AccorInvest - January 2023

ESG AT THE HEART OF DIGITAL TRANSFORMATION

ESG AT THE HEART OF DIGITAL

DIGITAL TRANSFORMATION

CENTURY OLD TOWN PRAGUE – MGALLERY

Spearheaded by Group Chief Information Officer Wojciech Łącz, a digital transformation is taking place at AccorInvest with the entire company’s involvement

In a conversation with Sustainability magazine, AccorInvest's Group Chief Information Officer, Wojciech Łącz, provides an insight to the company's digital transformations and explains why the entire workforce needs to be 100% onboard and engaged for the company to reach its ESG goals and deliver a consistent and outstanding customer experience.

But first, let’s take a look at AccorInvest’s story and its current status as the leading* hotel operator and owner in Europe, mainly in the economy and mid-scale segments, with a presence in Latin America and Asia also.

The AccorInvest Group was created in 2017 as part of a reorganisation of the Accor Group, which owns internationally recognised brands such as Sofitel, Novotel, Pullman, Mercure, ibis. The objective of this reorganisation was to place the real-estate assets and hotel operation activities within a dedicated structure to enhance their value and development.

Today, AccorInvest distinguishes itself with the complementary nature of its two businesses, which combine realestate value and operating performance: the management of hotel properties and businesses, and the operation of these assets under hotel 14 brands owned by the Accor Group, covering a total of 122,000 rooms, and generating a high volume of annual revenues.

After the 2020-2021 crisis years, AccorInvest's strategy grew into consolidating its leadership within its geographical scope (Europe) and asset range (economy and midscale). It aims to promote new Group dynamics to transform its hotels from transit locations into key players in their regions, able to demonstrate strong commitment to all of their stakeholders, facilitate social cohesion, and respond to current and future environmental challenges.

With more than 23,000 team members covering hospitality and real-estate expertise, the global team is dedicated to AccorInvest’s success and growth with a “One Team” approach.

When it comes to changing the status quo, 23,000 team members is no small amount of people to convince. Such type of complexity and Wojciech Lacz previous experience and leadership qualities created perfect match as the man for the job.

* In terms of number of rooms, geographical presence and revenues ACCORINVEST

WOJCIECH LACZ

TITLE: CHIEF INFORMATION OFFICER

INDUSTRY: HOSPITALITY

LOCATION: WARSAW/PARIS

Wojciech Lacz is Chief Information Officer at AccorInvest, a position he has held since March 2021. After various experiences at L'Oréal and then for 8 years at Danone, Wojciech joined the Accor Group in 2018 as Director of IT & Digital Services for Eastern Europe. During this experience, Wojciech was responsible for defining and supervising key IT and digital projects for the Eastern Europe region (16 countries). Then he was appointed as SVP Technology and Digital and Executive Committee member for Accor Northern Europe. 6 months after he has joined Accorinvest as a Group CIO and ExCom member.His experiences in digital services and organizations, including building different scope of the shared services, major international infrastructure consolidation and execution of cloud strategy are key

Oracle and IBM Deliver Real-World Results to Clients on Oracle Cloud ↷

For 36 years, IBM and Oracle have partnered to deliver business value. IBM offers solutions tailored to both industry and business processes, from consulting to implementation and managed services, employing the combination of Oracle platforms with emerging technologies.

IBM and Oracle deliver AIG hospitality services on the cloud

Leaders from IBM and Oracle discuss their partnership and the combined strengths that enable cloud migration of AccorInvest Group’s global hotel network.

Hotels require great communication and accountability between departments, both in the office and in the foyer. In the digital era, hotels leverage technology to expand their offerings and encourage seamless operations across a network of branches. AccorInvest Group (AIG) is a key investor, owner and operator of a network of premises including those of Ibis, Novotel and Mercure. The company prides itself on creating more interactive guest experiences and leverages the Oracle-IBM partnership to facilitate its transition to integrated cloud services.

Oracle has a critical role in AIG’s digital transformation, providing its Oracle Cloud Human Capital Management (HCM)— leveraging its benefits for human resources (HR)—and Oracle Cloud Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP), which also provide advantages in financial planning.

“We led similar, successful projects at Hilton and Marriott, so we have strong capacity to advise and support clients to carry out that transformation,” says David Mihala, Vice President Applications for France at Oracle.

“I am excited by the power of the Oracle and IBM partnership,” says Robert Churchyard, who leads the Oracle practice inside IBM Consulting. “Together we are delivering enterprise-wide business transformation through the deployment of Oracle ERP & HCM Cloud.”

