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Feature
from Reports, a quarterly corporate magazine for market-leading facilities management
specialists Gardner Merchant (part of the Sodexho Alliance). Objective:
To keep Gardner Merchant clients at senior management level regularly informed
of developments across the company through news and features, reinforcing their
position as market leader. Areas recently covered include: The £40m Royal
Armouries Museum in Leeds, Facilities Management in NHS Hospitals, Corporate Hospitality
on the Thames, Health and Fitness in the Workplace, A New Restaurant Development
for Waterford Crystal. copy
sample - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - BRILLIANT
NEW TOOLS!
Big
gains in efficiency are now being made by adapting powerful, easy-to-use IT -
described as 'brilliant new tools' by clients - to the needs of contract catering. A
series of developments in Information Technology is transforming the way Gardner
Merchant units are managed - bringing time and cost saving benefits to both caterer
and client, as well as increases in overall quality. But
while the computer has become ubiquitous in offices during the last decade, in
the caterer's kitchen it has been slower to make its mark. "We
pioneered the game with a system called 'Caterfax' which did bookkeeping, stock
control and many other things besides," explains Bob Lonsdale, GM's Director
of Information Technology. "But as it was a complex, DOS-based system, it
was very daunting for unit managers to learn in order to exploit its full potential..."
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