Deploying Global Outlook’s hosted services has helped the Aloft group of hotels collate all of its critical data at one location, which can be accessed globally. It has also streamlined the group’s communication channels. By KTP Radhika
Communication and collaboration is vital in the field of hospitality. With branches spread across India, the United States, Canada, Europe and many other Asian countries, collaboration was a big challenge for the Aloft hotel group. As the chain grew, streamlining its messaging system became a problem. That was when the company began looking for innovative tools to tackle the same.
The top management wanted the IT staff to be able to focus on projects that supported the company’s core business. Atul Gupta, Head (IT), Aloft Hotels, said, “In today’s competitive world, businesses require reliable, scalable and flexible communication solutions that not only add value to the organization but also streamline communication between the employees. For this, we were looking for a cost-effective solution that would collate all the critical data at one location, which was accessible in a secure fashion to the team across the world.”
The company wanted to deploy an enterprise-class messaging system seamlessly making the transition from its earlier system. To avail of all of these facilities, the IT team at Aloft opted for GlobalOutlook Services’ hosted Exchange, Blackberry and SharePoint solutions. The GlobalOutlook team assessed the group’s current user base and their needs in order to provide the best communication package with Exchange, mobile services and SharePoint. The company chose a combination of Outlook and Exchange, BlackBerry push email and SharePoint to meet the needs of both its management as well as staff.
“We then arranged for demo accounts for the team to evaluate the services and features,” explained Raghu Kumar, CEO, GlobalOutlook. Microsoft Office Communications Server (OCS) has been utilized to deliver these services.
Gupta explained, “We chose these services in order to provide anytime, anywhere access to all the email folders, files, contacts and calendar via Microsoft Outlook or through Web browsers.”
Post the services evaluation, the GlobalOutlook team proposed a migration plan.
Benefits derived
After migrating to these new services, the hotel group has benefited in many ways. Employees gained seamless access to their email. The mailing system is now scalable as per the company’s requirement.
Gupta said, “Before opting for a Cloud-based solution, managing email services, particularly during spam or virus attacks, was a headache.”
The new system has reduced the total cost of ownership. “Moreover, employees have benefited from push email, which provides the required information in a handy manner,” he added.
Along with this, the new system also helped the company save a huge amount of money in terms of CAPEX on its former mailing setup. Gupta explained, “In today’s technology environment, companies are no longer willing to commit to deploying expensive IT systems. They prefer to enter into a Software as a Service (SaaS) model, in which applications are hosted by a vendor or service provider and made available over a network, typically the Internet.”
With the new system, the group’s critical data is now stored behind various levels of permissions and security. It has saved on IT manpower as there is no need to monitor email as the task has been fully outsourced.
Talking about his team’s upcoming IT initiatives, Gupta said that Aloft would provide IT as a Service to its customers. The open business center serves free, High Speed Internet Access (HSIA) to customers, 24×7, throughout the year.
The hotel chain has elaborate plans for the back end too. “We are looking at centralized procurement, a human resource document management system and a company-wide intranet in the near future. This will equip the group to grow and enhance its businesses,” concluded Gupta.
