How Teton Resorts Created a Purchasing Paradise with Procurify

Overview

There’s some kind of irony in the fact that the hospitality industry is one that never sleeps. As Paul Kazyak of Teton Resorts tells it, “It’s a 24/7 365 business, and when you need something, you need it yesterday.”

Teton Resorts is one piece of the mosaic of Wyoming’s hospitality industry,and is grouped as a collective in two primary locations: Teton Mountain Lodge and Hotel Terra Jackson Hole. These resorts are slices of luxury and premium hospitality situated amidst temperate grasslands, lush and coniferous forests, and the largest protected wildlife reserves in mainland America.

Paul Kazyak is the Director of Finance for this designated area, and has decades of experience at the wheel of hotel management. He also happens to be a Procurify success story, and is using Procurify’s system in unison with his team of department heads and managers to fight against duplicate entries, manual workflows, and achieve maximum visibility into real time budgets.

Finding The Cure

After trying to make POs work between his spreadsheets and other platforms,Paul eventually found himself in an operational pickle. Without a dedicated purchasing team, it was various members of different departments that had to deal with the responsibility of purchasing, and yet their workflow was so cumbersome the staff could only bear to deal with putting in requests once a week.

The Immediate Industry

Hotel purchasing is typically done on a one and a half to two week rotation using a given company’s set distribution plan which includes multiple vendors. Hotels like Teton request the best price given that cycle’s volume, and promotions to help save on costs through the lower prices. 

With vacancy always cycling through 24/7, Teton’s purchasing cycles have to remain airtight for things to work. All the time-sinks and operational costs add up, and POs was one workflow in particular that was never easy for Paul. 

“Our previous PO workflow was so slow, we’d spend hours once a week on Wednesdays doing all of our POs.” Paul added. “We were so reactive and felt like we were constantly putting out one fire after another. With Procurify, we do our POs now on a daily basis and approve them every day, and now people don’t have to wait an entire week to find out if their purchase was approved or not like we were doing before.

Proactive Purchasing

Implementation with Procurify didn’t take long, and before he knew it, Paulhad successfully sought out and found a solution that was right for his organization. With his expectations set firm, Procurify’s features were a perfect match for Teton Resorts.

“With Procurify, POs are much, much faster. We’re able to do it everyday and instantaneously, and I enjoy it a lot from an approver standpoint.” Paul detailed. “When you’re trying to find POs and you’re not trying to look at the entire department, the filters in Procurify are really great.” 

Paul went on to detail the types of confusing coordinations that can result from having a poor process in place, explaining that, “The last thing you need is Joe getting notifications because Mary just ordered something. If I’m only a room division person or a food and beverage person, I just want to see my purchase order - I don’t wanna see Joe, Mary or Sue’s POs who might work with me. With filters and adjusting the notifications, you’re able to just worry about what POs you put through.” 

While the specificity and convenience of Procurify’s features were impressive, the goal and primary focus for Paul and his team was to save time. “With Procurify we’re saving three to four hours a week in productivity waiting for POs to be generated, and for us, that’s everything.”

Visibility & Controls for All

“I always like to have the latest and greatest technology but obviously with work there can be some budget constraints."

Paul’s foresight to find a solution like this on the go was a collaborative effort with another member of his team, Josh. Paul’s someone who “always enjoys the latest and greatest in technology”, but he’s also someone who is very familiar with budget constraints standing in the way of that. “That’s one of the major reasons Procurify was the right fit for us. This was not a $50, 000 expenditure. It was very reasonably priced.” 

Paul’s other reason that things went so smoothly was rooted in the onboarding and planning made simple by Procurify’s Professional Consultant team and Customer Success. “Gigi and her team had their ducks in a row and every session with them we left with minimal questions and understood the features and functionality in depth. It was a really easy rollout.”

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