Transcript
[00:00:11] Matt Welle: Hi, everyone. Welcome back to another Matt Talks Hospitality, the podcast where we talk about hospitality and technology that transform hospitality. Today, I have Mirco Weber joining me from Germany who's been helping Amano Hotels roll out the the the MEWS platform across all of their hotels in a very short time span. And I thought I'd pick his brain on the challenges of how to roll out a system like this across a hotel chain at high speed and what he encountered. Mirco, thank you so much for joining us today.
[00:00:40] Mirco Weber: Thank you very much for the invitation, Matt.
[00:00:43] Matt Welle: What's your background? Like, I understand you're not a hotelier by origin. Like, what what's the industry you came out of?
[00:00:49] Mirco Weber: No. I'm not. That's true. It's the first time that I have a project in in hospitality. So I have a classical, consultant background, with a strong focus on the general industry and, partly also from the, from the automotive industry. And, I think this was also the reason why, Philip Brokier, our CEO, asked me, if I could have a review on the processes of Amano because Amano is growing. And, he said the process are a bit lacking. And, since, you know, that I have a bit of a know how in this field, I said, sure. Let's have a look, and that's where it all started.
[00:01:29] Matt Welle: Nice. So as a fresh brain coming into a hotel company, where do you begin looking at the processes? What's your process to look at the processes?
[00:01:37] Mirco Weber: In this case, we started with a very concrete request, and, Philip asked me to have a to have a review on on the accounting. So we started at the very back. And, because he said, well, the accounting and we our reports are not on time, and they are not as precise as they could be. And beside that, he thinks that our accounting department is is anyway too big. So, that's where it all started. And, we realized that a lot of, issues with the accounting was struggling with was created in the processes before. So, then, we had a look at the accounting, and we soon discovered that, we might have a review on the entire tech stack. Really? And that's where it all started.
[00:02:23] Matt Welle: So what like, I think a lot of hoteliers will recognize that accounting is is often quite manual in hotels that just like, it's often the last department to get the innovation. What did you find when you started going into the accounting office and asking questions? What were some of the biggest findings?
[00:02:38] Mirco Weber: Well, first of all, I I I took a look in the in the processes of the department itself. And we saw that a lot of manual work was done due to missing interfaces from the three systems. And, also a lot of problems, which appeared in the in the accounting, like, invoices corrections and reconciliations, especially, were resulting from the previous, from the previous, software solutions. So since I always take a look at the at at at the entire big picture, we saw pretty fast that it's the job is not done just by having a look isolated on the accounting.
[00:03:18] Matt Welle: So you step back. You said, hey. There's a bigger picture here that's a technology problem. Then what was the first kind of like, how do you build a tech stack for hotels if you've never done this before? Like, where did you start?
[00:03:30] Mirco Weber: Well, we just really, got along the line from from the back end, from the accounting, and said, okay. What is serving the accounting? And then I came up to the PMS, and then I was saying, okay. What is serving the PMS? And then we were just getting along in the value chain. You know? From the industry perspective, we always go along the value chain. And the value chain is basically, it's like a puzzle. I have pieces of puzzle. I puzzle them together, and I get a picture. And, by getting along this line, you get a pretty fast, pretty clear view on the things which influence each other, and that's what exactly we did, with the, with the tech with the tech step. And, since we came to MEWS because, Philip knew that MEWS had a different approach in terms of their reconciliation. And that's where it all started, where we said, okay. Let's have a look at MEWS. What is MEWS doing differently in the reconciliation, since they have the payment and the PMS, integrated with each other?
[00:04:32] Matt Welle: Because you ended up not just changing MEWS and an accounting system. I think you changed a bunch more systems around it. Right?
[00:04:39] Mirco Weber: Yes. We basically, refurbished, the entire tech stack. When we said, okay. We changed we might change the PMS. We said, okay. But then we really take care that all the components really fit to each other, that they seamlessly are integrated, and that they communicate well with each other in those terms where we need it. And that was then finally the decision. If we do such a big step, like, switching the PMS, then we really do it in the end here the the the entire way so that we that we have a look in the entire tech stack.
