Digital Transformation of Business Processes for a Luxury Hotel Operator

Challenge

Using data coming from multiple corporate systems, the client required new scalable business process automation software, bringing together various data flows for further processing and storage in the cloud. The company was also looking to move its digital workspaces, complete with calendars and emails, into a single ecosystem away from Google Suite.

Searching for the vendor to build the platform, the client posed the following questions:

• How to optimize ownership and maintenance expenses?
• How to enhance accessibility and fault-tolerant performance?
• How to integrate existing ERP and PMS systems?
• How to create a flexible reporting system?
• What multi-device toolkit to design for daily tasks and client support?
• What unique client data storage to adopt?
• How to safely migrate workspaces in real time?

The client turned to ITSTEADY for developing a custom corporate platform that would address these questions.

Project

Over one year, ITSTEADY’s team developed a brand-new business automation solution on top of Microsoft Dynamics 365 (D365) and Office 365 (O365) platforms.

To meet the project challenges, ITSTEADY ramped up a well-rounded team of O365 ICT administrators, D365 consultants, C#/full-stack developers, QA and database specialists, headed by a PMP-certified project manager. The project was governed according to the Waterfall methodology, where some phases were delivered iteratively for more flexibility.

The project started with a strategic choice of a single, global, reliable, and scalable platform among different business process automation solutions. Adopting O365 and D365, ITSTEADY addressed such challenges as:

• Implementing cloud services
• Delivering productive and efficient tools to the client’s employees
• Maintaining better collaboration across multiple devices

To integrate data streams from such sources as the ERP, Google Analytics, Google Adwords, POS and other systems, ITSTEADY applied SQL Server Integration Services. Speedy data processing was enabled with SQL Server Analysis Services Cube. Security challenges were mitigated with Azure AD, together with remote management services.

In addition, the project featured forefront technologies such as GraphAPI, serving as an emerging API for complex O365 manipulations, and a new analytical platform, PowerBI, from Microsoft.

Over the course of the project, the team built the following components into the new ecosystem:

• CRM system
• New digital workspaces and infrastructure on top of Office 365
• Interfaces connecting to the client’s Magento-based eCommerce system
• Integration module for ERP, POS and other systems
• Cloud-based data storage
• Data analytical cube
• Intranet and external surveys
• Interfaces connecting to mobile applications

Results

After one year of collaboration with ITSTEADY, the client implemented the new ecosystem, integrating data from their multiple corporate tools, ready to sustain up to 300 concurrent users.

The delivered software automates the hotel chain’s internal workflows, supporting business and employee goals. Apart from being scalable and compatible with legacy systems, it has allowed optimizing ownership and maintenance expenses, too.

Taking into consideration the difficulty of business transformation, the project was deemed highly successful. It was completed on time and stayed within budget.

The developed platform is already in use by more than 100 concurrent corporate users. Currently, the project has moved to the stage of change requests implementation.