“360 values establishing quality long term business relationships, as do I. They are total professionals in every way, and their service is not only top-notch but friendly as well.”
Steve Gupta, CEO,
Easton’s Group of Hotels Inc
The Client
Since arriving in Canada over 30 years ago, Steve Gupta has won almost every entrepreneur award there is. Ernst & Young, MacLeans, the Markham Board of Trade and others all have repeatedly recognized his achievements in the hotel industry in particular. Built from the ground up, today’s Easton’s Group of Hotels boasts over 1,200 rooms and 700 employees in 9 hotels across Ontario, and another 7 are under development in both Ontario and Alberta. Based on their ability to offer “three-star prices for four-star service”, Easton’s manages to achieve 80% plus occupancy rates across their properties, and operates several well-known brands such as Marriott, Quality Inn, and Comfort Suites.
In short, Easton’s is a resounding success and a true leader in their industry.
The Situation
As the Easton’s Group had grown, their accounting and financial systems became unwieldy and unable to provide senior management with the information they needed, when they needed it. AccPac handled the day-to-day accounting, but was not linked to any of the reservation systems used by the franchisors Easton’s dealt with. Management reports were largely contained in Excel spreadsheets which were labor intensive and therefore costly to produce, and only available at the end of the month, with data that was by that time nearly 2 months old. Management had little ability to pro-actively manage costs, and almost no ability to take action that restored revenue should it fall unexpectedly.
As their business grew, they needed a comprehensive, integrated financial and management solution that would fully support their continued expansion not only today but well into the future.
The Solution
After evaluating the various software alternatives available to them, Easton’s concluded that the Microsoft Dynamics GP solution was the best for them. It not only had all the functionality that management needed, but it could also be readily integrated with several hotel reservations systems, and had the full backing of the world’s largest software publisher.
But as important as that functionality was, Easton’s also needed a strong local business partner who could both install and support the software on an ongoing basis. Having built his own business by establishing long term relationships, Steve Gupta wanted a supplier whose business approach was similar to his own, and who could be relied upon to deliver friendly, competent, and timely professional service and advice. He felt he had found just such a company in 360 Visibility.
Key Business Benefits
From Steve Gupta’s perspective, working with 360 Visibility has helped him achieve:
- Greatly increased management control, particularly with respect to costs, as reporting is far more robust, timely and accurate.
- Far shorter management response times to business issues needing attention, as reporting is in “real-time”.
- Superior scalability in financial and management systems, enabling continued expansion without increased costs.
- An extremely “user-friendly” solution, resulting in easy and quick adoption by staff, and minimal lost productivity and training costs.
Overview
