Luxury Hotelier, Jumeirah Group, Enhances Personalized Visitor Service | Juniper Global Summit

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0:07 -Thank you for joining me at this year's Juniper's Global Summit.

0:10 I' m Bob Friday, CTO of Juniper' s AI-Driven Enterprise.

0:14 Joining me today is Sanjay Sharma.

0:17 He' s the head of information technology

0:19 at Jumeirah Group, which is a luxury hotel brand.

0:22 Sanjay, thank you for joining us. It' s great to have you here.

0:25 -Thank you, Bob. It' s my pleasure to be here with you.

0:29 -Maybe we can start the conversation.

0:31 Ever since I' ve known you, guest experience

0:34 has been something dear to your heart.

0:36 Maybe you can start with the audience saying to them,

0:39 Sanjay, what is your Jumeirah Group' s vision for the guest

0:42 experience at a luxury hotel post-COVID?

0:45 -That' s a really good question.

0:47 I think this is the basic foundation I believe, which

0:50 will help us to transform or basically realize our vision.

0:54 If you ask me, we have a few key strategies.

0:58 One of the key pillar for our strategy is service beyond expectation.

1:03 Bob, I believe that in this digital age, if you have to provide a service

1:07 beyond expectation, then you need to anticipate what your guest need.

1:12 You need to deliver it in the preferred channel of your guest.

1:16 This is something which is actually only the digital

1:20 world can enable to the hospitality world.

1:24 As of now, our key strategy is to ensure that we can

1:28 realize that by having three kind of key initiatives.

1:32 The first initiative is how we can transform the digital

1:37 experience of our guest so that it can result in a happy customer.

1:42 Trust me, Bob, a happy customer is a very--

1:45 if I may say so, "abused word."

1:47 It is used so much, but it is really difficult to make

1:50 your customer happy in this age where they have liquid expectation.

1:54 They actually see something on Instagram and they believe

1:57 that it will be available in hospitality space also.

2:01 That is a real big challenge.

2:03 The second thing is that what we do is that we actually

2:06 capture the digital footprint of all our guests,

2:09 which actually give us the right kind of data on which we can

2:12 develop our AI model to anticipate what our guests would need.

2:17 The third and most important thing is that we need

2:19 to make our operations invisible to our guests.

2:23 Just take the example of any hotel.

2:27 Once you go there, you might have to go

2:29 and check-in at a reception or a front desk.

2:33 The fact is you go there Bob, just to get

2:37 the operational requirements of the hotel fulfilled.

2:42 There is nothing in it for you.

2:46 We just want to make all this process invisible.

2:48 We want to move our organization from

2:50 automation to autonomous world.

2:56 -Thank you, Sanjay.

2:57 What resonates with me is making aesthetically happy customers.

3:00 That' s something also dear to my heart. I thank you for joining us today.

3:05 When you started, I think he started at Jumeirah

3:07 Group around 2018 or so when I first met you.

3:10 Maybe you can explain to the audience a little bit about

3:12 some of the network challenges you faced when you got there.

3:15 How Juniper Mist helped you with some of those challenges.

3:18 Where are you really headed with this?

3:22 -Bob, if you don' t mind, I' ll just break that response into two parts.

3:26 The first part is the operational challenges.

3:28 The operational challenges like we have dead spots.

3:32 We do not have high bandwidth.

3:36 We are very reactive in managing our network challenges.

3:41 These were the kinds of problems,

3:42 which we were facing.

3:44 The other thing, which is more profound, is how we can

3:50 get access to this data, what our users are doing?

3:54 Where they are right now? How they' re connecting?

3:58 Which device do they use?

4:00 Which application platform do they use?

4:02 All these things were almost invisible to us.

4:05 We don' t have any visibility for such things.

4:08 If I just need to summarize it, there were some operational challenges,

4:12 which I believe we could have resolved with any network provider.

4:17 Then there were some transformative gaps,

4:20 if I may say so, which were missing in our network solution.

4:25 These are the kind of challenges, which we were facing when I joined.

4:30 -I think also Sanjay, for me, when we first started Mist;

4:34 it was really all about that end-to-end connectivity

4:37 and bringing that visibility out for customers.

4:39 Part of that was all really around these business outcomes.

4:43 When you look at these wireless networks,

4:45 they' re becoming more and more business-critical.

4:48 Since I' ve been in the industry, I've watched them go from a nice-to-have

4:51 to a must-have to mobility is really business-critical now.

4:55 For Jumeirah Group and you, what comes in the business outcomes

4:58 you' re really looking to get out of your network nowadays.

5:01 -I love this discussion.

5:03 Bob actually if you ask me, it is all about the outcome.

5:07 We can have the best technology, which can power the operations

5:12 and customers in Jumeirah,

5:15 but unless it brings the right outcome,

5:17 I believe it' s a failed initiative.

5:20 If you ask me, there is one thing, which is what you can say,

5:25 is like oxygen and that is the connectivity.

