EEF Venues

Bristol, London, Sheffield, Warwickshire; 57 meeting rooms, 114 bedrooms, and a combined total of 570 delegates needing bespoke packages. This was what EEF needed to bring together to form a cohesive venue business in 2010.

Each of the venues was operating its own choice of software, which further complicated the merger. However, in the end, the transition to one software package and a central administrative function based at Woodland Grange in Warwickshire proved to be fairly straightforward.

EEF evaluated several possible software packages but chose KxConferencing and KxResidential from Kinetic Solutions. These packages not only fulfilled all the requirements of the venues, but had also been successfully used at Woodland Grange since 2003.

John Turpin, Group Operations Manager, explains: “Kinetic offered a more complete solution. Links between front of house, bedrooms, bookings, check out and all other functions were much better. It offered a more hotel-style integration than many of the others.”

EEF relies on eshots to market its offerings, so it needed the software’s marketing and reporting functionality to be absolutely top notch. The Kx system enabled the venues to track all enquiries via email and generate a monthly report, which provides accurate and current data.

“We can look at sales, incomes, enquiries and virtually any other piece of information available on the system and generate a report from it, which is invaluable in helping us to predict business flow.”

In fact, the reporting feature is one that the venues rely on most heavily. The ability to see targeted sales and revenue forecasts at the touch of a button means they are able to review the marketing efforts needed to meet financial targets. John says: “It helps to know when sales and marketing have to make a more concerted effort.”

In fact, the ability to control operations and clarity of the information available from Kx has also enabled the venues to reduce the resources needed to run operations across the group. John says:

“We previously had two to three people involved in sales for each venue; now it’s one or two people. We’ve also been able to reduce reception staffing levels”

Overall efficiency has also improved. For example, on the housekeeping and site services side of things, the venues can look at arrivals and leavers at a glance , which enables John to spot bottlenecks and allocate staff efficiently.

The interfaces with existing systems such as Epos and Tiger call logging work well. Infrastructure Manager Duncan Prosser says: ”They are relatively maintenance free yet provide enough information so that we can usually pinpoint any issue very quickly or provide the Kx service desk with enough information to get us back up and running quickly”.

In addition, having one IT system to maintain and train staff to use has also saved time and costs. Eugenie Hales, Venue Manager, says: “The system is really easy to use and new staff pick it up very quickly.”

This ease of use also proved to be a benefit when retraining the staff at the other venues during the switch to Kx software. Eugenie says: “The transition went really smoothly, because the software itself is very easy to understand and use.”

Woodland Grange’s senior staff are familiar with other benefits of dealing with Kinetic. An area that has particularly impressed John Turpin is updates and developments. He explains: “It’s a bit scary when software is updated, because the potential for things to go wrong is so great. But the information, documentation and support we receive when Kinetic updates our system is user friendly and it does take the fear factor out of things.”

In addition, EEF has started to recognise the major benefits that can be gained from sharing best practice with other users of the system. Kinetic Solutions operates Kx Forums, which enable users to have a say in which features of the software are developed, and to share information with other users in how to get the best out of the system.

John says: “We fully intend to participate more fully in the Kx Forums, which enable us to see how others are using the system to best effect and share what we have learnt.”

“In 2003, we created a business plan that justified our purchase and move to Kx software and the fact that we’ve never had to justify that investment is proof enough that it’s paid its way.”

The Challenge
 When EEF decided to merge the management of its main venues, it was faced with the challenge of how to operate all sites with one set of software. It had to be suitable for managing meeting rooms, bedrooms, and tailored packages for hundreds of delegates over four locations that are miles apart. Each site was operating a different type of conference management and booking software, which meant the challenge was not just to find the most appropriate package, but the one that was capable of meeting everyone’s needs.

The Solution
The software package chosen was KxConferencing from Kinetic Solutions, which, combined with KxResidential for one of the venues, offered links between front of house, bedrooms, bookings, check out and all other functions that were considered to be much better than its competitors.

The Outcome
The venues have seen a reduction, usually of one third, of the staff needed to resource the administration and reception in the venues. Using just one IT system saves time and costs, and only one set of training is required. Because Kx software is easy to understand, the other venues have had no problems with the transition.

Products and Technology
The integrated suite of products at EEF venues includes:
•KxResidential
•KxConferencing
•Interface into pointOne point of sale
•Tiger Communications telephone call logging
•Windows Server 2003 R2, Single 2.8GHz Xeon (virtualised), 4GB RAM
•Citrix XenApp 4.6 servers
•MS SQL 2005 Server SP3