Lucas Höfer is the Group Director of Methods and Innovation Administration at Ruby Accommodations, a model that gives what it calls “lean luxurious.”
On this case examine, we discover what this implies, and the way they use a next-generation property administration system (PMS) supplied by Shiji – The Shiji Enterprise Platform – to construct what the way forward for hospitality can appear like.
A PMS for “Lean Luxurious”
Ruby Accommodations defines its method to hospitality as “lean luxurious” which is all about specializing in the necessities.
By way of specializing in the important, you’re capable of present a high-quality product that gives worth,
Lucas mentioned. It might probably price a good sum of money to remain at our motels, however the high quality you get on your cash is excessive. The mattresses you sleep on are luxurious. Our showers are high-quality rainforest showers. The whole lot from the bathe gel and shampoo to the towels makes you are feeling such as you’re staying in a luxurious resort. We are able to present this for our friends by chopping away the much less ceaselessly used issues that make the prices add up.
Lucas makes use of espresso for example. At most motels, you’ll be able to drink mediocre tea or espresso from a machine in your room that you haven’t any thought when it was final cleaned. With Ruby, we don’t supply that, however as an alternative, present espresso from a top-of-the-line barista machine. We’ve a barista ready so that you can make you the nicest espresso you’ll be able to think about. That’s what we imply by lean luxurious – taking the cash we save and passing it alongside to you, however not chopping down on the general high quality of expertise.
Lucas’s profession journey in hospitality
Lucas fell in love with hospitality whereas working in a restaurant and barkeeping throughout his research. In hindsight, it was one of the vital enjoyable occasions I had in my life,
he mentioned. He studied innovation administration throughout his grasp’s research in Sweden, and his a part of this system required constructing a start-up firm which might develop into the subject material for his thesis.
I ended up working with an organization known as Bookboost which was an API-first information platform for motels and helped them work out the product-market match. I helped them open up the market in Germany and labored with motels that included Ruby Accommodations. From there, I had the chance to go in-house and work at Ruby and construct up the know-how staff on this firm, serving to them transition to a contemporary digital platform to run their enterprise.
Tasked with navigating change
A part of the mandate for his new function was cleansing up the know-how infrastructure that had develop into messy with a number of level options. As the corporate wished to develop sooner or later, it wanted extra integration and automatic processes.
In Lucas’s expertise, it’s fairly widespread for younger corporations to build up plenty of level options over time as they’re constructing in the direction of an enormous imaginative and prescient and trying to know-how to resolve the ache their groups expertise alongside the way in which.
After all, there are some core methods everybody must have, like a property administration system, however there’s additionally plenty of little instruments that remedy particular challenges within the enterprise, and other people find yourself pushing the bounds of issues like Excel till they don’t work anymore. With out a central division overseeing the whole lot, each division begins to construct its personal tech stack. You find yourself in a state of affairs with plenty of siloed information, and scalable progress turns into difficult.
Lucas makes use of the instance of promoting occasion areas (operate rooms and assembly areas) to spotlight the issue of this method. How can we handle the entire numerous fees between the resort rooms and the occasion rooms on the identical bill? It’s moments like these the place we understand possibly we can not preserve going as we’re and have to get the whole lot so as.
Balancing automation with emotion
Ruby is an organization the place, on one hand, we attempt for lots of automation, however then again, we’ve a really emotional product,
Lucas instructed us. Our enterprise is constructed on emotional connections with our friends.
An instance of that is that once you examine in you should utilize an iPad to enter particulars and get to your room shortly. But, as Lucas shortly factors out, We don’t need to automate each contact level as a result of we would like to have the ability to say whats up to the visitor, and see how we are able to present them with good service and human contact.
A part of Ruby’s method is that they don’t have a conventional entrance desk, however have their workers (whom they name “hosts”) greet friends extra casually, and welcome them into the resort.
We rent for persona, and wish our folks to convey their distinctive approaches to interacting with our friends in a method that builds relationships with every of them.
On the identical time, as a younger model with progress ambitions, scalability is essential – and Lucas is aware of that automation goes to be core to their capacity to do that. Automation requires many interfaces, the place completely different departments can work with one another. Do you want methods to handle your staff and the way they receives a commission? Do you want back-of-house processes, the place if a gross sales supervisor sells a bunch, that data is shared with the income division in order that the pricing may be optimized?
