17 Jun 2016

Maximising Room Utilisation with Ecobook

This is a guest post by Prasanna S, Director of Skynapse Business Technology Pte Ltd.

Meeting rooms are a prized asset for any organisation. It is where employees gather to exchange ideas, discuss progress and solve problems. In today’s dynamic world, meetings are becoming more and more crucial because of remote teams, multiple branch offices and a mobile workforce.

The supply of meeting rooms always seems to be outstripping demand and it is not simple to open up new meeting rooms due to space and financial constraints.

Many of today’s businesses have sufficient rooms that have been invested in. However, their utilisation falls to abysmal levels due to a lack of proper control over them. For example, meetings that are booked but not used can cause a drastic reduction in utilisation and a tremendous opportunity loss for staff who really need them. Some organisations use primitive means of managing reservations such as using spread sheets or Google calendar, that lead to double bookings, clashes and preferential reservation that can cause much confusion and loss of productivity.

It is essential for organisations to have control over their meeting rooms so that usage is maximised while proper controls are in place. For example:

• Providing booking window periods can limit how far into the future the rooms are booked. This gives users the opportunity to plan their meetings only when needed.


• Proper permissions can help to limit usage of rooms for specific purposes. For example, granting special approval to boardrooms prevent users from booking those rooms for trivial meetings.


• Providing a simple tool that even non-technical users can use is critical to high adoption rates of such systems. This increases the productivity of staff while knowing that their bookings are confirmed and secured without having to double confirm again.


• Timely reminders are an important component of any booking. Being able to be notified that there is an upcoming meeting and being able to seamlessly add the meeting to your calendar is important to maximizing the productivity of staff.


• Visibility into how rooms are used can help management take decisions on improving rooms that are under-utilised. For example, a room without a projector may be less preferred. So, to increase the room utilisation, it is cheaper to place a projector rather than invest in some expensive make-over.


• Data represented through actionable graphs, charts and metrics can help optimise utilisation by facility owners. Insights into usage can help reduce operating costs and identify bottlenecks.


• Firmly established policies also play a crucial role in ensuring that fair usage of rooms are maintained. With clear policies and guidelines in place, operational aspects of rooms improve and manual intervention is reduced.

So, when does an organisation need a booking system?

If you face any of the challenges that are identified below, then you will require a meeting room booking system that helps you improve your utilisation and operations.

• Frequent conflicts of meeting schedules.


• Double bookings or overlaps in meeting timings.


• Multiple systems in place for reserving rooms, sending out invites or requesting for catering and services.


• Rooms spread over multiple locations that are managed centrally by a secretary or assistant.

There are many ways to book meeting rooms. From simple systems such as QR-code based bookings to more fancy room display units that show the current meeting and the ability to book meetings directly from the room itself. There are options for booking systems that are cloud based which run on a pay-per-use model to enterprise licenses that integrate with HR and Finance systems to provide a central portal for meeting room management.

Ecobook, provides all these functionalities for businesses of all types and sizes. We specialise in maximising the usage of your meeting rooms while maintaining a high level of productivity for your staff. Our systems are designed to eliminate wasted time in terms of double bookings, clashes in timings, coordination of various aspects of setting up and running meetings.

Ecobook is used by some of the largest hospitals in Singapore and has been around for nearly a decade. Ecobook has helped businesses save money and time and improve the efficiency of operations by reducing the time needed to book a meeting and its associated services.

Ecobook also expands to allow businesses to book other assets such as equipment, vehicles, courses, corporate passes and manpower services – all within the same interface.

SKYNAPSE BUSINESS TECHNOLOGY PTE LTD is a business technology consulting company. Established in 2003 as a technology solutions provider, Skynapse has subsequently extended its offerings to include consulting and services. For a demo or a free trial of Ecobook, contact them at info@facilitiesbooking.com, www.facilitiesbooking.com or visit them at their booth at Office Expo Asia (OEA) 2016, 29 June – 1 July at Marina Bay Sands!