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"The analytical data available with Steton is critical to protecting our brand."

--Tim Burns
Member Operations Support Trainer for Best Western

Best Western International is THE WORLD'S LARGEST HOTEL CHAIN® with 4,200 hotels in 80 countries and territories. It is a membership association of independently owned and operated hotels that provides marketing, reservations and operational support to its members. The uniqueness of Best Western is found in each hotel's charm and local appeal while maintaining a commitment to quality, service and value.

Best Western offers members the unique advantage of retaining their independence while providing the benefits of a full-service, international lodging affiliation offering a global reservations system, marketing, advertising, purchasing, training and quality standards.

The Challenge : "In-House" Development

Best Western has one of the most internationally recognized brands in the world. Their success relies heavily on the consistency and quality of the experience guests have at their properties throughout the world. Ensuring their high-profile brand is protected, Best Western executives rely heavily on their leading-edge Quality Assurance (QA) program.

Proving to be more than a leader in the number of hotels, they are also a pioneer in the use of technology to manage their QA program. Best Western.s first step toward automating aspects of their QA program came in the form of software developed .in-house.. While a step in the right direction, executives quickly realized that as the needs of their QA program evolved, further investment in "in-house" development offered minimal functionality at a considerable cost. With this system in place, batch reports could take up to 30 days to generate after assessments were completed. Relying on "in-house" development also exposed the capacity of the hardware infrastructure in place. Significant delays were experienced when navigating through the application that eliminated any significant gains in efficiency.

The Discovery: Scalability & Flexibility

Best Western executives knew they wanted to do more with technology, and they just didn't see their "in-house" development as a long-term, scalable solution.

After being introduced to Steton, Best Western executives quickly recognized that the advanced features and flexibility of Steton's industry leading technology could take them to the next level.

The Solution: Brand Protection & Improved Efficiency

"Steton is crucial to the success of our QA program," states Tim Burns, Member Operations Support Trainer for Best Western. The most valuable benefit of Steton to a high-profile brand such as Best Western is the executive decision support. The ability to make informed decisions with real-time data is absolutely critical for today's successful businesses.

The auto-generated, analytical reports available with Steton are essential for Best Western to quickly identify trends and manage corrective actions to completion. According to Burns, "The analytical data available with Steton is critical to protecting our brand. The consistency of the assessment data collected with Steton along with the multiple management reports automatically generated has proved extremely valuable to our business."

For those managing the QA program, efficiency gains have manifested themselves in multiple areas. "We immediately recognized increased productivity with faster data entry and data processing," states Burns. "With Steton's software installed on mobile computers, we are able to upload completed assessments immediately after they are completed. The completed assessments are practically instantaneously available for review at our corporate offices."

Having the capabilities to address issues at the first sign of a problem is a huge advantage. Doing everything possible to ensure compliance to Best Western's brand standards provides the best opportunity for positive guest experiences and a thriving business. Regularly monitoring each hotels level of compliance also reduces the opportunity for costly litigation. A characteristic that Burns recognizes as having made a significant impact on the success of their QA program is the flexibility and ease of the use of Steton. "The ability to create new assessment forms as needed is very valuable to us. We can easily create new forms and choose from different answer types without the aid of software engineers. All our Service Managers (those performing Best Western assessments) have to do is log-in to Steton and the updates are downloaded automatically for them. This ensures they always have the most up-to-date information.

"The ease of use by the end user is a big benefit for us. The intuitive interface makes navigating through Steton very clear and user-friendly. The tree structure of files with categories and subcategories make forms and reports quickly and easily accessible."

Return on Investment: 4,600 Man-Hours Saved Annually

A measurable return on investment was immediately recognized in costs related to conducting assessments. According to Burns, "We have reduced the labor required to conduct our assessments by approximately 4,600 hours per year compared to our previous methods."

More on Steton: Empowering organizations

Established in 1996, Steton is the leading provider of mobile data collection and reporting software for quality and safety professionals responsible for public health and consumer safety. Steton empowers organizations to avoid loss and increase compliance through improved data accuracy, corrective action management, and real-time reporting.

A snapshot of Steton.s clients include the top quick-service restaurants in the world, the world's number one retailer, leading food processors, the global leader in contract food service, the world's largest hotel chain, leading third-party auditors and labs, government agencies, airlines, correctional facilities, and the list goes on. These prominent organizations have turned to Steton to help protect their most valuable assets - people, products, and brands. Steton's rapidly expanding list of clients across multiple industries has made Steton.s software the technology standard for quality and safety professionals. For more information, visit www.steton.com.