That is the problem that Lucas confronted at Ruby: automating, but additionally discovering a PMS resolution that was more and more customer-centric.
We wished to get actually near our clients to have the ability to supply them extra of what they wished and likewise seize income from that. We knew that doing so required breaking apart silos and getting information flowing collectively.
In Lucas‘ expertise, plenty of resort know-how technique tends to be very tactical and reactionary, and an enormous a part of this is because of how the market is structured. There are plenty of impartial motels and world chains, however not many mid-sized manufacturers that may spend money on know-how. That makes know-how adoption very costly not just for the motels however for the know-how suppliers to convey innovation to our business.
For a lot of motels, the shortage of an in depth in-house know-how or digital staff means they’re unable to make in depth modifications to the know-how they buy. Usually, they purchase “off-the-shelf” merchandise and PMS options which may not work completely for his or her particular wants. This example results in many resort corporations being technology-averse.
APIs: the important thing to unlocking alternative in motels right this moment
A number of occasions in our dialog, Lucas introduced up the significance of APIs in hospitality know-how right this moment.
For him, the chance with know-how isn’t solely making processes extra environment friendly but additionally being the driving force of all innovation – ranging from scratch and creating new methods of working that may be inconceivable with out know-how.
APIs are the connective glue that hyperlinks the whole lot collectively to allow these novel options,
he instructed us. They make it potential to create connections between disparate information units which are inconceivable to do as people.
Arising with new options usually requires a ton of customization of know-how to fit your wants, however with APIs, you’ll be able to plug into business instruments and hyperlink them in a method that allows you to create some actually superior use circumstances.
Lucas supplied an instance of extracting public monetary efficiency information from group enterprise buyer corporations and feeding that to their gross sales reps to allow them to be proactive about managing their core company accounts. The brand new workflows increase flags early on and provides their salespeople information to drive their conversations and engagement approaches.
This streamlines plenty of psychological effort for our staff, and it’s simply an instance of what API-first know-how integrations allow us to do. It’s additionally an space the place Shiji is absolutely good.
How Ruby began working with Shiji
Ruby Accommodations had a long-standing relationship with Shiji ReviewPro to gather and course of visitor suggestions information. Over time, they’ve seen Shiji’s know-how stack evolve considerably, particularly with the launch of Shiji Enterprise Platform, the cloud-based PMS that was designed for world and regional resort teams.
We had been certainly one of their first clients,
Lucas shared. I joined Ruby 3 1/2 years in the past and the choice was already in place to make use of the Shiji Enterprise Platform, which comprises a PMS, Visitor profile administration, housekeeping, and extra. I keep in mind pondering early on, ‘We are able to do no matter we would like with this platform. We’ve most flexibility.’ And that’s nonetheless true – much more so right this moment than earlier.
A key a part of Lucas’s continued work with Shiji has been the collaborative nature Shiji takes with them.
I obtained the sense that Shiji not solely wished to construct one thing particular, however that they had the capabilities to do this. Our entire philosophy is partnering with corporations which have a mindset of constructing collectively. We would have liked to know that there was a wholesome product staff in whichever corporations we partnered with, and I really feel that with Shiji. Their product managers have mentioned that anytime we’ve a characteristic request we are able to have a dialog about it and the collaboration may be very streamlined.
It’s a working relationship that’s constructive and productive for each corporations, Lucas says.
Standards that Lucas evaluates to proceed working with Shiji
Whereas Shiji has a long-standing relationship with Ruby Accommodations, its dedication to collaboration is what retains them working collectively.
Shiji has at all times made us really feel vital to them and proved it with the way in which they act. I at all times really feel that they’re on the lookout for new options in higher methods to assist us.
They at all times put folks in our initiatives that made the distinction. When these folks weren’t obtainable due to different commitments, senior leaders simply stepped in to ensure nothing was dropped. The folks we get to work with make a distinction for us. I really feel like we obtained extra, and higher consultants on the areas that we had been engaged on than some other know-how firm may present.
What Lucas is most pleased with constructing with Shiji
Lucas shared numerous use circumstances from assist to gross sales the place Shiji Enterprise Platform’s API know-how has supplied advantages however a current instance is their group reserving know-how.
