Starwood Hotels and Resorts- With over 650 hotels and resorts worldwide, this major player in the hospitality market realizes the value of automated business practices. Starwood recently upgraded its sales and catering infrastructure with a solution based on Microsoft® BackOffice® and Newmarket technologies that promises to boost productivity and efficiency by more than 100 percent by eliminating tedious manual tasks and providing staff with global access to vital data. Starwood Hotels and Resorts Worldwide, Inc. is one of the world's largest lodging companies, offering a selection of over 650 hotels and resorts, spanning 70 countries across six continents. Always interested in boosting efficiency and raising profitability, Starwood recently implemented a sales and catering solution based on Microsoft BackOffice technologies, including Microsoft SQL Server™ 7.0, Enterprise Edition, and Global SFA and Delphi, from Newmarket International, a Microsoft Certified Solution Provider. The powerful system, which links property-level resources and data stores, has more than doubled productivity at some locations. In the hotel industry, high profitability can always be traced back to a successful sales team. Starwood recognizes this relationship and has worked to capitalize upon well-trained personnel and IT resources to increase sales whenever possible. Starwood began a relationship with Newmarket International ten years ago. Initially, Newmarket provided Starwood with an IT system that automated sales at the hotels and resorts themselves. The first-round solution increased efficiency and provided staff with client management resources. Starwood maintains 28 additional sales offices that work to sell all of the hotel and resort properties and services on a global basis. After the IT implementation at the hotels and resorts proved beneficial, Starwood began to implement a different IT system at the global sales offices-hoping to realize the same gains that the hotels and resorts had. Though the new software increased productivity across the board, Starwood saw an opportunity to reach even higher levels of profitability. The disparate systems at the hotels and resorts managed data differently than the system at the global offices, making it impossible for them to share information. These inconsistencies forced sales staff to forfeit precious time performing manual tasks such as checking resources, verifying availability, and forwarding pertinent information. Starwood needed to implement an additional IT solution that would connect the hotels and resorts with the global sales offices. A combination of the Microsoft BackOffice family of server applications and cutting-edge sales and catering products from Newmarket International has enabled Starwood to effectively utilize its personnel and technology resources to reach the highest level of productivity possible. The solution links all of the company's local and global data sources, replacing slow and inefficient methodologies with enhanced services and increased production. The solid backbone provided by Microsoft Windows NT® Server ensures that a secure system will be up and running, reliably and securely, whenever staff members need it. Global SFA and Delphi also work with Microsoft software to enhance the Starwood IT system's functionality. Both Newmarket systems use a distributed database model to maintain account information across multiple SQL Server databases via Microsoft Transaction Server, providing company-wide access to information. A universally maintained Global SFA Database also offers a system for managing Account, Lead, Booking, and Performance information. This Global SFA Database, using the replication functionality in Microsoft SQL Server, acts as a central point of connectivity that maintains up-to-the-minute status and availability throughout the enterprise. In some cases, Starwood also represents brands such as Westin and Sheraton. For these companies, the choice of platform was considered company-wide in conjunction with plans to roll out a new Microsoft Exchange Server solution. Starwood's Newmarket solution consists of Global SFA, running on Microsoft SQL Server 7.0 and linked through Microsoft Transaction Server to single and multi-property Delphi implementations, also running on SQL Server 7.0. The total amount of SQL Server data in this distributed, replicated system will reach well over 100 GB in the year 2000 and will be accessed by over 3,000 users every day. The linked environment allows for the immediate transaction of lead information, such as referrals, from the Global Sales Offices to potential bookings at various properties. These leads are tracked, managed, and actualized in an environment that offers trending, analysis, and reporting on a global level. The convergence and linking of these entities has led to a much larger return on investment than Starwood ever anticipated when it began implementing the first Newmarket solution ten years ago. Simple sales automation at the property level has been shown to increase productivity and efficiency by as much as 100 percent. When automation occurs at the global level involving a worldwide system of linked databases, productivity increases are measured at orders of magnitude greater than those at the property level. "Automation is the competitive sales advantage in this industry," says Roberta Rinker-Ludloff, V.P. Global Sales. "The capability to profile opportunities against a real- time set of globally accessible property information is of paramount importance in securing business. Sales are further increased through global account management strategies allowed by the Global SFA and Delphi systems. Newmarket International's technology commitment in our industry and world-class support give us the confidence to partner in such an endeavor." Not only are there measurable increases in production, but as the global system matures and builds its stores of data it will provide vital trending, analysis, and research information. The most direct impact to production comes when a potential piece of business is closed based on real-time access to a global database allowing for the right property with the right availability to be sold universally. The company's diverse group of hotels and resorts becomes especially valuable when it can be sold by any sales organization, located anywhere in the world. The combination of hospitality sales management systems from Newmarket International and Microsoft BackOffice platform technologies has given Starwood's global sales staff powerful and scalable tools that will enable them to decrease administrative downtime and bring profitable sales time to an all-time high. For more information Call the Microsoft Sales Information Center at (800) 426-9400. In Canada, call the Microsoft Canada Information Centre at (800) 563-9048. Outside the 50 United States and Canada, please contact your local Microsoft office. Foundation Systems Limited Foundation is an independent systems and application integrator and Microsoft Certified Solution Provider with considerable experience in developing complex business and financial management systems. The company is committed to providing the highest quality of service to its customers through a comprehensive range of consultancy services, education and ongoing support.
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