If a disastrous event wreaked havoc on your property, would you be able to accurately account for every item of inventory - from furniture and supplies to office and kitchen equipment?

Unfortunately, for most hoteliers, that answer is usually found out the hard way.

Mario Insenga, CEO of The Refinishing Touch, a Georgia-based furniture refinishing and asset management company, saw first hand the damage Hurricane Katrina left behind. At the invitation of FEMA and various insurance carriers, Insenga and his staff tried to estimate the loss.

"The real estate owners and insurance carriers were trying to find out what they owned and the condition of the furniture….there was a lot of information that was lost in the storm," Insenga remembers. It was during those moments on the Gulf Coast that Insenga realized the web-based application his company developed to track inventory for the government, could work for the hospitality industry as well.

Modern Day Tracking

"When we went into these federal facilities, the real problem was the vast size of their inventory," says Insenga, whose company was awarded its first government contract nearly a decade ago.

From very large office environments to operations to soldier barracks, Insenga says the only way he could efficiently track the vast variety and quantity of federal inventory and manage the information was to create a software program. Global Facilities Asset Management (GFAM) was designed with the ability to electronically store data on what Insenga describes as the "condition, location and valuation" of a facility's materials.

"This is a terrific application for those who have vast amounts of assets... I think there are a lot of companies that have lost control of that specific information inside their buildings," says Insenga, stressing the information is necessary to help determine everything from when new carpeting needs to be installed or if the furniture is aged enough to be replaced. Or in the case of franchisees, if specific contractual standards are being maintained. Insenga says asset management is far too important to be based on "random sampling." He says that's where GFAM comes in.

With GFAM, Insenga says, software doesn't have to be purchased or installed by a technician. Rather, by subscribing to the site (www.gfam.com) data is securely entered onto a web page created for the company, accessed via a password. Insenga says the subscription fee is dependent upon the size and complexity of the organization and any customizing that needs to be created.

The method may be high-tech, but Insenga says subscribers certainly don't need to be. "You don't need a lot of technical savvy to handle this," he explains. "With GFAM, it's become as simple as logging on and entering your own data. You're able to see your hotel or facility and take a walk through of the rooms. You can upload photography and look through various files. You can take a virtual tour of your lobby or guestrooms."

Insenga says, besides GFAM's ease of use, its other key features are its accessibility and portability. Because it's web-based, a hotelier can access the data virtually any time, anywhere. In fact, whoever in the organization is given the password (from management to operations), can gain access to the same inventory information. "Everyone gets to look at the same information at the same time," says Insenga." It's all about asset management."

Julie Janovsky is senior editor of Hotel Interactive.