5:29 Our guests need connectivity.

5:31 Our colleagues need connectivity so that they can

5:35 serve our guests in the right fashion.

5:38 That is what I would say is at the heart of our infrastructure.

5:43 The biggest outcome is not in terms of

5:48 how fast you can connect, whether you have connectivity

5:52 everywhere, or you have reduced number of tickets.

5:56 For me, the biggest business outcome is that we are giving

6:02 speed to innovate to our business colleagues.

6:06 We are providing an ability to our employees

6:11 so that they can think in an unconstrained fashion.

6:16 If you see that you actually expose the entire data set, that insight

6:21 about our consumer behavior in the form of APIs, in the form of dashboard,

6:26 then basically everything is left only to the imagination

6:31 of our business colleague what they want to achieve with this.

6:34 This is something, which is really important.

6:37 I can give you a few example, Bob.

6:40 Sometime back if you all know that we had

6:44 a real tough time when we were hit by COVID-19.

6:48 Do you know it has a profound impact on human behavior also?

6:53 Suddenly contactless was something, which is of paramount importance.

6:58 Everyone want to consume the service,

7:01 but they didn' t want to touch the lift button.

7:03 They didn' t want to touch the menu.

7:04 They didn' t want to

7:05 have any physical interaction with so many physical objects.

7:11 At that point in time, we launched a solution called e-Menu.

7:14 I must share with you that our solution is not any solution, which you see

7:20 in many properties where you have a very brochure-based application.

7:25 It was an application which can allow our guests

7:30 to connect from anywhere in our property.

7:32 We have a two-kilometer-long beach.

7:35 Our guests would be there at any corner of our beach.

7:40 They can actually use the e-Menu to place the f&b order.

7:44 It was directly connected to the printer at our kitchen,

7:50 which actually brings us operational efficiency.

7:53 Let me tell you, Bob, where the icing on the cake was.

7:58 I was there at a pool with one of my friend

8:01 who was trying this e-Menu application.

8:04 He placed the order.

8:05 After placing the order, he said, "Sanjay, there

8:07 is one fundamental flaw in your application.

8:10 It has never asked me from where I am placing the order.

8:13 It has not asked me to enter the table number.

8:15 How will it know that you need to deliver the order here?"

8:20 This is the beauty of location service.

8:22 Trust me, Bob, after a few minutes when the waiter actually

8:26 delivered the f&b order at his sunbed,

8:31 he was totally surprised.

8:33 This is the kind of icing on the cake.

8:35 This is what I talk about business outcome.

8:37 These small delights, which we get for our consumer is the game-changer.

8:43 -Sanjay, for me personally,

8:46 making indoor location on par with Wi-Fi,

8:49 I' ve been wanting to have my mantras throughout my career right now.

8:51 That' s dear to my heart when you say that.

8:55 The other thing I wanted to touch upon here is, I read somewhere

9:00 that 90% of the people in the world have clean water, electricity now.

9:04 I think we' re up to 66% of the people in the world now have mobile Internet.

9:09 I remember 10 years ago when I went to a hotel, Wi-Fi was a crisis.

9:14 That was back when Wi-Fi first came out

9:16 and the hotels, hospitality were all over it.

9:19 Maybe for our audience, you can say a little bit where does Wi-Fi,

9:23 mobile Internet fit in the priorities of hospitality business, hotel business?

9:28 For me personally, it's clean room, hot water.

9:31 Where does the mobile Internet and Wi-Fi fit

9:33 into the priorities of Jumeirah Group nowadays?

9:35 -Let me make a very bold statement here, Bob,

9:38 We are no longer living in a mobile-first stage.

9:42 We are living in a mobile-first, remote-first stage.

9:45 This is not particular only to the hospitality world.

9:53 Let' s break the entire discussion in two dimensions,

9:58 first is for our guest and second is for our employee.

10:01 If you talk about guest,

10:02 right now what's happening in the hospitality world,

10:05 especially that if a business guest is coming and staying

10:11 in our property, they want to have an office environment in their room.

10:16 They want to have access to all their applications.

10:19 They want to have access to all their emails.

10:23 They want to have access to the printer.

10:26 Everything they need to do in their office, they want

10:29 to have same set of services available in the hotel room.

10:34 Talk about the young guest.

10:36 Right now, when you talk about the young guests,

10:40 which are there in the hotel, generally they go to the kids' club.

10:42 Now what' s happening is there are remote school classes,

10:45 which are going on.

10:46 Our kid club should be gearing up to provide

10:50 those remote classes to them from the kids' club.

10:53 Let' s take the example of someone who is coming on a leisure trip.

10:56 When they are coming on a leisure trip,

10:57 they' re sitting in one corner and that' s on a sunbed.

11:01 Let' s talk about our Maldives property. If someone is actually going

11:06 on a boat transfer to the property, they want to have

11:13 access to their information in those remote location also.

