ABSTRACT
This study
examined the effect of information technology on facilities management practices in some selected hotels in Lagos.
The research design adopted in this study was a descriptive survey method. The
population of study comprised all the staff members of five (5) selected hotels
in Lagos State. The sample size was determined using Yawane Taro’s formular. The
sampling technique adopted was a simple random sampling technique. The
instrument used for data collection was a structured questionnaire on the
“effect of Information Technology on facilities management practices.” The data
collected via the questionnaire were analysed using the frequency and
percentage to analyse the demographic data, the research question were analysed
using the mean scores while the two hypotheses formulated in the study were
analysed using the chi-square method at 0.05 level of significance. The result
of the findings shows that: Information Technology will improve facility
management practices in Lagos State; facility management practices will have a
significant impact on service delivery practices in hotels in Lagos State among
others.
TABLE OF CONTENT
Page
Title i
Certification ii
Dedication iii
Acknowledgement iv
Table of contents v
Abstract vi
CHAPTER
ONE: INTRODUCTION
1.1 Background
of the study 1
1.2 Statement
of the problem 1
1.3 Objective
of the study 1
1.4 Research
questions 6
1.5 Research
Hypotheses 7
1.6 Significance
of the study 7
1.7 Area
of study 8
1.8 Limitations
of the study 8
1.9 Operational
Definition of terms 8
CHAPTER
TWO: REVIEW OF RELATED LITERATURE
2.1 Definition
and scope of facilities management 9
2.2 The
concept of Hotel maintenance 9
2.2.1 Objectives
of Hotel Maintenance 17
2.3 Functions
of facilities management 18
2.4 Information
technologies and facility management 18
2.5 Factors
Affecting ICT Adoption in Facility management 21
2.5.1 Organizational
and Environmental contexts 26
2.5.2 Technological
factors 27
2.6 Information
Technology and Hotel services 29
2.7 ICT,
Maintance and facility management 31
2.7.1 Goals
and Tools of facilities management 33
2.8 Factors
influencing the Growth of facilities management 31
2.9 Facility
management and the Hotel industry in Nigeria 33
2.10 Facilities
management and Hotel Businesses 42
2.11 Summary
of the review 43
CHAPTER
THREE: RESEARCH METHODOLOGY
3.1 Introduction 45
3.2 Research
Design 45
3.3 Population
of the study 45
3.4 Data
collection methods 45
3.5 Variables
measures 49
3.6 Reliability 49
3.7 Validity 49
3.8 Analytical
Tools 50
CHAPTER
FOUR: DATA PRESENTATION, ANALYSES AND DISCUSSION
4.0 Introduction
51
4.1 Personal
information 51
4.2 Analysis
of research questions 54
4.3 Analysis
of data based on Hypothesis tested 58
4.4 Summary
of findings 60
4.5 Discussion
of findings 60
CHAPTER
FIVE: SUMMARY, CONCLUSION AND RECOMMENDATION
5.1 Summary
of the study 65
5.2 Conclusion 65
5.3 Recommendations 66
References 67
Questionnaire
68
CHAPTER
ONE
INTRODUCTION
1.1 Background of the study
With
globalization in full speed and people continually traveling abroad to and from
different countries, the hotel industry faces many challenges in accommodating
these different cultural influences (Seo, 2007). The hotel industry is a very
competitive business in which customers place great emphasis on reliability and
timely service delivery. The vision of all such businesses is to provide
quality high class to customers in order to successfully thrive and achieve
their mission. Top management can build high-performance cultures by their
efforts to create organizational climate devoted to quality and their active
involvement in promoting quality by engaging the workforce and establishing
lasting relationships with customers (James, 2011)
Maintenance
is the effort in connection with different technical and administrative action
to keep a physical asset, or restore it to a condition where it can perform a
required function. Maintenance is also seen as restoring to or retain to a
state in which an item can perform an initially specified function and all
actions aimed towards this are maintenance activities Maintenance is an
investment because resources are spent today to do maintenance in order to reduce
cost or get higher benefits in the future as compared to if the resources are
not spent. However despite this opinion maintenance is generally separated from
true investment because it is a matter of restoring an old function or keeping
up an old function.
A
decision maker for maintenance should think in terms of how to keep informed, how
to take decision, and consideration of the fact that the future is uncertain,
therefore there is need for future planning.
The
concept of maintenance favours minor changes and where it is possible to know
in advance the rationale to do. It is also suitable for an industry
characterized with more rapid changes on its specific building structure.
Hotels need minor renovations because this industry is influenced by
technological and societal changes.
