unforeseen changes in day-to-day work to deal with a situation or to reach a goal and understand the need for flexibility in response to evolving circumstances.
· Able to effectively handle multiple conflicting priorities.
· Excellent people skills; ability to participate in multi-disciplinary work teams.
4) Creative And Innovative:
· Keep current with new approaches, relevant information, best practice industry standards and research.
· Display curiosity and imagination, is open minded and appropriately challenges the status quo.
· Easily adapt to new opportunities and is able to make things happen quickly and effectively.
· Is always looking for ways to improve things and achieve better results in the context of own work situation.
· Is open to trying new and different processes and experimenting with new ideas and ways of doing things.
· Share own ideas and actively support others when they come up with innovations and improvements.
5) Objective Problem Solving:
· Analytical, organizational and problem-solving skills.
· Know when and how to ask for help and advice, is open to new ideas from others.
· Is comfortable discussing potential problems and sharing perspectives, observations and concerns with colleagues and Managers.
· Use previous knowledge, experience, and intuition to identify the root cause of a problem and have solutions in mind when addressing and discussing problems with others.
· Break down problems into their component parts and identify links between them using logic and analysis.
6) Influencing:
· Use positive language, build rapport to establish credibility and emphasize benefits which will appeal to the individual / audience.
Key Technology Knowledge:
· Excellent experience and knowledge of Microsoft Excel, Word, MS project and Visio.
· Knowledge of Opera PMS, Simphony Cloud POS.
· Knowledge of payment gateways, spa applications, restaurant table management systems, rapid response systems is an asset.
