The Sudima Hotels brand has been operating since 2000 in New Zealand, and its unique approach to building, refurbishing and operating hotels has earned them the distinction of being the only carboNZero-certified hotel chain in New Zealand.

Sudima works with Shiji Group’s POS solution Infrasys for food and beverage management and ReviewPro to track guest satisfaction across the hotels. In this case study, we’ll look at the role of technology in helping them operate this brand in a modern way that meets guest expectations, reduces time and stress for staff, and enables their mission of sustainability. We spoke with Sam Prakasam, IT Infrastructure Manager for the brand, and Alena Novikova, Information & Systems Analyst, about what they learned through the process:

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About Sudima Hotels

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Sudima Hotels is a New Zealand hotel brand committed to providing environmentally friendly, accessible hotels. The brand is owned by Hind Properties and led by Hind CEO Sudesh Jhunjhnuwala.

Sudesh started his business career in Hong Kong, working for Sudima Group's design and OEM watch company. In 2001, he moved to New Zealand to look after the group's property portfolio. At this point, he bought the group's first hotel and started on the journey to create Hind Management and Sudima Hotels.

The brand started as a family business. As they’ve grown, they have aimed to retain their friendly, family-focused culture and stay true to their values. “This feeling of genuine warmth and care – for our guests, our staff, our community, and our environment, is what sets us apart,” Sudesh says.

Sudima’s focus on sustainability informs everything they do. “Our aim is to be carbon neutral and remove all plastics possible from our operation,” Sam added. “Last year we were able to eliminate all single-use plastics. We work with suppliers on maximizing sustainability from all the products we purchase. We encourage our suppliers to use things like more sustainable packaging and use wall-mounted dispensers for soaps in our bathroom.”

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The search for a solution

This journey to solving these challenges started with Bijzeit and his team defining five core goals for the business:

• Modernizing IT infrastructure
• Future-proofing the technology stack
• Exceeding privacy and security expectations
• Building high-performing teams
• Being data-driven

With this framework in place, the search began for foundational technology that would support all of these goals. “If you have a core base layer of technology that is open and can connect with point solutions, you maximize your options in the future,” Bijzeit noted.

Integration was key for areas such as revenue management technology. “We needed to know if the systems could integrate to a level that would support the strategies of our revenue and commercial teams. This required meeting with each functional team in our organization to understand their goals before anything else.”

One thing that was clear from the start was how critical security would be. “Our approach to this depended on the nature of the system and the data being processed, but we looked very carefully to understand data protection controls and how each solution ensured security.” This included understanding the capabilities of in-house Security Operation Centers (SOCs) and Network Operation Centers (NOCs), and what support was available.

Overall, Sircle Collection needed to find the right partner that would allow them to innovate. “I’ve seen the wrong technology providers can actually slow down innovation. We wanted to find partners that would work with us to build the dream we had of balancing human touch and technology. This required cultural fit as much as product fit.”

Why Sircle Collection chose Shiji Group

After reviewing all available options and getting to know the teams behind each technology provider, Sircle Collection chose Shiji’s Enterprise Platform as the base layer for its technology stack. 

Für die Teams von Sircle Collection war die Kombination aus technischem Können und kultureller Übereinstimmung ausschlaggebend. „Ich habe kein anderes Unternehmen mit einer solchen Vision für Innovation, Zusammenarbeit und gemeinsamer Weiterentwicklung gesehen wie Shiji. Wir sind ehrgeizig und spürten den gleichen Ehrgeiz der Shiji Group für Wachstum. Es geht nicht nur um Wachstum um des Wachstums willen, sondern um den Aufbau einer Infrastruktur, die nachhaltig für echte Veränderungen sorgt. Sie nennen es eine Kultur des Hinschauens, Zuhörens und Lernens, in der sie wirklich verstehen wollen, was unsere Probleme sind und wie sie mit uns zusammenarbeiten können, um diese Probleme zu lösen. Das klingt einfacher, als es ist, und es braucht Zeit, aber wir haben das in unserer Partnerschaft mit ihnen von Anfang an gesehen.“

Connectivity was a key factor behind the decision. “Shiji‘s platform is fully API-first, and has already proven to enable great connections for payments, distribution, and other parts of our business.” Microservices architecture is a core part of enabling connectivity. “I think this is truly a smart choice by Shiji and has proven successful for us already. It makes it easier for us to integrate other products into the platform and enhances performance.”