[00:05:13] Matt Welle: Like, it's a big decision, right, to change a bunch load of systems simultaneously, you know, a business that runs twenty four seven. Did you think either I will look really, really stupid or I'm really brave, for doing this?
[00:05:23] Mirco Weber: It's always mixed feelings. Right? It's always you have a I mean, it's a big, responsibility. And often I got asked, let's say, do you really know, what you're doing, and and are you really, sure that that this is the right step? But I think we also really analyze this deeply from the very beginning, and, this finally, led to the conclusion, yes, we are well prepared. We analyzed it well, way more than before. I think we and, I had the luck that I also had really that I was able to concentrate fully on this. So, it was a brave decision. But, looking back, I must say, it was also, a well prepared decision. And, if you're well prepared, then you can also be brave.
[00:06:08] Matt Welle: How did you prepare for it?
[00:06:09] Mirco Weber: Well, we prepared, basically by analyzing the processes. I mean, we prepared, what kind of functionality we need by the different, software solution in terms of revenue management, in terms of channel management. And we always compared to the actual solution what we have and what doesn't work and what needs to work. Basically, we had a bunch of list what doesn't work from the existing tech stack, and, we thought, okay. Could the new solution, support this, solve this? And, I think, here we did it, we did it very well that we prepared this quite intensively, and we analyzed it deeply. And, I mean, finally, it's like it's like learning to swim. A bit of a theory, a bit of analytics, but finally, then at a certain point, you also need to jump into the water. And, then you learn, by the day. And, the only thing is what you need to take care is that you're not shooting everything. I think it's also like this that we that we said, we start a new tech stack. We switched the PMS, and with the PMS, also a lot of components. But we started with, we call it always, core tech stack. So that was the tech stack what was very needed or the the the minimum tech stack. So we reduced the complexity to complexity step. We introduce the next level. For example, we have we are now after our rollout, we are looking now at the CRM. We are looking of an integration of of, AI chatbots in in written and in invoice. So, we are enlarging the tech stack, by, I wouldn't say, nice to have, but by not mandatory components.
[00:07:52] Matt Welle: So, like, your first rollout was, like, PMS. I'm assuming restaurants, you changed your point of sale event system and accounting system, or what was the first iteration?
[00:08:01] Mirco Weber: The first iteration was the was, in fact, was the accounting system. We have SAP, because, I mean, Amano is a is driven by a family office, and the family office, also has a main stake in the real estate business. So in the real estate, they used SAP, and that's why also the accounting of the hotel, which came later, was set up in SAP. But SAP was isolated from the financial module point of view, so the the ERP from SAP doesn't make sense in any way, and there was no interface, to to Oracle and also to no other, creditor systems. So that's what we changed first. We changed to DATEV, which is a German, very broadly, used accounting system and, but, has a lot of connectivities. And, that's where it all started. And then we analyzed the PMS, but we also made from the very beginning clear, what we roll out with the PMS. So we didn't roll out just the PMS, but we made up our mind what channel manager we, we were supposed to have, what, event solution with Event Temple, for example, we would like to have a look at, which we implemented also finally. And, Flexkeeping for for housekeeping and maintenance, and, we used Duetto for the revenue management system. So and we made sure that those parts are really working well with each other. And, I mean, here, we also listened a lot to the market. We made a lot of, phone calls with, with other hotels which are using, this kind of solution. So, we benchmarked a bit. Sure. But we also made up our mind for ourself. And what we we really learned very quickly, from the past is that an interface is not an interface. They are listed all in the marketplaces of, many, property management systems. But if you look then behind the curtain, the interface is often not the interface. Some are really powerful. Some are more, I would say, a marketing joke.
[00:10:05] Matt Welle: No. And I think what you're saying is is probably one of the most valuable things I've heard in a hotelier say because they don't often ask, like, well, what fields talk to each other and how often and how solid is that interface?