11:18 This cannot be done without

11:24 a very superior Wi-Fi bandwidth and experience.

11:29 Now, let' s talk about the other dimension

11:32 where we are talking about the colleagues or the employees.

11:36 We all have seen what has happened during the COVID-19.

11:38 Within two weeks, we had to take a very bold decision

11:43 that all our colleagues will be working from home.

11:46 If they are working from home, you need to ensure

11:49 that you provide them all the right infrastructures

11:52 so that they can get the operationally critical application in real-time.

11:59 They can operate that in real-time.

12:01 All these things are dependent on the Wi-Fi.

12:05 That' s why I believe that Wi-Fi is like oxygen.

12:08 We are living in remote-first and mobile-first stage.

12:10 It is of paramount importance to us.

12:14 Let me tell you, Bob, if you are a guest, you come to our property.

12:19 If you experience that Wi-Fi is there,

12:24 you will not be delighted.

12:25 This is something that you expect.

12:28 If you come to our property and you experience Wi-Fi,

12:33 which you have never seen anywhere else,

12:35 only that will delight you.

12:36 That is why it is very important for us.

12:39 -It' s interesting you say that Sanjay.

12:41 I don' t think the next generation, my kids;

12:44 I don' t think they know what an Internet cable looks like.

12:45 [laughter]

12:47 Maybe they go to museum to see it now.

12:50 When you look at Mist Juniper, when I started

12:54 Mist, there was really two mantras in Mist.

12:56 One was this paradigm shift,

12:58 really round the client to cloud end-user experience.

13:02 It' s not about managing network elements.

13:03 It' s really about managing that end-user experience.

13:06 The other one was really around converging

13:09 connectivity and location to prove location.

13:11 Maybe for the audience, you can explain to me on how these two paradigms

13:16 are really impacting you and what you' re doing in the Jumeirah Group,

13:19 and what it means to your business?

13:23 -That' s a really good question. I believe technology is just an enabler.

13:26 It needs to see that how we can transform either

13:29 our product or services or processes, our policies.

13:33 This is what I believe technology like Wi-Fi do, Bob.

13:39 Right now, what we are doing is that we are ensuring that we are

13:44 working in two parallel streams as far as our IT services are concerned.

13:49 The first one what we call is continuous innovation.

13:54 In that stream, we actually ensure that the Wi-Fis are working fine.

13:58 It proactively predicts if there is any issue and address it.

14:03 We have AI-based algorithms to address if there is any issue in Wi-Fi.

14:10 If there is any dead spot, which is there,

14:13 or if there is any of the controller,

14:14 which is not working, it should proactively inform us.

14:17 This is what we do in one dimension of our program.

14:23 Then there is another dimension of a work program

14:26 where we call that transformative initiative.

14:27 Where we actually see how we can use this technology and create

14:33 an experience, which probably our guest has not experienced anywhere else.

14:37 This is where we take the location-based services.

14:40 We get insight on our guest behavior.

14:44 We actually see that if there is one particular restaurant,

14:47 what is the access or the best way of finding the path,

14:52 which we should be targeting for our guest.

14:55 These are the kinds of things, which we do in the other dimension.

15:00 -Maybe our final question, Sanjay.

15:02 We all know hospitality has been probably one of the most

15:05 impacted industries with the COVID experience.

15:08 Maybe for the audience, where do you see the future

15:12 of the hospitality industry headed post-COVID?

15:16 Where' s Jumeirah Group headed after the COVID experience?

15:21 -We believe that in future we will be

15:25 crafting what we call a phygital experience,

15:28 which is a combination of physical plus digital world.

15:35 I believe that whenever there's a guest who actually step into

15:39 our property, then we can have so many personalized services,

15:46 which can be offered to them, which is based

15:48 on location and which is based on context.

15:51 This I believe will be defining how the guest journey

15:55 will be transformative or will be defined in future.

16:01 You talk about the application like wayfinding.

16:06 Talk about the application like how we can better track

16:12 colleagues and friends in let' s say a water park or a theme park.

16:17 If we have to get access

16:21 to our concierge in the digital

16:26 fashion in real-time, how we can enable that.

16:29 All this kind of things, which will be actually defining

16:33 how the experience at our property will change in future.

16:39 -Well, Sanjay, I want to thank you

16:41 and thank our audience for joining us here today.

16:43 I truly look forward to getting back

16:44 to Dubai and seeing you again face-to-face.

16:47 Hopefully, this year after we all get our shots.

16:50 With that, I want to thank everyone and hope to see you soon.

16:54 -It was a pleasure, Bob.

16:55 I must share with you that if I had an option I would have shown

16:58 you my TV here, where I have a live dashboard which is powered by Mist,

17:02 where I get real-time access of the information

17:06 about how our guest are connected.

17:09 Thanks for this great partnership.

17:12 I' m really looking forward to work with you to create

17:15 something very unique in the hospitality world. Thank you.

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