Following the merger of MICROS Systems Inc., America's leading supplier of Restaurant Solutions and Germany's Fidelio Software GmbH in 1995, MICROS-Fidelio became the world's leading supplier of information technology solutions for the hospitality industry.

Today, MICROS-Fidelio, through its network of offices and channel partners, provides solutions for all sectors of the Hospitality Industry. The company’s systems are used in more than 147 countries worldwide, in over 20,000 hotels and 220,000 restaurants. Customers include food outlets, full service restaurants, motels, casinos, arenas, cruise ships and many other hospitality-related businesses.

MICROS provides restaurant information systems comprising of hardware and software for point-of-sale (POS) and operational applications, as well as a suite of back office applications that include inventory, labor and financial management, and other centrally hosted enterprise applications. Through its global markets subsidiary, MICROS-Fidelio International, MICROS provides enterprise-wide integrated information technologies for the hotel industry including multi-property, fully integrated hotel systems encompassing property management systems (PMS), sales and catering systems, central reservation systems, customer information systems, and revenue management systems.

In an attempt to improve, assess and measure the quality of its service offerings, MICROS-Fidelio has implemented a formal certification process for personnel within the region of Europe, Africa and the Middle East. This enables the company to measure the individual skills objectively.

The company began using Questionmark software in 1998, seeking a way to reduce the time and costs associated with paper-based assessments. The use of online assessments has enabled the company to efficiently administer 10 internal certifications, 26 assessments for customers who use their products, and training course evaluations used the company’s academy in Neuss, Germany. Customers often take tests to get ready for product roll-outs, thereby easing the transition to new technologies. Approximately 630 employees and 540 customers take Perception tests, and numerous people participate in course evaluations.

Shared repositories enable three different authors to work together in creating the assessments, which are then added to the Perception system and maintained by an assessment administrator. Drag and drop functionality makes it easy to move questions, assessments and templates. Academy management is informed automatically by email when someone has finished an assessment, which means they do not have to monitor the assessment schedules.

Trainers make frequent use of Perception’s Coaching Report, Grade Book Report, Assessment Overview Report and Question Statistics Report. In addition to providing a statistical overview of people’s performance on the various tests, these reports enable trainers to evaluate individual skills.

“Most people like being able to do assessments online at any time and have a look at their report for past assessments,” says MICROS-Fidelio Academy Manager Sascha Wehner. “They also like the way we present the questions, using question by question delivery, which makes it easy for them to navigate between different questions and flag those that they want to revisit.

“As an organisation, we like the ease of using online assessments. We use email broadcasts to inform participants about their schedules, and by making assessments available 24/7 we can offer a great deal of flexibility for test takers. The statistical reports are another great benefit; they make it very easy to keep track of how people are doing. We are now in the process of creating several more internal certifications and eventually hope to integration Perception with the Saba-Centra eLearning solution.”