[00:10:16] Mirco Weber: Exactly. And the thing is that it is not so easy to analyze this because, it is it is very, it's very rare that you get an an overview of the power of the interfaces. So example, with Duetto, we got this. Duetto had a clear PowerPoint presentation. On the one, this is our interface with Oracle. This is our interface with MEWS. This we can this we cannot in this interface. It was very clear. But this was really rare, to be honest, and it is always it was it was mainly, a lot of, asking questions. Okay. That's the how does this works? And, and this is the crucial thing. The interface you need to see is like a highway. Right? There are big highways, and there are really small ones, bumpy ones, and, fast ones. So this is, let's say, to to put a similarity, you need to care compare it on the highway where the data are flowing. And, some highways are really fast and give you really, you can accelerate and some of them don't.
[00:11:15] Matt Welle: And you did a thing that we couldn't achieve eight seven, eight years ago. I think when we first met with Philip, I remember that meeting in Berlin, and we ended up not getting the deal. And it was because there was a resistance from the accounting team who was like, we can't work with a modern system like this. And that was, what I remember to be the deal. How did you overcome the resistance from the organization that didn't want the change?
[00:11:35] Mirco Weber: I think it wasn't the accounting department. It was, rather the the the revenue.
[00:11:40] Matt Welle: You think so?
[00:11:41] Mirco Weber: And to which meeting was Philip you do you refer?
[00:11:43] Matt Welle: This was a meeting when we were pitching MEWS, and I remember that the accounting department wants an integration with a fax machine because some of the invoices still came in via via fax, and we're like, we're never gonna build an integration with faxes. That the meeting I remember vividly still.
[00:11:57] Mirco Weber: Okay. But this was before my time. This is before your time. This is, like, seven years ago. Okay. That was way before my time. I cannot judge about this one at all.
[00:12:04] Matt Welle: But, look, you have attacked the kind of the cultural elements. Right? Say changing a system is a really hard thing because there's probably a lot of people like, no. It's fine. It's working for us. How did you overcome that?
[00:12:12] Mirco Weber: We overcame this pretty easy, to be honest, because we didn't have the sentence. Like, okay. The system works well. Right. Basically, each department, knew that, the actual tech stack which we had was not working seamlessly and that a lot of manual, thing was to be done. A lot of mistake were created, because the the the interfaces were not communicating well with each other. So that was not a big resist to be honest, the biggest resistance, of course, I mean, it's in human nature. Right? People usually don't like changes. But internally, they already felt it, and so they are a bit more open minded towards. And then it's about communication. And it's about getting the people into the boat, talking to them. Hey, guys. We need to be up to date. We need to go with the with the times. And, I always also say with with employees which I'm talking to that, it also doesn't help them to work in a in an environment which is basically outdated.
[00:13:15] Matt Welle: Because did you find a lot of resistance of, like, oh, you you don't understand how we work. We're hoteliers. We do things differently. Or
[00:13:22] Mirco Weber: No. To be honest, the the entire team in in in Amano was, was very open minded and was very cooperative. I I seem to have way more resistance than I finally had to to be honest.
[00:13:33] Matt Welle: Great.
[00:13:35] Matt Welle: So you done the rollout pretty fast. What was the decision? I think you did 11 hotels, almost one every week, for three, four months executive. What was the reason to just keep that pace of rollout?
[00:13:46] Mirco Weber: Well, to keep the pace of a rollout was basically the question, which way is better? If you rollout, slow, you have the organization working way longer in two systems, which is not good. Because they are naturally always stick to the solution which they know. So that is, that is one point. And, we we decided finally to go faster, but for the sake of rolling out, let's say, the little things which were yet not fully working. So we decided to roll up fast to carry those things which were not really working well yet through and then to make a cleanup process after and to go into the optimization later on. So that's the process which we started right now because, we we rolled out the the last property at the July. So and July and August is the is the big holiday, months in in in Amano. So, from basically, from the very September, we will start to clean up, to optimize, to check the system once again because then all properties are talking the same language.
