Customer Stories | Radisson Blu

With the investment firm, Starwood Capital, purchasing these luxurious hotels, a complex transition of IT and technology needed to take place to separate the nine properties from the previous hotelier ownership’s IT estate and migration to the new management company Axiom Hospitality. This transition would be incredibly time-sensitive, with the full decoupling needing to be undertaken during a legally binding three-month transitional service agreement.

And so, Starwood Capital needed a team that could fully manage the transition and onboarding of their IT Managed Service, delivering effective and swift solutions to ensure deadlines were met. That’s where we came in.

The challenge

With the investment firm, Starwood Capital, purchasing these luxurious hotels, a complex transition of IT and technology needed to take place to separate the nine properties from the previous hotelier ownership’s IT estate and migration to the new management company Axiom Hospitality. This transition would be incredibly time-sensitive, with the full decoupling needing to be undertaken during a legally binding three-month transitional service agreement.

And so, Starwood Capital needed a team that could fully manage the transition and onboarding of their IT Managed Service, delivering effective and swift solutions to ensure deadlines were met. That’s where we came in.

The solution

Following the project, Focus Group now provides a comprehensive 24/7 IT service desk across the properties, covering incident management, change requests and day-to-day technical support. This includes desktop and end-user support for 400 devices, server support for 50 virtual and 20 physical servers, and management of a network and wireless estate comprising more than 450 switches and 1,500 access points. Support also extends to telephony, TV systems, digital signage and third-party applications tailored to the hospitality industry.

Alongside this, Focus Group delivers ongoing strategic guidance through a Virtual CTO service, complemented by dedicated onsite engineering resources to support the properties. Proactive monitoring, alerting and patch management help maintain the performance and reliability of supported systems, while managed security solutions, including Cisco Umbrella and Microsoft Defender, provide an additional layer of protection against evolving cyber threats.

This project demonstrates Focus Group’s ability to coordinate complex, multi-faceted technology requirements, bringing together specialist expertise, a broad range of services and responsive project delivery. By combining strategic consultancy, onsite support and fully managed IT services, we provide a consistent, reliable technology environment that supports day-to-day operations and the evolving needs of the hospitality sector.

The results

Focus Group provided an extensive and expert project team to undertake the transition, with several imperative areas given the time and dedication needed to ensure the hotels were fully operational during the transition period. First, we delivered a handover of the Network Environment for the properties, including Cisco Meraki Switching and Wireless, and firewalls covering corporate, guest, event, and TV systems. This meant communication could be smooth, swift, and safe for everyone to utilise.

From there, we brought in the migration of a Microsoft 365 tenancy, including Emails, Sharepoint, and OneDrive, for the 600 users over the nine hotels and a rebuild of over 400 devices via Autopilot. Working closely with Axiom Hospitality, we also documented and onboarded peripheral systems such as In Room TV Systems, data cabling, Digital Signature, Alcatel telephony, and printing, ensuring teams could integrate with the new systems. Additionally, we provided a detailed handover pack for 50+ Virtual Servers and 20+ Physical Servers.

Throughout the project, we oversaw the full management and governance, offering support for any queries from Axiom Hospitality and ensuring Radisson Blu’s teams experienced a smooth and confident transition.

“The separation of the properties from Edwardian Group was an operationally and technically challenging project, managing multiple third-party providers during a very short transition window. Focus Group provided a project team that fully managed the transition and onboarding of our IT Managed Service. Focus Group showed their expertise and experience in the hospitality sector providing high-quality technical and Project Management resources to ensure the strict timelines were met.”

Anael Peu, Chief Commercial & Technology Officer, Axiom Hospitality

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