AccorInvest and m3connect: taking hospitality to the cloud

AccorInvest, Accor and m3connect have partnered to launch a pioneering hospitality project, which gives AccorInvest’s global hotel portfolio unique access to industry-leading technologies. 

Through the partnership, AccorInvest has been able to create more efficient, sustainable and resilient processes, which it is now working to deploy across its entire portfolio. 

Advancing the hospitality industry – how Project Shaheen is future-proofing the sector

“We all know that hospitality, in general, is not as advanced as other industries, in terms of technology,” commented Ahmed Disokey, Group VP Hotel Technology at AccorInvest. 

But the global COVID-19 pandemic was instrumental in revealing the vulnerabilities that a non-technological approach can expose – in hospitality as well as other sectors, providing us with a great opportunity to innovate and shape the future.

Disokey explains how this, coupled with the fact that the new generation of guests are doing almost everything on their phones, led AccorInvest to think about how they could take hotels to the next level. It was these discussions that led to the launch of Project Shaheen. 

“Backed by solid technical features, Shaheen is a project that brought the full hotel onto the cloud and its teams can share data in a secure environment with better support,” Disokey explained.

The achievements and future scope of the digital transformation project

Certainly, the transformation that has been achieved through this partnership is nothing short of game-changing.  

“For us, Shaheen and m3connect was the perfect match, as well as the perfect project to show people what's possible and what's the next step, in terms of networks and delivering services and applications to hotels,” explained the CEO of m3connect, Emilio Dragas.

In fact, the transition to the cloud has unlocked huge benefits for AccorInvest, including some invaluable efficiency and sustainability improvements. 

Over the years, more and more hardware has accumulated in hotels. Every new specific application requires the addition of a new device and numerous cables. And so, as technological applications in the industry continue to expand, the number of devices and server cabinets grows further. 

As a result, behind the scenes, hotels contain a lot of hardware. But, what AccorInvest has done is optimise these operations by streamlining the required hardware down to the minimum. 

“Everything is wireless, which gives AccorInvest’s hotel teams the freedom to have one device for everything,” Dragas added.

“After we’ve finished this project, the hotel will have one cabinet. We will have saved up to 70-80% of power consumption in the server room. Plus, you are able to have one standard everywhere, which makes support and maintenance easier as well.”

And, for the next phase of the project, AccorInvest and m3connect will keep working to deploy the new cloud system across the former’s entire portfolio. 

“Now that we’ve started, there’s no limitation,” says Disokey. 

“Indeed, we have the same passion, m3connect and AccorInvest. We need to go to the cloud, we need to achieve this.”

The idea began with implementing the solution in one hotel. Then, it became four. Now, AccorInvest is planning to cover the majority of its portfolio with this solution, in a digital transformation roadmap that takes them up until 2025.

“Right now, we’re creating a full ecosystem that not only focuses on the hotels, but also the back office, to be a corporation where everything interfaces with each other, in line with our ESG approach and initiatives. And that's one of the key pillars for us,” Disokey outlined. 

“We have a big journey up until 2025, and we’re looking to build a strong relationship with really committed partners. So far, we’re really satisfied with what we are doing with the majority of our partners, and, indeed, with m3connect.”

Read the full AccorInvest's digital report HERE.