Raising transformation capabilities

IBM is working with Oracle on the AIG transformation, delivering solutions to manage the maintenance and construction of its hotels, improving the employee and customer experience as well as the integration of Oracle cloud solutions to facilitate financial transformation.

Susana Rodriguez Puerta, VP Alliances EMEA Applications at Oracle†, highlights the three key differentiators of the company: focus on customer needs, developing innovation that matters, and commitment to customer success.

“IBM understands the customer needs very well, offering industry and business process tailored solutions from consulting to implementation,” says Rodriguez Puerta.

Concluding, Olivier Reine, Partner—Global Business Services at IBM, says “IBM has the experience—and the right skills and knowledge in new cloud solutions from Oracle—to deploy the right tools.”

Are you ready to transform your business with the IBM Cognitive Enterprise for Oracle Cloud?

† Susana Rodriguez Puerta has moved into a new role as COO Applications ECEMEA but was the former Alliances VP for Applications at the time of the interview.

MERCURE KRAKÓW STARE MIASTO

WOJCIECH LACZ CHIEF INFORMATION OFFICER, ACCORINVEST

Meet Wojciech Lacz, Group Chief Information Officer, AccorInvest Knowing from the beginning that he “would be an IT guy”, Wojciech Lacz tells me that he started work in IT administration in 2005 after graduating from the Warsaw University of Technology.

After various experiences at L’Oréal and then for 8 years at Danone, Wojciech Lacz joined the Orbis Hotel Group managing the Eastern Europe Accor hotel portfolio in 2018 as Director of IT & Digital Services, responsible for defining and supervising key IT and digital projects for 16 countries in the region.

In October 2020, Lacz was appointed Senior Vice President (SVP) Technology and Digital and ComEx member for Accor Northern Europe. Just six months later, in March 2021, he was appointed AccorInvest Group CIO.

AccorInvest ESG strategy

From a more sustainable acquisition and renovation to a more sustainable operation of its sites, AccorInvest's Environmental, Social Governance (ESG) strategy is present

“IN VIEW OF TODAY’S CHALLENGES, BE THEY ENVIRONMENTAL, SOCIETAL OR ECONOMIC, ACCORINVEST TAKES VERY SERIOUSLY THE FACT THAT IT MUST BE COMMITTED AND RESPONSIBLE”

Your technology partner for market-leading connectivity solutions

High-availability internet connection of your locations, setup and operation of your infrastructure and intelligent networking with SD-WAN and digital guest services such as WiFi landing pages, Inroom TV and Digital Signage – we combine all of this in one powerful platform

the sustainability, efficiency and resilience of its hotel portfolio

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

The achievements and future scope of the digital transformation project

Shaheen represents a complete cloud transition project, bringing with it an exceptional degree of digital transformation. 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. In fact, the transition to the cloud has unlocked huge benefits for AccorInvest, including some invaluable sustainability improvements.

Behind the scenes, hotels contain a lot of hardware. But, AccorInvest has optimised these operations by streamlining the required hardware down to the minimum.

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 whole portfolio.

“Now that we’ve started, there’s no limitation,” says Ahmed Disokey, Group VP Hotel Technology at AccorInvest. “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 are looking to build a strong relationship with really committed partners. So far, we are really satisfied with what we are doing with the majority of our partners, and, indeed, with m3connect.”

“THE DIGITISATION OF THE COMPANY IS CORE TO IT TAKING CARE OF ITS PEOPLE”

WOJCIECH LACZ CHIEF INFORMATION OFFICER, ACCORINVEST

throughout all of the Group activities and involves all of its employees.

Wojciech Lacz makes it clear from the very start of the conversation that for either the Group’s ESG strategy or its digital transformation to be a success, the two must work hand in hand.

“In view of today’s challenges, be they environmental, social or economic, and through its responsibilities as owner, investor and operator, AccorInvest takes very seriously the fact that it must be committed and focus, taking it as an important factor in any company action” says Wojciech Lacz.

As a young company, AccorInvest published in May 2022 its first ESG report, with the aim of sharing its ESG performance with all its stakeholders and in which it shared its ambition to achieve carbon neutrality by 2050.

“Our ESG strategy is linked to the identity of the company we are and the company we would like to be in the future, which is about helping both our guests and our employees to make the right choice in where to work, or where to go,” says Wojciech Lacz. The ambition is clear: AccorInvest will be recognised as a benchmark ESG player in its sector.

