Sudima Hotels: Using technology to build a sustainable hotel brand for the modern era

Sam, Alena, and the Sudima Hotels team faced a number of challenges as they worked towards a goal of modern infrastructure that would allow the brand to scale.

A need for speed

“People today don’t want to wait,” Alena observed. “They want to arrive at a hotel, get service within a few minutes, and then proceed to their room. They want instant results.”

What creates these expectations? “Guests tend to build their expectations based on previous experiences, be it the other hotels they stay in or cafés and restaurants they went to,” Alena said. “And of course, they expect to receive the same level of speed without compromising on the quality of the service.”

Expectations are also shaped by internet culture, Sam added. “Today's internet and social media culture has been heavily spoiled by instant gratification. This has put a lot of pressure on service industries such as hospitality because people are used to getting things faster. The concept of waiting is almost nonexistent. Waiting is no longer a norm but is cause for a complaint. The moment you wait, it becomes a negative part of your stay. We are under this constant pressure of how to improve and provide faster services to keep up with this but without losing the human touch.”

Waiting is no longer a norm but is cause for a complaint. The moment you wait, it becomes a negative part of your stay. We are under this constant pressure of how to improve and provide faster services to keep up with this but without losing the human touch.

Changing staff expectations

These expectations and “internet culture” apply not only to guests but to staff. “Instant gratification was never a thing,” Sam told us. “Your mind was calm and focused. You could be present in any given situation. That level of presence seems rarely possible these days.”

It became apparent that the legacy technology and processes the company previously used would no longer support the pace at which the brand needed to operate.

“Once we decided to move forward with Shiji, we had one of their teams come on-site and assist us with very thorough training and support on all the changes to be made. This made us very confident in using their systems and installing it in our hardware,” Alena said.

“We formed a small operational team from our central office and make sure they understood how everything would work and what they needed to do,” Sam added.

The benefits of working with Shiji today

Today Sam, Alena, and the Sudima Hotels team are realizing a wide variety of benefits of working with Shiji.

Mobility

“Previously, we were constrained by our hardware and were not that mobile. Today, the quality of our service has dramatically improved as we now can take an iPad directly to the table, place an order, and get it sent to the kitchen in a matter of minutes,” Alena shared.

Fewer mistakes

Digital order management also cuts down on mistakes. “The benefits of this are not only quantitative but qualitative as well. Because we cut down on potential risks of checks going missing, and the wrong order going to the wrong table, our operations are much more precise and accurate. We can take payments at the table as well. The ordering process has become quicker, more efficient, and better for our guests to follow.”

Lower stress and higher satisfaction for staff

Fewer mistakes also mean that Sudima Hotels staff are less frustrated and have lower stress.

“The whole interface for our Shiji-powered technology is really user-friendly. The feedback we are getting from our team is very positive. It also helped to improve their confidence and reduce levels of stress,” Alena shared.

Improved efficiency

Not only are stress levels down, but efficiency is up. “With our digital ordering system, the person who takes the order doesn’t have to go back to the kitchen and share the order with our staff. Everything’s instantly transferred to the kitchen and pops up on their screen, which saves a lot of time and creates a lot of operational efficiencies.”

Sam and Alena estimate that this whole process saves 5-7 minutes per order.

“This makes a big difference, especially on busy days when there are a lot of people and our restaurants get packed. Our staff can spend less time running back and forth and more time with the guest, preparing the food, and presenting the dishes,” Sam said.

Better guest interaction

These time savings also cause better guest interactions. “The time saved on recording orders has provided an opportunity to spend more time interacting with our guests.”

Digitized operations provide more data

Because the company has digitized more areas of its operations, they are in a position to learn from the data they are collecting and understand where changes need to be made to improve the employee experience.

“It gives us much more data on the management side to understand trends and identify things we can do to improve guest satisfaction and focus on practical things we can do to make things easier for our staff.”

Integrated systems

Integration between Shiji’s technologies and other hotel technologies has been a key part of fulfilling the goal of flexibility and scaling growth. For example, Sudima Hotels has integrated Shiji into its payment gateway solution, Adyen.

“It’s made the end-of-day balancing so much easier and saved our team a lot of time reconciling payments,” Alena said. “Before, they almost had to act like investigators, figuring out what card type guest was going to use. Depending on the card presented, that needed to be recorded in the system to support the financial back-end reporting needs. But now the interface enables them to not have to worry about managing cards. They just push a button and the system determines how to allocate payments, charges the guest, and closes the check immediately. The same thing with refunds or other transactions. The new process is earning us a lot of positive feedback from our teams.”

Deeper knowledge of guests

Digitizing operations and collecting more data also provides Sudima Hotels with a deeper knowledge of its guests.

“We can see better than ever before what needs to be done to improve service at our hotels, and our restaurants and cafés,” Sam said. “It’s a really important benefit besides the efficiencies that we recognize with the technology.”

Shiji’s ReviewPro, also offers a lot of guest insight that the team is able to use. “We are still in the early stages of using this data, but we’re starting to see trends from different segments of our guests and learning how we can better cater to each group.”