Generally,
hotels are complex and costly when it comes to maintenance with various uses of
spaces that have different schedules and uses for guest rooms, restaurants,
health club, swimming pool, retail store and each has a functional engineering
system required for its maintenance. Maintenance therefore has to be done
throughout the year, requiring competent staff to undertake building services,
operation and maintenance, supplemented by outsourced contractors. In the
hospitality industry the maintenance of the engineering systems is important despite
its complex processes as its effectiveness will directly affect the quality of
hotel services, which have direct and significant effect on guests’ impression
of the hotel. As such, the development of a suitable maintenance strategy is
gaining publicity, greater reliance is placed on it to keep high system
availability and achieve acceptable environmental conditions for the occupants.
Of
the three core consumer products in the hotel: accommodation and food and
beverage, accommodation standard significantly affect the customer satisfaction
and inclination to return. Maintenance management also plays a main role in
improving energy efficiency and keeping the total costs optimal. The costs of
operating and maintaining the engineering systems, in particular the in-house manpower,
out-source contractors, energy consumption and equipment deterioration, must be
properly monitored and controlled. Among the commonly adopted strategy in the
hotel industry is outsourcing, which managers use to squeeze operating costs in
a tough business environment. The purpose of such a strategy is to improve
productivity, increase revenues; lower operating costs, and reduces risk. It
allows hotel to focus efforts on its core competency and strengthen its ability
to adapt in the ever-changing business environment.
The
trend in Nigeria today is that facilities maintenance and sustenance must be
geared up in all the sectors of the economy, hotels inclusive Thus, in order
for business to be conducted in any hotel, it is essential for constructed assets
to be appropriately managed if the business is to maintain the capital
invested, enhance its value and sustain reasonable return (NOUN, 2014).
Facilities
management (FM) has become a focus of attention for academics and
practitioners. The former view it as a rapidly developing field that offers,
amongst other things, rich sources of data that can be used to explain or develop
new theories about how we manage buildings and other constructed facilities.
The latter regard it as an opportunity for business or a means for controlling
operational costs, depending on whether there is a primary interest in
providing FM services or in procuring them. Common to both is the application
of information technology (IT) as a means for obtaining, managing and exploiting
data. Since FM is concerned with long term operations, as opposed to the medium
term activities associated with the design and construction of the asset, there
is both scope and motivation for improvement. Indeed, the concept of continual
improvement can be more easily applied to long term, continuous processes than
projects (Atkin and Leiringer, 2006).
Technology
for office automation and the arrival of the Internet has fundamentally altered
the facility planning process (Roper and Beard, 2005). Nowadays the development
of wireless devices is among the most dynamically improving areas of the
Information Technology. With the new wireless IT solutions remote communication
can be supported more efficiently and flexibly than earlier with only wired networks.
It
is clear that the IT hardware development has affected the Facility Management
significantly from the first analog devices that were used for simple FM
purposes. Digital wired devices and systems represent the next two milestones
of the improvement. Later the wired remote sensing/controlling devices and
their systems have become the most significant facility-related hardware
improvement areas, but in the previous two decades the wireless system improvement
has been in the middle of focus. Meanwhile the more available devices have been
invented that could be used in Facility Information Systems (Boz´any, 2006).
Facility
Management is a special application area for these equipments where the demand
for remote communication devices is extremely high because there might be long
distances among together working people and devices. Facility Management and
Automation Systems are mainly used to manage only buildings but in some cases
the supported FM activity has been extended even for the not built, outer areas
of the property. The application of wireless elements could be much more
comfortable and cost-efficient than any wired solution for managing large
facilities, but the FM service quality also can be increased extremely. The IT
hardware development has affected the processes remarkably that belong either
to the Facility or Building Automation Systems (Boz´any, 2006).
Some
specialists think that Facility- or Building Automation Systems (FAS, BAS) are
parts of the Computer-Integrated Facility Management System (CIFM), while
others are talking about two individual, independent systems, but in those
networks these parts are usually integrated in the same information system,
mostly via a shared database.
In
Nigeria, a good number of facts and incidents aid and abet the development of
hotels. First is the public sector involvement, which had been predominant at
least up to the late nineties. Hotels were established for providing
accommodation for government visitors and patrons. In some cases, hotels were
established for prestige and business reasons. Second, international occasions
and requirements may warrant the establishment of the hotel. Examples are the
defunct Durbar Hotels in Lagos and Kaduna, which came into existence as a
result of Festac 77. There is also Nicon Noga Hilton Hotel at Abuja (now
Transcorp Hilton). This came into being as a result of the establishment of
Abuja as the capital city of Nigeria. Such hotels are owned and managed by the
government appointed representatives on behalf of the public. However, many of
these hotels are bedeviled by mis-management leading to facilities decay, which
caused their gradual collapse Bode-Thomas (2003). Third, there are privately
owned hotels but usually at a lower scale compared to government owned hotels.