[00:14:53] Matt Welle: Nice. And, like, now that your life everywhere, has life become a little bit easier, or is it still quite painful?
[00:15:00] Mirco Weber: You know, life is always painful. There are always challenges. And, if you make the big step, five minutes, before, you see just the next step in front of you. So, but that's that's also good because it's the only way to get better each day. So, I would say normal procedure of little steps getting better each day, the, step by step.
[00:15:26] Matt Welle: Great. And what would you do differently? I hope you're gonna say nothing. It was perfect.
[00:15:30] Mirco Weber: Good question. No. I mean, the grass is always greener on the other side. Right? And but on a certain point, you also need to be, a bit, happy if such a project was running well. And the rollout with MEWS and the rollout of the entire tech stack did run well. I mean, it's we were well prepared. We also had a had a great team internally as well as externally, which supported it after, I think, after three properties, we were really smoothly running well oiled, machine, which was just everyone knew what you had to do. Of course, every property was different a bit, but not, let's say, by 100%. So a lot of processes were just returning week by week. So and, basically, this allowed a a pretty smooth and straightforward rollout. Nice.
[00:16:26] Matt Welle: So if another hotel group is listening to this, like, what would you recommend that they do? Like, what's your advice to them?
[00:16:32] Mirco Weber: It's always individual. It's quite individual. Right? Everyone has its own needs. Everyone has its own setup. But in regards of the tech, I would say choose wisely the the tech stack. I would say cloud first, native cloud first, because I don't believe in, and I also don't believe in cloud solutions which are called cloud, but basically come from legacy. You need to take care of this because it's not the same.
[00:16:58] Matt Welle: That out. Because it's the thing. Like, everyone says cloud on their website. How do you actually uncover whether they're marketing cloud or or whether they're a genuine cloud first kind of mindset?
[00:17:08] Mirco Weber: Well, in our case, it was a bit, it it was very easy because we were always, running on two versions. Right. So that's the first thing which should give you a thought. If you have two properties which are running on a different version, and then, like, for example, if you have, like, updates, outages for, like, six, seven, nine hours. It shouldn't happen. It shouldn't happen. And, this clearly indicates, let's say, that might not be native cloud. And you also see it in the way of the API structures, in my opinion. I mean, I'm not that deep an IT expert, but, I mean, the the the API structure for MEWS is just so much straightforward with the with the tokens.
[00:17:53] Matt Welle: When I first read it, when I opened it, and I was like, I'm not technical. I'm just a hotelier. And then I read it. I was like, yep. You know, pull all reservations and then ask for these fields. And it's like, oh, and then it it list the fields by logical names. And it wasn't some complex, like, coding standard. It was just like common sense kind of wording. And and I do encourage people that look for a system to open up someone's API because, actually, actually, you can very quickly tell whether they're written, you know, from a forward thinking way or whether they're, like, legacy mindset.
[00:18:22] Mirco Weber: Yes. Absolutely. So that's one really big thing. And then to really have a look, deeper what we said already in the beginning, let's say you need to really look at the integrations, what the interface really provides you, because that is finally the the the thing which is, which is finally indicating or finally determining how well the systems are integrated with each other or not. And if they are not, then you have a digital break. You have manual work. If you have manual work, it avoids you a lean organization because manual work means interruptions, means someone needs to take care of it. It takes time. And with this, it avoids kind of a lean organization. And that was basically also overall the the overarching principle of Amano, was renewing the the the tech stack that we said. We want to create a we want to grow, but we want, to have a lean organization.
[00:19:19] Matt Welle: Any exciting growth plans that you can share with us for Amano?
[00:19:22] Mirco Weber: I mean, in 26/27, we are doubling the room size, the the room numbers, the number of rooms. So we have actually 1,400, and we are going to about 3,000. Definitely. Open, three times Hamburg, one times Leipzig, one time Munich, one in Berlin, and one in London. So these are the growth plans, and that's why it was time to get ready for this. And, we said, 2025 is the time to renew, the tech stack and also to define the processes to get lean and then being ready to grow in 2026 and 2027, respectively.