Group reserving know-how is notoriously troublesome as a result of there’s no single resolution on the market that’s excellent for us. All the large gamers don’t supply the extent of API connectivity that we’d like, however Shiji does. From the early levels of our design course of, we had been assured that Shiji may present us with the information we wanted as a result of they’re API-first. We by no means felt like we wanted to do extra feasibility research as a result of we knew they supplied the assist we wanted technically to make this venture a actuality.
Strategic benefits of working with Shiji’s PMS Shiji Enterprise Platform
After years of working with Shiji, Lucas anticipates persevering with to have the ability to mildew their digital product choices to supply best-in-class experiences for his or her customers.
We can present performance that makes us extra related. And after I take into consideration that by way of buyer lifetime worth, this relevance and useability make folks extra loyal to us and make them extra doubtless to stick with us extra usually. That is the place nice know-how has such an vital function in driving income and enterprise worth.
Constructing higher methods to make emotional connections
Lucas instructed us about the necessity to make emotional connections in hospitality, and the way know-how may also help with this.
The place are you interacting with digital merchandise essentially the most is throughout planning and reserving. The arrival can be an vital contact level – when you stick with us for 3 nights, the primary time you enter the room isn’t the identical as once you got here within the third time.
Every of those touchpoints has a possibility to construct the connection, Lucas says.
He makes use of the instance constructing round check-in kiosks for example. As quickly as I enter my title, the kiosk begins interacting with me utilizing my title. We designed the check-in course of to really feel extra like a chat dialog as an alternative of an enormous type to fill out. It’s the little contact factors like these that have an effect on the visitor expertise and the way in which the visitor feels about our model.
Higher know-how has elevated visitor satisfaction
A current evaluation of on-line critiques exhibits Ruby Accommodations has achieved exceptional progress in visitor satisfaction, with a powerful improve in numerous key points throughout the enterprise:
This progress has exceeded the European common, the place mentions of Know-how have elevated by 2.5 factors, Reception by 3 factors and Service by 3.5 factors, illustrating their dedication to an elevated visitor expertise. The takeaway? Friends admire the improved technology-powered expertise Ruby Accommodations presents.
Empowered to construct and serve
With Shiji Enterprise Platform, Lucas and his staff are actually ready to consider methods to increase this method by way of issues resembling serving to their hosts immediately see who’s checking in in order that they will greet them with some context.
We need to preserve transferring within the route of turning into extra private with our friends, and see know-how as an enabler of that.
About Shiji Group
Shiji Group is a multinational know-how firm that gives software program options and companies for enterprise corporations within the hospitality, meals service, retail, and leisure industries, starting from hospitality know-how platforms, resort administration options, meals and beverage, and retail methods, cost gateways, information administration, on-line distribution and extra. Based in 1998 as a community options supplier for motels, Shiji Group right this moment includes over 5,000 staff in 80+ subsidiaries and types in over 31 nations, serving greater than 97,000 motels, 200,000 eating places, and 600,000 shops.
About Ruby
The Munich-based Ruby Group beneath the management of founder and CEO Michael Struck is breaking new floor with its Lean Luxurious philosophy. With a lean organisational construction and focus on the necessities, Ruby succeeds in creating a up to date, inexpensive type of luxurious for contemporary, price and style-conscious clients.
Based in 2013, the Group already operates 16 Ruby motels, with an additional 20 motels beneath development or within the planning section. Ruby is increasing into Asia with the three way partnership Ruby Asia, based in 2018. Ruby additionally presents Ruby Workspaces in Munich, Hamburg, Dusseldorf, Amsterdam and Vienna – completely geared up workplaces and a inventive ambiance with entry to an inspiring workplace neighborhood.
About Shiji Group
Shiji is a multi-national know-how firm that gives software program options and companies for enterprise corporations within the hospitality, meals service, retail and leisure industries, starting from hospitality know-how platform, resort administration options, meals and beverage and retail methods, cost gateways, information administration, on-line distribution and extra. Based in 1998 as a community options supplier for motels, Shiji Group right this moment includes over 5,000 staff in 80+ subsidiaries and types in over 31 nations, serving greater than 91,000 motels, 200,000 eating places and 600,000 shops. For extra data, go to www.shijigroup.com.
