How Can a Hostel Management Software Can Be a Catalyst to Revenue Growth for Educational Institutions
Introduction
As the extent of digitalization increases, market segments are experiencing giant shifts on the operational and management fronts. With the advent of hostel management systems, educational institutions, and universities are following suit to fast-track their digital transformation. These modern-day, intuitive systems help institutions mitigate the challenges related to student housing, mess facilities, maintenance requests, secure campus access, and payments.
The multi-faceted approach of hostel management software eliminates the need for a dedicated revenue management system. While a revenue management system boosts only your revenue maximization, a hostel management system’s scope goes far beyond it and ventures into data-driven automation strategies. It compiles and analyzes data that generates insights and recommendations to streamline your hostel operations.
Role of a hostel management system in supporting revenue growth
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Hostel management software supports revenue growth from multiple fronts as universities and institutions look to excel in their operations. Increasing competition, varying student preferences,
and continuous infrastructural improvements make it challenging for universities to improve their revenue streams. Following a few practical approaches can assist universities in boosting their revenue without the need for massive infrastructural changes.
Let’s explore a few practical tips and tricks for streamlining revenue generation for your institution.
Conduct real estate estimation
Get an estimate of your space or real estate utilization to determine the space required for your operations. It will help you understand the exact space requirements, which can help you better utilize your space.
Repurpose unutilized buildings or facilities
A thorough review of your portfolio can help you identify underutilized infrastructure. Instead of bearing the carrying costs indefinitely, seek opportunities to lease or repurpose assets like these for more productive use.
Analyze data to evaluate inefficiencies
Data is crucial, as it can help you analyze facility management, operating, and maintenance costs. This evaluation can help you identify inefficiencies and cost-saving opportunities. For instance, upon learning that a hostel wing consumes a surplus amount of energy, you can determine the root cause of this waste while planning corrective actions.
Ensure optimum utilization of administrative space
Do you know that administration consumes approximately one-third of an average college or university portfolio? A rigorous analysis might present cost-saving measures while freeing up campus facilities for academic purposes.
Uncover hidden operations and maintenance costs
Regardless of how organized and well-managed your administrative facilities appear, the ill effects of delayed maintenance may be imminent. Conduct preemptive maintenance cycles of all facilities, including hostel premises, to prevent irreparable damage and lower replacement costs. These timely maintenance cycles will ascertain efficient performance, longevity, and performance improvement.
While these tips can help you plug the holes in your hostel facilities’ operations, a hostel management system can be instrumental in handling the challenges administrators don’t realize exist. A hostel management system can help you overcome the chaos of error-prone manual record-keeping and management procedures.
Here’s how switching to a hostel management system can advance your operations.
Well-organized operations
A compelling benefit of hostel management software is exceptional operational efficiency. Traditional tasks like room allocation, payment tracking, and hostel occupancy that took hours to complete can be completed within a few clicks. You can utilize the time savings and dedicate it to more pressing concerns like hostel feature additions or expansions.
Financial clarity and control
With features like automated billing, expense tracking, and financial reporting on board, this software offers you real-time insights into your finances. These features help you comprehensively monitor your hostel’s economic status. This transparency is unparalleled in making informed decisions like pricing and renovation budgeting.
Comfortable stay for students
Transitioning into a hostel life is a challenge in itself for students. A hostel management system can help you relieve your students of the hassles of the onboarding process, approvals, and getting occupancy status. It also takes care of leaves and daily attendance on hostel premises. An interactive interface enables you to record attendance, generate reports, and understand trends for efficient practices.
Digital mess and cafeteria
Make long queues, student traffic, and food waste at your hostel mess and cafeterias a thing of the past. With the inclusion of digital mess facilities, students can order their daily meals or dynamic menu orders well ahead of the meal timings without standing in a queue. This feature also allows students to arrive at the mess, skipping the rush and mess staff to manage their food preparation more effectively. With minimal to zero food waste on campus, you get opportunities to make room for cost savings.
Reduction in error and greater accountability
Manual paper-based processes are prone to errors, whereas a hostel management system reduces errors by automating operations and providing higher accuracy. It also guarantees task assignment to specific staff and personnel to ensure accountability and delegate responsibilities.
Data-driven decision making
With the added advantages of artificial intelligence(AI), machine learning (ML), and big data, hostel management software are sturdier than ever before. These technological advances offer key data and analytics capabilities to recognize trends, understand the market, and tailor your hostel management accordingly.
Ease of access to hostel and campus premises
On-campus security is a major concern that institution administrators take very seriously. With the added advantage of cardless, QR-code-based security access, students no longer have to carry a physical access card. On the other hand, hostel authorities can stay up-to-date on the current occupancy of their hostel blocks at any given time based on the status of the access cards. Hence, it adds to the security of students inside the hostel and the campus premises.
Conclusion
A capable hostel management system can help institutions open the door for new revenue generation streams. The degree of flexibility these software offer can help university administrations turn challenges into possibilities while enhancing the level of comfort for their students.
As a thought leader and pioneer in hostel management, SpaceBasic’s hostel management system has made early inroads in restoring order to the unorganized hostel and campus housing sectors. Its extensive feature set, novel approach to hostel management, and cutting-edge technologies have helped numerous large-scale institutions transform their campus stays and maximize revenue gains. With cost savings on food of over Rs 3 crores, it has helped institutions tap into loss-making streams and obtain revenue gains.
Looking to stay at the forefront of revenue gains by transforming your hostel infrastructures? Schedule a demo to learn how.
