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Unite Students Oracle E-Business Suite Application Implementation Case Study
Claremont (now DSP) worked with Unite Students to design an accommodation booking and maintenance solution based on Oracle E-Business Suite
Oracle E-Business Suite
Application Implementation
Overview
Unite Students is the UK’s largest manager and developer of purpose-built student accommodation. It provides a home for around 50,000 students, in more than 140 properties, across 28 leading university cities in England and Scotland. Unite works in partnership with more than 60 Higher Education institutions and lets rooms directly to students.
Having investigated the market for a suitable solution, Unite Students chose to work with Claremont (now DSP) to design an accommodation booking and maintenance solution based on Oracle E-Business Suite, integrated with Unite Students’ existing back-office Oracle Financials system. The solution provided by Claremont (now DSP) has allowed Unite Students to make a significant step in managing their business. For example, Unite Students can now track bookings and terminations through online processes, increasing booking sales conversion by 25%.
"The new system is at the heart of many key operational processes. A robust, scalable solution supports both planned revenue growth as well as delivering key operational efficiencies, such as the move from paper-based to online tenancies. The booking and maintenance system will be critical to Unite Students’ growth strategy."
Unite Students
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Unite Students wanted to adopt a strategic solution to replace its legacy room booking tool, which can provide greater functionality and integration for the room booking lifecycle. The legacy room booking tool includes marketing, managing availability, capturing bookings, billing, managing terminations and generating accounting information.
The focus was to create a system capable of operational, system and business efficiencies, scalable to support Unite Students’ future growth strategy.
Claremont (now DSP) identified the solution should focus on the core business elements - the room and the customer. Therefore, all system functionalities are implemented around these core data elements. Claremont (now DSP) delivered the solution in several aspects:
Tenancy Management:
The tenancy management solution focused on a master room ‘availability matrix’ that can offer and track all room bookings. In addition, room attributes such as size and orientation are held against each room, allowing selection based on preference.
Bookings against an offering are translated into a contract to bill the customer. Integration with the planned maintenance solution came through capturing bookings against child room instances to the master room assets. Further functionality provided the ability to terminate bookings early, generating termination charges/credits at the point of termination and managing customer room moves, inspections, check-ins/outs and damage charges.
Integration of the core Financials modules, including managing delinquencies through Advanced Collections, addressed all associated core operational and financial back-office processes.
Planned Maintenance:
The planned maintenance solution was implemented using Oracle Enterprise Asset Management (EAM), which allows Unite Students to generate work items against all properties throughout their portfolio. Additionally, desktop and tablet-based access were developed for maintenance staff to allow access to work items. The planned maintenance solution is currently being used by over 50 maintenance staff throughout Unite Students property network.
The solution provided by Claremont (now DSP) has allowed Unite Students to make a significant step in managing their business:
- Business Improvements through On-Line Processes: All bookings and terminations are tracked through online processes. As a result, Unite Students’ booking sales conversion has increased by 25%. It has also reduced the average time for a tenancy return from 10 days to 2 days.
- Process Efficiencies savings support Improved Customer Service: The streamlining of the check-in, check-out, room move, booking, and refund processes has saved the business thousands of hours and significantly reduced the effort in the contact centre to chase tenants.
- Enhanced Management Information: Integration of the maintenance, booking, and Backoffice Financials systems means Unite Students are now in a position to be able to quickly assess critical financial information such as the profitability of rooms, room types and properties.
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