Minor Hotels lays foundations for a purely digital future

The hotel sector has been undergoing a digital revolution for years, transforming not only the way hotels operate and interact with their customers, but also with the environment, all without harming their bottom lines.

Case in point is Minor Hotels Europe & Americas, an international chain with more than 540 branded hotels, resorts, and residences in 56 countries. Led by its flagship, Anantara Hotels & Resorts, the company has become a key player in the industry thanks to the growth of Anantara and Avani Hotels & Resorts, and the acquisition of brands like Tivoli Hotels & Resorts, Oaks Hotels, Resorts & Suites, NH Hotels, nhow Hotels, NH Collection, and Elewana.

Recognition of a digital future

Minor’s growth wouldn’t have been possible without a commitment to digitalization. In 2013, the company began a process of technological change that affected all its systems — ERP, e-commerce, and the hotel management platform in all establishments — with the aim to create a strong core ecosystem, with highly efficient processes, to allow it to scale and remain competitive. This allowed them to subsequently incorporate tools with greater added value, and to comply with changing regulatory needs — GDPR, PCI, and tax requirements of different countries — all while increasing levels of security.

Even before the Covid-19 pandemic, Minor already started its Digital Evolution Roadmap, says Marta Marcos, SVP of information technology and systems. In the case of the external client, the objective was to improve their experience by offering digital solutions that hadn’t been developed until then, including mobile guest service, Fast Pass, smart tablets in reception, and Alexa Smart Properties for hospitality service, among others. “There was much higher adoption than expected during the pandemic,” she says. In the case of the internal client, the priority was efficiency, with the aim to ensure employees dedicated more quality time to clients and mobility.

All combined, this was pursued without forgetting the fundamental pillar of sustainability. “One of our mantras is to be paperless,” she says. “We try to eliminate printed paper as much as possible, both in rooms and in our own systems. Processes at reception have been reviewed and digitalized. Even check-in and check-outhave been digitalized, avoiding the need to print arrival forms or invoices.”

To achieve all this, digital technological tools, such as automation, robotization, ML, and massive data mining, among others, have been incorporated. “Using AI, we’re implementing use cases for both internal and external clients,” says Marcos.

Challenges remain

The years-long journey to digitalization hasn’t been without having to overcome obstacles. In 2013, according to Marcos, everything was already quite integrated and interconnected. “The challenge was to make the entire change of systems without affecting these integrations,” she says. “It had to be transparent, speaking about connections with Booking.com and Expedia, for example, and with as little impact on operations as possible.” And being in so many countries, each with its own legal and fiscal peculiarities, complicates the execution of this type of project.

Another challenge she and her team faced was change management, since it wasn’t only a systems project, but a company project with changes in the processes. “Having to manage that change and train so many people was a huge undertaking,” Marcos says. But an interdisciplinary team involving all affected areas of the company allowed the project to be carried out successfully. And that methodology and way of working has been maintained for the rest of the projects that have been implemented, she says.

Adapting to change

Over the years, many technologies have been integrated, covering practically all areas of the company: CX tools for marketing and sales, mobility tools for employees in housekeeping, maintenance, and reception, and automation to eliminate mundane tasks. Plus, realizing the potential of data with ML and AI has allowed all areas to make objective decisions with accurate information, and achieve a greater time to market.

Digitalization has also reached customers. According to Marcos, they’re offered, in addition to traditional operations, the possibility of managing most of the services digitally. One project the company is most satisfied with is Fast Pass, which was piloted before the pandemic, but has now been implemented in all its hotels. With Fast Pass it’s possible to check in and out online, and chooseyour room, among other benefits. “We also work to digitalize administrative processes and automate supplier invoices,” Marcos says.

All these initiatives have allowed Minor to significantly reduce the volume of printed paper with the consequent savings in wood, water, energy, and CO2 emissions.

Optimizing treasury management

In line with the company’s innovative and technological approach, and anticipating the profound transformation of the hotel finance industry, Minor Hotels’ finance and treasury team planned an ambitious change and improvement project about 10 years ago, focused on Kyriba’s SaaS platform. The goal was to improve, harmonize, and increase security for all treasury management processes across all countries with a centralized solution, reducing tasks to dedicate more time to analyze more reliable data reports. 

To do this, Minor Hotels contacted AllCMS, a Spanish company specializing in technological solutions to optimize the management of liquidity, payments, risk, and back office. Kyriba’s total SaaS application was a key factor in Minor’s decision, since it didn’t require large investment from the IT department and it facilitated global deployment of the system, thus taking advantage of its capacity for scalability and localization for any international environment. 

In the first phase, all bank accounts were integrated using SWIFT connectivity, natively incorporated into the connectivity hub of the Kyriba platform, in order to more efficiently manage the reception, analysis, and control of banking information. Using Swiftnet, Minor Hotels onboarded 1,493 bank accounts daily, from 59 banks, all with a single platform based on web technology. Now, Minor enjoys a unique and fully integrated tool that offers global visibility on its liquidity. 

In a second phase, the preparation of cash flow forecasts was automated at a global level. Although the visualization of the accounts allows the generation of the real cash position, it was necessary to obtain a projection of the position in the short, medium, and long term. Minor Hotels connected its SAP ERP with Kyriba Enterprise, which allowed the combination of debt and investment information with accounts receivable and payable, forming the establishment of cash forecasts.  

Ready for the digital future

Over the past 10 years, Minor has worked to lay a solid foundation and have a platform ready for whatever may come. However, according to Marcos, the company must continue working and investing, as they’ve done up to now, in innovation, digitalization and technology because it’s a matter of survival. “Not investing doesn’t mean not growing, but rather decreasing and losing competitiveness,” she says.