InterContinental Hotels Group Chose SpreadsheetWEB to Transform The File Generation Systems of Their Middle East Properties
The Challenge
Mowafak Gabal is the Cluster Director of Finance & Business at InterContinental Hotels Group (IHG), and was working on a project for the Middle East Region that involves about 87 hotels. His office has been looking for a solution to consolidate the file generation systems of their Middle East properties. They have tried various tools, but soon started looking elsewhere due to various limitations.
“Custom coding these applications was not an option - we were working with Excel and implementing this solution through Excel and on premises gateway with Microsoft in some of our properties. It was working fine until we reached a point where having our users access the servers of other properties started making no sense. Custom coding also would’ve costed too much and the company was not willing to invest in this type of a solution.”
The Solution
The Middle East operations of IHG went through several options. Given that Mowafak and his office consists of business people – not programmers. Therefore, a no-code solution was a must have. They tried spreadsheet conversion software and document organization software, but could not find exactly what they were looking for.
“SpreadsheetWEB’s Designer module is very easy to use and flexible. At the beginning, I was a little concerned and I was trying to use the same concepts as in other tools we were using, where your file is moved completely to the web. We just needed to set it up at the beginning, but it’s much easier to use than other similar tools we’ve tried in the past. Moving the business logic was seamless.”
The Results
The file generation systems for a number of IHG Middle East properties were converted into web applications that can create custom PDF exports, and push these files into predetermined OneDrive folders.
The project required some custom work for embedding hyperlinks and OneDrive integration, but this came in the form of a custom code file that can be carried over to other applications with very small modifications. No longer needing a custom coded solution, IHG Middle East properties can now ensure the security of property servers and data.
”The digital transformation is a project that has been going on for 18 months, saving us a lot of paperwork and manpower for creating and tracking documents. We have internal audits every year and we would have to get the documents from storage every time. When we also consider the cost of storage outside the property I think we saved not less than $30,000 per property. What we are now trying to do is implementing this for 87 other properties in the Middle East division. Even if we saved an average of $20,000 for each property, or even $10,000, that adds up to quite a lot.”
