Property and Conference Management System.

Descriptions

The University of Birmingham is looking for a Property and Conference Management Solution (PCMS) to support venuebimingham (current total annual turnover of circa GBP 4 000 000). Venuebirmingham manages a range of events and venues (including one hotel) across a number of geographical locations, and is seeking to maximise its revenue and improve efficiency through the use of a fit for purpose PCMS, to manage following events (including cross-site bookings – one event held at multiple locations - as applicable):— Hotel accommodation (Business, B&Bs) (currently 106 rooms across a geographically split site);— Event catering (restaurants and bars across split sites);— Delivered Catering Service;— Meeting spaces (from 2 to 1000 people);— Social Events (e.g. table bookings; school proms, concerts, gala dinners, weddings and other celebrations);— Seasonal letting of student accommodation;— Ad-hoc Events (e.g. Marquee Events, other Outdoor events etc.).Further information about venuebirmingham can be found at www.venuebirmingham.com.It is envisaged that the new solution will be used for booking and managing all venues and events (e.g. delegate registration; checking in/checking out; etc.) and will include:— Ecommerce (for on-line booking and payment for all products and services).— CRM (Customer relationship management functionalities).— Full financial management (from initial quote and invoice to final payment).— The ability to integrate with and/or provide a channel management solution.These functionalities are indicative at this stage and may be subject to change. The University of Birmingham is currently considering establishing an initial 5 year contract however this is not confirmed at this stage. Ongoing support will be required after Go-Live.The University of Birmingham has a large, varied and mature suite of IT systems spread across many departments. Many of these have evolved over time or have been implemented to meet specific local requirements. This has resulted in a very high degree of complexity and customisation, leading to some duplication of functionality, and (particularly within our Hospitality and Accommodation Services department (HAS)); there are a significant number of inter-connections and relationships between their existing services and the IT systems that underpin them. In addition, as this is an estate that has grown organically over a number of years with varying degrees of governance, the associations between a number of systems and the data they exchange may not always be known, and can be hidden from senior users and service owners.The proposed PCMS solution should:— be Fit for Purpose;— be financially sustainable, offering impact, affordability and value for money whilst being capable of fulfilling as many of HAS functional requirements as possible;— be reliable, scalable and integrate seamlessly with relevant University systems whilst complying with the relevant standards;— be forward looking and support (where appropriate) the use of the current and most recent versions of any underpinning software required to run the system (e.g. Windows, SQL, VMWare, Oracle, etc.), and have a clear roadmap concerning their next iterations and functional changes;— be secure and auditable, offering security and analysis of transactions, queries, creation and amendments of users and their details, etc.