Three pillars, eight commitments and nineteen challenges certainly sounds very robust. “It is”, says Lacz, adding “The first pillar is about us acting as a responsible Group. The second is about respecting people and the environment - so how to boost the employee’s development and how to constantly reduce the environmental footprint. And last but not least, the third pillar is to deliver positive hospitality; positive not only from the customer experience point of view, but also in the way we are perceived by our customers, not only as hoteliers, but as part of the ecosystem in the city, by connecting with different

NOVOTEL LONDON CANARY WHARF

core communities and enhancing the environment for them.”

Acting as a responsible group, AccorInvest has four main commitments. This includes “a commitment to having the right governance in place, which will also serve our investor relationship,” says Lacz. “The second is about compliance and ethics; to ensure compliance we demonstrate our ethical values across the portfolio. The third is about responsible investment; every time we begin a new construction or renovation, we make sure that our properties are competitive from an ESG point of view.” The fourth, says Lacz, “is about monitoring ESG risks in the supply chain” to make sure that all suppliers comply with the Group’s values.

Digital for the employees

Employees are at the heart of AccorInvest, “so, the second pillar is something that we are really looking at from the people point of view. We strive to foster employees’ development and welfare, and constantly reduce our environmental footprint."

For Lacz, IT and digital transformation is key to transforming the employee’s experience of the workplace. For example, taking repetitive and manual tasks and automating them so that they can focus on other more enjoyable aspects of the job.

Digital for the environment

Respecting the environment, reducing the carbon footprint, and implementing circular economy practices is another area in which digital and IT can really help, says Lacz. “We have already started to sync the different sensors to monitor and manage water and energy consumption. This allows us to discover a water leakage for example, before it is too late” says Lacz, pointing to the unexpectedly high utility bill we all dread coming.

WOJCIECH

“AT THE HEART OF ACCORINVEST IS ITS PEOPLE”

LACZ CHIEF INFORMATION OFFICER, ACCORINVEST

As part of the goal to eliminate single use plastic by the end of 2022, AccorInvest is on track to substitute plastic room cards with those made of more sustainable materials. Lacz and his teams are looking at the possibility of getting rid of the room card all together and using the Internet of Things (IoT) to do everything it did and more. This, he says, “would enable us to detect the guest inside the room to manage the electricity, the humidity, the air conditioning

and so on - another example of how IT could contribute to the ESG strategy and the guest experience.”

We strive to foster employees’ development and welfare, and constantly reduce our environmental footprint. A key part of the hotel digitalisation plan is to move the majority of services and content into the cloud, using different cloud providers to deliver the same experience or better for hotel staff and our guests, while reducing its environmental impact.

NOVOTEL PARIS VAUGIRARD MONTPARNASSE

ESG + Business Digitalisation = positive hospitality

The last one of the pillars is about delivering positive hospitality, which AccorInvest does together with the manager, Accor. “This is about taking care of the guests, their comfort, their well being, the way in which they perceive innovation inside the hotel, and improving accessibility to hotel services.”

There are two main systems in the hotels right now – a property management system

ALWAYS KNEW I WOULD BE AN IT GUY”

WOJCIECH LACZ CHIEF INFORMATION OFFICER, ACCORINVEST

(PMS) and a point-of-sale system (POS), the latter of which manages everything ecommerce related. “In order to give our staff the possibility to develop themselves, we want to be able to move them between the hotels, without having to learn from scratch. So, the systems need largely to be the same in each hotel. The most important thing then is this concept of homogeneous use, an ecosystem, which gives us the possibility to plan the different external services into it.”

Lacz uses the contactless journey of the guest as an example. “I don’t need to go to the reception desk in order to register myself and obtain the room card. Instead I can do it myself and enroll a digital key on my mobile device. The system could recognise me from the past and thanks to that I can check myself in, I can check myself out, I can order some services, in or out of the hotel.

“For us, what’s happening around the hotel is important. So, in terms of ESG, it’s how we can integrate with the social life of the city. By being homogeneous and open, we can start to integrate some additional services in the hotel, which could be delivered by our hotel staff, or by anybody else and fully embedded into the guest experience and journey. Our property, if needed, could an electric car charging point, standalone restaurant, meeting point etc. that is fitting in the concept of the location we are present.”

“I

Identifying the need, meeting the demand It’s all about need and demand, but unless you are close to the operations, it’s difficult to decipher. “That's why when I'm travelling, every time I am trying to stay in different hotels,” says Lacz, adding that members of the IT team are also visiting various hotels and seeing for themselves if the tools they have deployed really work in action.

“The solution we are putting in place needs to be a solution in which hotel teams who have never had any hospitality experience will be able to deliver the basics of hotel operations within a few hours of self-learning.

