June 2002

Eatec Corporation and Orange Lake Resort - EatecNetX enables Orange Lake Resort & Country Club to streamline its operations and meet its business needs.

To integrate its inventory, purchasing, and food and beverage and retail sales operations, Orange Lake Resort & Country Club implemented EatecNetX from Eatec Corporation. The Florida resort streamlined its operations and prepared for future growth with a reliable and scalable web-centric application that uses the power of Microsoft® SQL ServerT.

A vacation that includes visits to Florida's Walt Disney World, Sea World, Universal Orlando and other nearby attractions is for many a dream come true. But vacationers welcome a break from whirlwind activities, and what better way than to stay at a resort that provides both serenity and fun right at their doorstep.

Orange Lake Resort & Country Club, a world-renowned timeshare resort started in 1982 by Holiday Inn's famous founder Kemmons Wilson, spreads across 1,100 lush acres of tranquility - just minutes away from Orlando's major attractions. Deepblue lakes provide peaceful views, plus boating, fishing and water skiing, and cool pools offer refreshing fun. The more than 1,700 spacious timeshare units, designed for family comfort, include one-, two- and three-bedroom villas, studios and suites. The resort also sports three championship golf courses, including The Legends at Orange Lake, a 7,072-yard course designed by Arnold Palmer and Palmer Course Design Co., 14 tennis courts and playground areas for children.

Restaurants on the premises include Kemmons' Place, Paisan Pizzeria, the Terrace Café, Mulligan's Bar and Grill, Beachfront Bar and Grill and the Sunrise Café, and banquet and catering services are also offered. Orange Lake also operates three golf pro shops; two swim shops, with swimwear and pool and beach supplies for the entire family; and The General Store, which offers groceries, souvenirs, newspapers and magazines, and wine, spirits and beers.

In Search of an Enterprise Solution
As the resort continued to grow, Orange Lake faced a number of business challenges. They had an antiquated system and needed a way to effectively track their inventory and to streamline their purchasing and retail sales operations. About 14,000 food and beverage and retail inventory items were listed in Microsoft Excel spreadsheets, but there was no way to track inventory quantities and usage. Purchase orders were manually prepared.

The company sought an enterprise solution that could handle food and beverage as well as retail transactions. They wanted to consolidate requisitions from all their food and beverage outlets in order to purchase food items through one purchasing system.

Scott Casey, Orange Lake vice-president and CIO, recalls evaluating more than 100 packages before deciding upon EatecNetX, web-centric back-office software from Eatec Corporation, which provided numerous advantages.

One advantage is that EatecNetX interfaces to most point-of-sale (POS) and financial systems. Casey commented, "We were in the process of purchasing a point-of-sale system from InfoGenesis, so this gave us an all-inclusive package to support our organization. Also, EatecNetX interfaces with Infinium, our general ledger package. We are able to handle all inventory 'from cradle to grave' - from a requisition to a purchase order to receiving and putting the merchandise out for sale. It is a seamless process and very automated." Orange Lake also chose EatecNetX because of its reliability as demonstrated at other client sites. Strong performance, ease-of-use and overall functionality were also primary appeals. Also, EatecNetX, which employs a single, centralized database running on Microsoft SQL Server, fit Orange Lake's overall strategy to be "a Microsoft shop."

"We looked at quite a few non-Microsoft packages," Casey notes, "but the components were not truly linked. We needed a company that would keep up with the times."

The Whole Picture
Eatec installed, deployed and rolled out EatecNetX beginning in December 2001 and the system went live on January 10, 2002. As a result, Orange Lake has gained a far greater visibility of its daily operations.

"A big piece of the picture was Eatec's support and training," Casey comments. "Anyone can install a system, but Eatec also conducted onsite training and now provides Orange Lake with outstanding maintenance and support services," Casey reports.

The database is accessed online in realtime from each location across Orange Lake's network infrastructure. All of the data, including inventory information, is maintained centrally and accessed by users over a local area network (LAN).

With EatecNetX, Orange Lake was able to standardize its purchasing processes. Requisitions from multiple outlets are consolidated to facilitate procurement of food items through one purchasing system, resulting in better contract pricing.

When merchandise arrives, employees can create and print barcode labels using EatecNetX and affix them to the products to facilitate point-of-sale scanning. These products are sold, and physical inventory is recorded by scanning the labels.

Business Benefits and Lessons Learned
"The real dividends of using the Eatec system are the redefining of positions, a cutback in man-hours required for the inventory process and a reduction of inventory shrinkage," Casey says. "The system has enabled our management staff to focus on the information to run their business rather than them having responsibility for manual daily processes."

The integration provided by the system was also an integral benefit," Casey adds. "We were able to track everything on the computer and greatly reduce our paper needs."

Finally, the relationship between a client and a vendor is critical," Casey emphasizes.

"Orange Lake and Eatec worked well as a team, aided by the use of a project plan, jointly crafted by both."

Future Growth
By the end of the year, Orange Lake will be adding supplier price guides to EatecNetX, enabling the resort to easily compare prices among multiple vendors and to assign bids by lowest price or preferred vendor.

The resort is exploring the use of EatecPocket, a new EatecNetX mobile accessory that would allow users to perform EatecNetX functions on a wireless local area network (WLAN) pocket PC device, giving them much more flexibility on the job.

For more information:

About Microsoft
Call the Microsoft Sales Information Center at (800) 426-9400. In Canada, call the Microsoft Canada Information Centre at (800) 563-9048. Outside the 50 United States and Canada, please contact your local Microsoft office.For more information about Microsoft-based hospitality solutions, visit the Microsoft hospitality home page on the World Wide Web, at http://www.microsoft.com/hospitality.

About Eatec Corporation
Eatec Corporation
1350 Ocean Avenue
Emeryville, CA 94608
Phone: 510-594-9011
Fax: 510-594-9091
E-mail: sales@eatec.com
Web site: www.eatec.com

Eatec Corporation is a leading provider of enterprise back-office solutions for the hospitality and foodservice industries. EatecNetX, Eatec's webcentric software solution, helps organizations reduce costs and improve operational efficiencies, resulting in a quick return on investment. Eatec clients include restaurant chains, hotels, resorts, casinos, stadiums and arenas, convention centers, universities, theme parks, airline caterers and supermarket foodservice.

Microsoft Software Used
Microsoft® SQL ServerT 2000
Microsoft Visual Studio® 6.0 Enterprise Edition
Microsoft ActiveX® Data Objects 7.0
Microsoft ODBC
Microsoft Internet Explorer 5.5
Microsoft Visual Basic® 6.0

Eatec Products and Services
EatecNetX 1.9.5

© 2002 Microsoft Corporation. All rights reserved. This document is for informational purposes only. MICROSOFT MAKES NO WARRANTIES, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, IN THIS SUMMARY. Microsoft, ActiveX, Visual Studio, Windows, and Windows NT are either registered trademarks or trademarks of Microsoft Corporation in the United States and/or other countries. The names of actual companies and products mentioned herein may be the trademarks of their respective owners.

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