The 366-room Copenhagen Admiral Hotel has replaced a legacy Oracle hospitality solution with Infor’s Hospitality Management Solution (HMS). It will also deploy Infor EzRMS Revenue Management System (RMS).
With a poorly implemented legacy HMS solution, the hotel needed to find a solution that would help grow revenues and improve the guest experience. One of the challenges of the old Oracle solution was that it would not integrate well with other modern solutions in use around the hotel. Admiral wanted to find a replacement to address these limitations and future proof it.
To replace its Oracle Suite 8, Admiral considered Infor, Oracle Opera and Mews. Enterprise Times asked why Admiral selected Infor. The main reasons given were:
- The maturity of the Infor cloud solution. It has been offered as a cloud solution for more than 10 years, more than most other competitors.
- The extensive range of features. These include housekeeping modules, digital registration cards, self-service options for corporate bookings and improved workflows for the housekeeping staff.
- Extensive integration capabilities through Infor OS included self-check-in solutions, guest communication tools, etc.
- The cost, it had a “Sharp price, compared to other competitors.”
Infor EzRMS was selected as an add on module to provide a responsive revenue management strategy. Admiral hopes to increase the proportion of revenue derived from its 366 rooms.
Enterprise Times asked Admiral what differentiated Infor from its competitor
The project
Crunch IT, a Danish-based Gold Partner of Infor, and another Infor Partner, OBI Ltd, are helping to deploy the software. Infor HMS went live in Q4 2021 and EzRMS will follow in 2022. It is targeting completion before the summer season.
With the first phase completed, the hotel is already seeing benefits. Jens Christensen, COO, Copenhagen Admiral Hotel, commented: “Better integration has already helped enable a range of improvements for our guests, from check-in options such as kiosks or via mobile phones, to freeing front-of-house staff from their desks to interact with guests in lobby spaces and throughout the property.
“It has also enabled us to improve booking options for our corporate business, and the integration with our guest communication system has been a key part of our response to the pandemic. Elsewhere, behind the scenes, we have already realised substantial time savings for our housekeeping staff as they get live updates on when rooms are ready for cleaning.”
Enterprise Times also asked what the biggest challenge of the project was. Despite Covid and the impact on the hospitality industry, the response was:
“The biggest challenge was probably that the hotel is extremely busy, and there was no time to do the implementation when business was slow.”
With the project progressing well, Søren Kjelstrup, partner at Crunch IT, added: “Crunch IT is very proud to be part of the implementation of Infor’s HMS system at Copenhagen Admiral Hotel. The hotel is one of the most significant hotels on the market in Copenhagen, and taking the lead in integrated software solutions will, without doubt, be of great inspiration to other hotel operators in Denmark. We look forward to the coming implementation of Infor’s Revenue Management System during 2022.”
Enterprise Times: What does it mean?
Another win for Infor, though again at a single location hotel rather than a larger chain. Infor Hospitality is finding traction, and coupled with EzRMS, it provides an attractive combination for the industry.
Stan van Roij, Infor’s vice president of hospitality solutions, “The benefits of integrated software are often overlooked by many hotels. They want the improved processes and better guest experience, but because they believe the central property management software cannot possibly connect to all the necessary third-party options, they remain stuck.
“The deployment of Infor HMS at the Copenhagen Admiral Hotel shows that, in fact, connecting these systems is quick, easy and, most importantly, leads to real, tangible improvements in the guest experience.”
One question is how much longer Infor Hospitality will remain within Infor. It comprises a suite of solutions with little interaction with its main manufacturing portfolio. Will it sell the division the same way it did its recent Library and EAM divisions? It is attractive for another PE-backed vendor bringing a rich HMS and RMS solutions and a strong customer base. The challenge might be how intrinsically linked the solution is with Infor Finance and HCM.