[00:20:01] Matt Welle: Nice. My last question. Like, I saw in some of your hotels, you've actually changed the lobbies and and the way that the flows work. You used to have a reception desk where, you know, your Dell screens, and then the reception desk you've removed. And, like, how does that work today?
[00:20:15] Mirco Weber: It's challenging because it's right. We perform not only a system switch, but also a concept switch. And we see that the system switch is way easier for the people to handle than the concept switch. Because the the concept switch is a switch in the mentality of the ground floor people. You know? Before, they were asked from the guest because the guest needed something from them, key, an invoice, something. But all this administrative work is now done by the system. The guest can do the online check-in. He can get the key. He can walk straight to the elevator and go to the room. And, also, the invoice is getting sent automatically at the end. So now the guest relation, how we define it, is about to proactively approach the client. And, that's a game changer in the mindset. It's like in the club. It's way different if someone is, going to talk to you or if you are going to talk to someone.
[00:21:06] Matt Welle: And how are the teams thriving in that environment?
[00:21:11] Mirco Weber: Some are doing surprisingly good. Also some there are there's light and shadow. So for some, you thought, like, okay. Not not a problem, and they are really struggling. For some, you said, like, okay. Maybe not, but they're super active. They really like it, and, they also grow with this. Hard to predict, but the concept change is, was the idea then finally from our second, CEO beside Philip. We have two CEOs from. And Aurelia Schiff said, okay. If we're doing such a systems which enables me to get rid of the administration in the front office, then I would really like to also make a consequent, step and really remove the classical front office where it's always like someone is behind the desk like in a bank. Or in somewhere, like, this classical way, you and me in front. And he said, okay. Then I want to really redefine, a guest, relation, and, he combined the guest relation of the remaining front office task with the F and B concept. So that's why we have as of today, we're forming a guest relation, which is a combination of non administrative guest relation from the front office, like saying hello, how are you, how do you feel, is everything fine, and also, let's say, providing the guest a little bit of hospitality feeling from the F and B side, for example.
[00:22:31] Matt Welle: I think it's one of the smartest things I've heard hotelier say in a long time. Like, it's been a thing that I have been hoping would happen. And very few hoteliers transform not only the system, but also the way that they operate. And I just wanna celebrate whatever you guys are doing and just seeing the growth. It's clear that there's something really exciting happening with Amano Hotels. And, thank you for the trust in in MEWS, but also thank you for sharing so openly what you've done because it's I think it's really powerful.
[00:22:56] Mirco Weber: That's, really nice to hear. And, that was just possible also with the support of your team, I must say. The the rollout, we we were always, very much supported. This idea of this pro support, it's a game changer for us that you get so instant support and so much on the point that was something we you never experienced before, and that was also one big, topic why we switched the PMS. So, also thank you very much for you and your team, which really engaged a lot. Always had an open ear for us, always quick answers regardless if there was the Saturday night or Monday morning. It's it's for that. That was really much appreciated. And, also with the with the support of, Claudia, that was also, a big a big step, which, we first met in the MEWS Unfold in 2024. Right?
[00:23:47] Matt Welle: It's where connections are made. So Claudia is the consultants that I interviewed a couple weeks ago here on Matt Talks. And, she's done, you know, probably hundreds of rollouts of PMS's. So whenever there's a strategic one, we try and pull her in and make connections because it makes it easier if you have someone around you in the open core.
[00:24:04] Mirco Weber: Absolutely. And this is exactly one work consultants really make sense because they provide you a knowledge which you need on the point, which the organization inside doesn't have because it's not daily business. And if daily business is then combined with such a project, it always crashes. The daily work becomes a priority. The project becomes second, and then the know how is not there. And with Claudia and her team, she brought such a know how into it. It was really a good combination.
[00:24:33] Matt Welle: Nice. Mirco, thank you so much for joining me today.
[00:24:36] Mirco Weber: Thank you very much, Matt. Was a pleasure talking to you.