"The same applies to our F&B service – this

their food and drink from their mobile phone. The technology also comes with different language options making life easier for international staff and guests."

Robotics to assist staff

At the back end of 2021, AccorInvest realised there were a set of the different processes in the hotel that were still being carried out manually by staff members. “Some were painful, for example, the night audit. As you can imagine, consolidating all of the data and closing down the day in all the systems

IBIS STYLES SZCZECIN

STARE MIASTO

manually was taking two-and-a-half hours of our team members' time”. That particular job in some of the hotels is now being done by robots with no involvement of staff, which is complementary to human work, and we will be rolled out across the remaining portfolio. “So at that time, around midnight, the team member could be doing something else or getting some sleep,” in another example of IT and digital feeding into the company’s ESG strategy.

Asked if guests like the digital innovations they see, Lacz is very clear: “Yes, but I think

it's not even that they like it, it’s gone beyond that, they demand it. Therefore, we need to meet this expectation. But at the same time, we can't just binary switch from a more analogue way of doing things to fully digital, because we still have different types of customers to cater for. It was natural that the digitalisation demands of the customer would increase during COVID-19. And I think the area in which this is most visible is payment. People do not want to pay by cash anymore.

“In some areas of the business I still believe we should work in parallel modes for a period, or we face losing customers who are not so comfortable with digital. For example, in some countries, there is no

phones in the rooms because this is part of the services that need to be delivered for the proper categorisation. However, in some other countries, like the UK, this is not a requirement. But even in those countries, for people who are less used to technology and need to call for emergency, we implement a specific type of the solution, which can be used for other hotel services too.”

New partnerships

AccorInvest Group (AIG) works hard to create interactive guest experiences. With help from Oracle and its professional services partner IBM, they can transition to integrated cloud services.

Oracle has a critical role in AIG’s digital transformation, providing its Oracle Cloud Human Capital Management (HCM)— leveraging its benefits for human resources (HR)—and Oracle Cloud Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP), which also provide advantages in financial planning.

Having successfully bid on the joint project with IBM two years ago, Oracle supports AIG from a cloud migration perspective, enabling the second stage of transformation involving HR and Finance operations at AIG.

“I am excited by the power of the Oracle and IBM partnership,” says Robert Churchyard, who leads the Oracle practice inside IBM Consulting. “Together we are delivering enterprise-wide business transformation through the deployment of Oracle ERP & HCM Cloud.” The conversation moves on to future partnerships, with Lacz telling me that in addition to consolidating suppliers and collaborating with different suppliers, by the time people read this article, thanks to creating homogeneous environment between new Oracle Fusion ERP and Oracle Hospitality, Accorinvest will improve operational performance leveraging smoother processes execution and data

extraction which offer “flawless operations” from the lobby to the back office. “I believe the digitisation of the company is core to it taking care of its people,” says Lacz, adding that ecosystem that is built on Oracle product will connect distribution, guest rooms management, Point of Sales (POS), finance and HR, delivering the integrations AccorInvest requires to offer a seamless experience for staff and very satisfied guests. This would give AccorInvest a market competitive advantage having all the data in one place and accelerate any decision taking process increasing company agility in the fast moving environment. “The companies that are flexible will survive,” he says adding, "we are creating this opportunity, this agility, for the future and this includes our innovation initiatives making sure we can customise and integrate solutions to meet our needs now and in the future.”

I ask Lacz what the next 12 to 18 months look like from his perspective. He smiles and says, “I'm smiling because it's what I'm repeating almost every month to my teams, that the next 12, 24 months will be the year of delivery". We know exactly what we'd like to achieve, thanks to the executive committees of each of the companies we were able to achieve our specific plans. Now we just need to deliver. And I'm saying that with a smile, because you can imagine how easy or not easy it is to deliver for almost 800 hotel properties within such a short period of time. So yes, we need to deliver the things that we scoped, both on site which right now, is 80% of my attention through the different suppliers, through the different partnerships at our core or in order, really, to be perceived as the modern and competitive hotel owner and operator for guests, and the first choice of our employees.

“Also offsite, looking at what we do with the data, how we track the customer experience being moved between the different properties and understand their likes and dislikes. And maybe we could be much more proactive than we are right now.”

Lacz is keen to point out that the success of this digital transformation is not down to just one or few people coming from IT, but the entire workforce, “because only that way you can do something which is sustainable and that really brings value.”

So that's key, the entire workforce needs to be completely onboard with what AccorInvest is doing and why it is doing it in order for it to reach its ESG goals and what it wants to reach in terms of delivering an outstanding customer experience - it all feeds back into the team.

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