Microsoft integration solutions for the hospitality industry
One technology challenge in the hospitality industry is getting the many disparate and legacy systems to communicate with one another. Information technology (IT) departments may spend up to 70 percent of their time building connectors and customizing point-to-point interfaces to attempt to get information from one system to another, rather than focusing on what is core to their business.
Microsoft's solution for integrating these systems is to provide a central hub and adapters that connect all the various hospitality systems so they don’t have to talk to one another separately. Instead, they all talk to the hub, which reduces the complexity of interfaces. Microsoft integration solutions can enable your hospitality enterprise to spend less time maintaining systems and more time building solutions and improving your business process. An integrated IT platform can also personlize guest experiences.
This page gives more detail on the types of Microsoft integration solutoins for the hopiality industry, and provides a list of partners you can contact to implement a solution in your company.
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Service Oriented Architecture (SOA)
Complex, distributed IT resources are a concern for hospitality businesses. Too frequently, the existing enterprise systems do not adequately meet specific business needs, are costly to manage and maintain, and are inflexible in the face of business growth and change. The solution, however, is not to rip and replace systems or applications, nor to completely renovate them, but rather to find a way to leverage existing IT investments so that overall organizational goals are effectively supported.
Service orientation helps to accomplish these goals by making systems more responsive to business needs, simpler to develop, and easier to maintain and manage. Implementing a solution architecture based upon service orientation helps hospitality organizations plan ahead for change, rather than respond reactively. Service orientation is a means for integrating across diverse systems—allowing, for example, each IT resource, whether an application, system, or trading partner, to be accessed as a service.
Specifically, SOA allows the underlying service capabilities and interfaces to be composed into processes. Each process is itself a service, one that now offers up a new, aggregated capability. Because each new process is exposed through a standardized interface, the underlying implementation of the individual service providers is free to change without impacting how the service is consumed.
Integration solutions
Microsoft and its partners offer the following integration solutions:
| • | Location-based services: Whether customer-facing or designed to help employees be more productive, location-based services, such as maps, driving directions, and proximity searches, can be integrated into existing business applications. |
| • | Property systems: In a dynamic industry such as hospitality, businesses require property systems that deliver performance, scalability, and component integration. |
| • | Speech Server: Speech technology is an excellent way to reduce call center and customer service costs while improving employee productivity. |
Case studies
Read these case studies to learn how companies have benefited from Microsoft integration solutions.
| • | MGM MIRAGE server consolidation beats a full house
One of the world's leading and most respected hotel and gaming companies sought to reduce the associated costs of purchasing and maintaining an increasing number of servers. The company eliminated 30 servers—with more to come—resulting in decreased costs, plus the consolidated environment improved their time-to-deployment for new applications. |
Technologies
These Microsoft technologies form the foundation for innovative, integrated solutions in hospitality:
| • | Microsoft SQL Server enables your people to make faster and more data-driven decisions while saving money. This next-generation database management and analysis solution delivers increased security, scalability, and availability to enterprise data and analytical applications, while making them easier to build, deploy, and manage. |
| • | Microsoft Biz Talk Server is a business process management (BPM) server that enables companies to automate and optimize business processes. This includes powerful, familiar tools to design, develop, deploy, and manage those processes. |
| • | Microsoft .NET is a development and execution environment that allows different programming languages & libraries to work together seamlessly to create Windows-based applications that are easier to build, manage, deploy, and integrate with other networked systems. |
| • | Windows Vista addresses the key issues that impact your organization—helping your people to be more productive and drive business success. |
| • | Microsot Visual Studio provides a range of tools that enables people to build dynamic solutions and ensure quality througout the development process. |
Partners
These Microsoft partners have developed tailored integration solutions for the hospitality industry.
American Systems
One of the biggest challenges facing the Hospitality Industry is how to get disparate, "best-of-breed" systems to share data. American Systems accomplishes this by using the Microsoft platform to enable real-world Service Oriented Architecture (SOA).
Cyllenius
Cyllenius creates dynamic solutions designed to address needs of the hospitality industry. Featuring RFID for guest identification, access, and payment, Cyllenius products integrate with current hospitality systems for seamless operation.
Enrich Systems
Enrich Hospitality Solutions, LLC provides integration solutions that leverage advanced RFID Technology with Microsoft Software systems to enrich guests experiences at major hotels and resorts worldwide.
ESI
ESI specializes in delivering network infrastructure and information worker solutions to the hospitality industry. Our team of engineers and industry experts provide project management, implementation, integration, and 24/7/365 support for line of business and operational systems.
GHI Solutions
GHI provides strategic information systems and technology services for the gaming and hospitality industry. Our team has operational and subject matter expertise in all related areas including infrastructure, operational systems and integration definition and planning.
HCL
HCL is a leading global Technology and IT Enterprise. Its solutions around hospitality cater to a wide range of services offered to hotels, airlines and casinos. Our services enable end to end seamless integration connecting applications throughout the organization.
Initiate
Initiate Systems' master data management (MDM) software provides hospitality organizations complete, accurate, real-time views of data across multiple databases, unlocking the value of patron data for competitive advantages or operational improvements.
Neudesic
Neudesic has an extensive Business Intelligence practice that includes expertise across the full Microsoft BI platform (SSIS, SSAS, SSRS and Performance Point Server) and hospitality industry experience.
Xper2go
Xper2go offers an array of services based on Microsoft technologies to provide complete IT system solutions for the hospitality industry. As a customer direct company, our employees provide incomparable customer service, sales, and industry focused development to clients 24/7. Our hospitality plans are designed to meet the needs of different types and sizes of hospitality systems.
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