Das Ökosystem der von dem Unternehmen angebotenen Produkte war überzeugend. „Wir haben festgestellt, dass die Lösungen von Shiji, wie z.B. das Infrasys-Angebot für F&B, in vielen Fällen die besten Produkte für uns sind. Wenn wir eine andere Lösung benötigen, können wir sie problemlos mit anderen Technologiepartnern integrieren. Aber es kommt immer darauf an, dass wir eine Basistechnologie haben, die uns diese Optionen bietet und genau das ermöglicht uns die Shiji Enterprise Platform.“

Shiji’s security capabilities stood out to the Sircle Collection team through their review. “We learned a lot about the culture, strategy, and implementation that ensures security and data protection. The way they are working with partners such as AWS ensures enterprise-grade security. They also have in-house security and network operations centers which means we can rest assured that there’s someone looking after our data 24/7. That’s really important to us.”

Robuste Datenschutzkontrollen fügten eine weitere Ebene der Sicherheit hinzu. „Wir haben die Mechanismen gesehen, die sie für die Datenverarbeitung und das grenzüberschreitende Datenmanagement verwenden, was zum Beispiel für die Arbeitsabläufe im Marketing wichtig sind. Dazu gehört, dass wir alle Berührungspunkte unserer Gäste berücksichtigen, einschließlich Online-Check-in und Kioske und nicht nur ein Kästchen auf einem Formular ankreuzen. Wir waren in der Lage, all diese Daten auf sichere Weise zu zentralisieren, um unseren Gästen ein besseres Erlebnis zu bieten und sie besser bedienen zu können.“

“We chose Shiji not only for their scalability and maintainability but the fact they hosted on Amazon Web Services (AWS) across multiple data centers provided the infrastructure and security we needed.”

The resources Shiji is investing in its platform provided confidence it could execute. “If you look at the infrastructure that’s been built there, and how they did this with AWS, it’s clear they have the ability to continue accelerating growth and innovation moving forward. They have created something that we would never be able to create in-house that allows us to operate as a world-class hospitality brand.”

Activation as an opportunity

Once the decision to work with Shiji was made, Sircle Collection viewed the onboarding and implementation process as an opportunity. 

“Standardization has been very important for us, and we wanted to use this moment to start with a clean system and set the standards for how we would operate moving forward over the long run,” Bijzeit recalled. “Shiji guided us through this whole process, helping us make sure that we fully understood what configurations and settings needed to be configured. Understanding things such as tax configurations was very helpful to make sure we didn’t make any mistakes that would limit us later on. It was a well-run process where we learned from each other and ensured our data standardization process was successful and our first go-live was successful. From the start and throughout implementation, it truly felt like Sircle Collection and Shiji operated as one team to get our hotels live and use learnings to improve our process moving forward. It’s been a true partnership.”

The benefits of using Shiji’s Enterprise Platform

Today, Sircle Collection is on track to have all its hotels unified on a single, integrated platform. “I’m really proud of how our teams and the Shiji teams have worked together to make this happen on the Shiji Enterprise Platform,” Bijzeit told us.

Sircle Collection sieht bereits die Vorteile des Betriebs auf einer einzigen Cloud-basierten Plattform und Bijzeit teilte eine Anekdote über die Flexibilität der Mitarbeiter als Beispiel. „Unsere Teams in Amsterdam können problemlos zwischen den Hotels in dieser Stadt wechseln, weil alle Technologien und Arbeitsabläufe gleich sind.“

Auch die Automatisierung beginnt bereits, Vorteile zu liefern. „Ich würde sagen, dass wir bisher etwa 10 % der Möglichkeiten ausschöpfen, aber ich bin wirklich stolz auf die Auswirkungen auf unsere Teams und die Unternehmensleistung. Das Tolle daran ist, dass wir noch so viel Potenzial haben. Wir haben uns auf die nächste Phase der verbesserten Abläufe und Integrationen vorbereitet, die ein besseres Upselling und eine kanalübergreifende Gästekommunikation ermöglichen werden. Das ist wirklich aufregend für uns.“

Prepared for what’s ahead

Sircle Collection freut sich darauf, in Zukunft Lösungen zu implementieren, die dem Unternehmen einen nachhaltigen, langfristigen Nutzen bringen. 

“Because of the choices we’ve made with Shiji Group, we will be able to truly look at artificial intelligence, machine learning, and voice technology - not as buzzwords but as real opportunities for efficiency and differentiation. We’re in a position to innovate in a way other companies cannot because of the infrastructure and partnership we have with Shiji Group.”

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