Application Case 2.5 (Continued)
the Asia/Pacific region. This has resulted in a dramatic rise in the need for business critical information about Starwood’s hotels and customers. All Starwood hotels globally use a single enterprise data warehouse to retrieve information critical to efficient hotel management, such an that regarding revenue, central reservations, and rate plan reports. In addition, Starwood Hotels’ management runs important daily operating reports from the data warehouse for a wide range of business functions. Starwood’s enterprise data warehouse spans almost all areas within the company, so it is essential not only for central-reservation and consumption information, but also to Starwood’s loyalty program, which relies on all guest information, sales information, corporate sales information, customer service, and other data that managers, analysts, and executives depend on to make operational decisions.
The company is committed to knowing and servicing its guests, yet, “as data growth and demands grew too great for the company’s legacy system, it was falling short in delivering the information hotel managers and administrators required on a daily basis, since central reservation system (CRS) reports could take as long as 18 hours,” said Richard Chung, Starwood Hotels’ director of data integration. Chung added that hotel managers would receive the transient pace report—which presents market-segmented information on reservations—5 hours later than it was needed. Such delays prevented managers from adjusting rates appropriately, which could result in lost revenue.
Solution and Results
After reviewing several vendor offerings, Starwood Hotels selected Oracle Exadata Database Machine X2-2 HC Full Rack and Oracle Exadata Database Machine X2-2 HP Full Rack, running on Oracle Linux. “With the implementation of Exadata, Starwood Hotels can complete extract, transform, and load (ETL) operations for operational reports in 4 to 6 hours, as opposed to 18 to 24 hours previously, a six-fold improvement,” Chung said. Real-time feeds, which were not possible before, now allow transactions to be posted immediately to the data warehouse, and users can access the changes in 5 to 10 minutes instead of 24 hours, making the process up to 288 times faster.
Accelerated data access allows all Starwood properties to get the same, up-to-date data needed for their reports, globally. Previously, hotel managers in some areas could not do same-day or nextday analyses. There were some locations that got fresh data and others that got older data. Hotel managers, worldwide, now have up-to-date data for their hotels, increasing efficiency and profitability, improving customer service by making sure rooms are available for premier customers, and improving the company’s ability to manage room occupancy rates. Additional reporting tools, such as those used for CRM and sales and catering, also benefited from the improved processing. Other critical reporting has benefited as well. Marketing campaign management is also more efficient now that managers can analyze results in days or weeks instead of months.
“Oracle Exadata Database Machine enables us to move forward with an environment that provides our hotel managers and corporate executives with near–real-time information to make optimal business decisions and provide ideal amenities for our guests.” —Gordon Light, Business Relationship Manager, Starwood Hotels & Resorts Worldwide, Inc.
1. How big and complex are the business operations of Starwood Hotels & Resorts?
2. How did Starwood Hotels & Resorts use data warehousing for better profitability?
3. What were the challenges, the proposed solution, and the obtained results?