The Oostwegel Collection, a Dutch hotel group, is the first business to go live on all five of the Infor hospitality suite of solutions. While it has used the Infor EzRMS revenue management system since 2015, it needed to modernise the rest of its technology infrastructure. Enterprise Times asked Delfo Melli, Senior Account Director of Infor Hospitality, questions about the project and the systems used before the refresh.
Melli replied, “Legacy, outdated, on-premise solutions. The incumbent vendor tried hard to convince Oostwegel Collection to upgrade to a new version, but the integrated cloud approach from Infor was the preferred option.”
The Oostwegel Collection consists of four iconic luxury hotels: Château Neercanne, Winselerhof, Château St. Gerlach and Kruisherenhotel Maastricht
The decision
Oostwegel Collection already liked the Infor EzRMS solution, and was impressed by its results and the customer service and support it received from Infor. While it started to consider other Infor hospitality solutions, it also completed a full market review. It wanted a cloud solution that would meet its requirements from a vendor it could trust.
Camille Oostwegel, Owner & Managing Director of Oostwegel Collection, commented, “The excellent support we received and still are receiving from the Infor Support team encouraged us to explore the other hospitality solutions Infor has to offer.”
Ultimately, Oostwegel opted to go with all five cloud-based Infor Products. These alone could not deliver everything they wanted. Infor works with partners that can also bring specialist applications to complete a hybrid solution that meets its requirements.
Integrated into the Infor Cloud solutions are Adyen, a Dutch-based payment company that provides an all-in-one payments platform. Adyen will provide end-to-end payment capabilities with a single solution for all locations and requirements. Adyen also offers fraud detection capabilities and analytics that provide customers with insights.
The group also chose to work with Annoncer for its kitchen display system. Annoncer is designed specifically for fine dining, high-end restaurants and restaurants with a Michelin star. It creates seamless communication between the front of house and the kitchen, ensuring that all relevant information is passed, such as preferences and allergies.
The project
Infor has now implemented five solutions across all properties in the Oostwegel Collection. They include Infor Hospitality Management Solution (HMS), Infor Sales & Catering (SCS), Infor EzRMS revenue management, Infor Table Reservations Solution (TRS) and Infor Point of Sale (POS).
Importantly the complete solution enables the group to view data from across all the Infor solutions, with integration points to Adyen and Annoncer providing further insights as required while maintaining the security and privacy of data.
Camille Oostwegel added, “Now we’ve implemented Infor’s full suite of solutions, we can effectively and efficiently manage the guest experience at every touchpoint. The multi-property functionality gives us full control and visibility across the entire business at any moment in time.”
Infor worked with the Oostwegel Collection project team to meet the individual requirements of each hotel. Enterprise Times asked Melli what the main challenge was. He replied, “Change management – going from old, legacy, but very familiar solutions, to modern cloud solutions. Many users have worked at Oostwegel Collection for many years. The customer project lead organised various workshops and preparations to organise and train his teams. This helped to ensure that go-live was very smooth.”
The single team ethic during the implementation stands out, with Pascal Penders, Oostwegel Collection project lead commenting, “We were impressed by the dedication of the Infor team. Everyone really did everything in their power to get things right first time. The Infor expertise was invaluable and the Infor team prepared and managed the entire implementation process. We’re already seeing the benefits of having an integrated solutions platform across the organisation and are looking forward to what else we can achieve over the coming months.”
I asked Melli how the project was phased. He replied, “Firstly, it was EzRMS back in 2015, but for all other systems, implementation and go-live happened in Q1 2023 (HMS, SCS, TRS, POS)”. This big bang approach is unusual but was successful.
The results
Selecting a single suite of solutions at the heart of its operation has clear advantages. In Infor, it has found a partner open to and can seamlessly add best-of-breed solutions, such as Annoncer and Adyen.
Stan van Roij, VP of sales for Infor Hospitality, commented, “As Oostwegel Collection has demonstrated, choosing a single vendor for a suite of solutions is proving to be the ideal approach. Our market-leading solutions deliver the functionality needed to enhance the guest experience at every opportunity, as well as the crucial business insight that hospitality businesses need to stay one step ahead in such a competitive market. We work alongside our customers to ensure our systems address the specific challenges they face, delivering excellent solutions underpinned by experience, expertise and outstanding support.”
With go-live such a short time ago, I asked Melli what quantitative improvements they have seen since going live. Melli replied, “Efficiency, a better understanding of their guests, ability to react to sales enquiries and monitor the structured progress of following up on meetings and events leads.”
Enterprise Times: What does this mean
Infor continues to win business in the hospitality industry, especially in small groups of hotels where its solutions can deliver a real difference to the client experience. Recent wins include Old Edwards Inn and Spa, Chichester Park Hotel in the UK and Elite Hotels in Sweden. It was also named a leader in the IDC Marketscape for worldwide property management systems.
The Oostwegel Collection will benefit from a fully integrated solution that will help deliver a superior experience to guests and provide management with a complete view of all four properties within the group. This will help identify where best practices drive improvements to share innovations across the group.