Even though they might have declined one way or the other due to age, level of
use or effusion of time yet they are still thriving. The most interesting
aspect of hotel development is the continued interest, which the private sector
is showing in its development.
Hotel from the Federal Government and the
hotel is presently being renovated so as to revive its degenerated facilities.
Despite the non-proactive nature of facilities maintenance in some of these
hotels, other hotels in Nigeria are not left behind in the adoption of
facilities management as strategic management principle to get hold of the
market going by what are being published in the daily newspapers; for instance
Sheraton Hotel and Towers, Ikeja Lagos, Le Meridien Hotel, Victoria Island
Lagos and Nicon Hilton Hotel, Abuja (Bode-Thomas, 2003). If these colossal
investments are to be retained, sustained and accelerated, there is the need to
investigate what the thriving hotels are doing to sustain themselves in
business with particular regards to the management of their facilities and
property assets.
1.2 Statement of the Problem
The tools of strategic management are used
in many successful businesses while other businesses rarely attempt to use them
even though they succeed for a while. Large organizations with many departments
cannot succeed without long-range planning in a volatile environment (Arthur
and Gamble, 2004). The gradual decline of many former large and successful
hotels and restaurants in Lagos in the last decades points to a lack of
knowledge on the impact of strategic management on sustainable high-performance
of hotels and restaurants in the region. Would the declining sales and profits
be a failure by senior management to manage the hotels strategically in a
changing environment? An area that has a great potential yet to be exploited is
the area of tourist hotel development.
In
a construction project, there are communication gaps between the various project
participants such as the designer, builder, and owner. The gap is much more evident
in the operation and maintenance of a facility. When a building is completed,
the owner does not just obtain a new building, but also a plethora of project
information in paper and electronic form. It is then up to the owner to make
sense of it all at their own expense of time and money. Technology has the
potential to fill in the communication gaps that exist, but it has been
prevented by the industry’s resistance to incorporate technological
innovations. Cellular phones and electronic mail have influenced business, education,
and practically everything else in life, as well as the construction industry.
Documents
and drawings can be sent to someone in an instant, and people can talk to each
other halfway around the world with wireless phones. Yet, the construction
industry still has not fully benefited from the potential that technology has
and lags behind other industries. This study therefore concerns the effect of
information technology on facilities management practices in some selected
hotels in Lagos.
1.3
Objective of the Study
The general objective of
the study was to assess effect of information technology on facilities
management practices in some selected hotels in Lagos.
Specific objectives are to
1.
Explore the level of facility management
practices carried out in hotels and restaurants and influence on hotel performance
in Lagos.
2.
Elucidate the key role modern information
technology play in facility management in Lagos state
3.
Examine the impact of facility management
practices in service delivery in the hotel in Lagos
4.
Highlight the major factors that
facilitate or inhibit technology adoption and implementation in hotel industry
1.4 Research
questions
1.
To what
extent are facility management practices carried out in hotels and restaurants
in Lagos?
2.
Will information technology improve the
facility management and maintenance practices of hotels?
3.
What is the impact of facility management
practices in service delivery in the hotel in Lagos?
4.
What are the major factors that inhibit
technology adoption and implementation in hotel industry
1.5 Research Hypotheses
1. Information
technology will not improve the facility management and maintenance practices
of hotels.
2. Facility
management practices will not have any significant impact on service delivery
in the hotels in Lagos.
1.6 Significance of the Study
The tourist
industry in Lagos state will through the findings of the study have a turn
around since the facilities in the hotels will greatly be improved; more
attractive and safer for visitors.
The information
from this study will acquaint the management of hotels in the state with the
need for the adoption of information technology so as to compete favourably and
meet up with the international standard as well.
The customers of
the hotels will benefit hence their satisfaction will be very much assured.
1.7 Area of the Study
This study was
conducted in some Hotels in Lagos state, Nigeria.
1.8 Limitations of the Study
Lack of accurate
date on the number of registered hotels in Lagos and unwillingness of the
managements of the hotels to provide informations on the nature of facility
operations in the hotels were the major constraints to the study.
1.9 Operational Definition of Terms
Maintenance: activities carried out to
ensure that facilities in the hotels are in good working condition.
Facilities: equipment and structures that
aid service delivery in the hotel industry.
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