DIGITAL BUSINESS ASSIGNMENT

Discuss the Digital Transformation explaining shift from offline to

online of a reputed 5 star or 7 start Hotel. Select any company in India
from the sector and discuss on it. Explain if that company has shifted
entirely to online or has offline and online presence both, explain how
they are managing their digital business to satisfy their consumers in
India. What innovations have they done in their digital business that
has given them a positive impact.

Group Roll No Members

21-I-117 Rahul Kunnath
21-I-102 Shabnam Ansari
4
21-I-128 Sanjay Singh
21-I-116 Kunal Kubal
 INTRODUCTION

Indian Hotels Company Limited (IHCL), a Mumbai, India-based hospitality group,

announced in February 2017 that it would group all the hotels in its portfolio globally
under a single umbrella brand called Taj Hotels Palaces Resorts Safaris (Taj Hotels).
IHCL stated that each of the four groups: Taj Hotels, Taj Palaces, Taj Resorts, and
Taj Safaris, would have clearly defined experiences.
The first Taj hotel, “The Taj Mahal Palace,” was established in Mumbai (formerly
Bombay) in 1903 by Jamsetji Nusserwanji Tata, founder of the Tata Group. The
century-old brand was known for its impeccable service and hospitality. As of 2020,
the brand operated 74 properties in India and several countries across the world.

TECHNOLOGY INITIATIVES TO OFFER CUSTOMIZED SERVICES

Taj Hotels implemented several strategies at individual properties as well as across

its chain to offer personalized services and experiences to guests. With advances in
computing technology, the brand leveraged insights drawn from consumer behavior
data to offer personalized as well as captivating experiences to consumers. It shifted
its focus from ‘what it can offer’ to ‘what consumers want at its properties.’ The
brand also updated its properties to appeal to the tastes of millennials who accounted
for the largest consumer group in India in the 21st century.
Improving technology infrastructure was an investment priority for Taj Hotels.
Among the steps taken were:
Standardizing property management systems across all hotels to ensure a
smoother onsite experience.
Running stronger than ever loyalty programs.
Delivering desirable products and offerings through appropriate customer
relationship management tools and techniques.
Using recently installed revenue management software to maximize opportunities in
key markets.
As part of this technology overhaul, the organization was restructured into three
separate teams for loyalty, analytics, and digital. With these teams, Taj standardized
the customer experience across all consumer touch points.

To keep abreast of and cater to the changing needs of the discerning customer, Taj Hotels
identified five areas: mobility, big data, cloud, social media, and robotics. It
implemented several advanced digital technologies to enhance the guest experience
across its chain of hotels around the world including the website, a command center
called Taj.Live to monitor all the relevant social media conversations, online marketing
communications through Taj Spice newsletter, Fidelio the CRM tool, and Proxce the
mobile app. The increasing use of mobile internet and the growing popularity of social
media made the brand reach out to consumers on their smartphones and personalize its
services for them based on their feedback on social media platforms.

TAJ.LIVE – A DIGITAL MEDIA MONITORING TOOL

In 2018, Taj Hotels launched Taj.Live, a digital media monitoring and response system,
to listen, interact, engage, respond, and delight consumers across all digital media
channels, including social media platforms such as Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, and
Instagram. The system captured conversations about the Taj Hotels brand in real-time
on different digital platforms and used analytics to help Taj Hotel employees answer
queries, delight consumers, and monitor compliments and complaints. For instance, if a
guest tweeted that he/she was spending his/her birthday at a Taj Hotel, the staff ensured
that a birthday cake was delivered to him/her that day.
Through the system, employees were able to monitor videos, photographs, and other Taj
Hotels related content posted by users and to offer hyper-personalized services to them.
The system also monitored sales and support related queries made by consumers during
the pre-stay, stay, and post- stay periods and transferred them to the sales team. This
feature increased the direct sales of Taj Hotels by INR 1.7 million (US$ 23,050) within
the first three months of the system’s installation.
Taj.Live was placed in IHCL’s corporate office and was monitored by high-ranked
executives, including the PR Head, Chief Revenue Officer, the Marketing Head, the
Chief Financial Officer, and Managing Director who ensured that brand Taj responded
quickly and accurately to queries, complaints, and compliments from consumers in the
digital space. As a result, within the first three months of the system’s installation, the
response rate to customer queries increased from 39% to 85% while response time went
down from 24 hours to less than 15 minutes.16 (Refer to Exhibit I for an illustrated
explanation of the Taj.Live features).

T AJ S PICE – H YPER P ERSONALIZED CUSTOMER E NGAGEMENT

Spice was Taj Hotels’ monthly newsletter that educated existing guests on the various
cuisines and innovative dishes offered at the chain’s various restaurants across the world.
In 2019, the Taj Hotels management wanted to customize the newsletter as per an
individual customer’s location, favorite dishes, and frequency of dining at Taj
restaurants. Toward this end, Taj Hotels partnered with Netcore Solutions, a Mumbai-
based provider of an Artificial Intelligence-powered growth marketing platform, to
consolidate its legacy data and deliver exceptional customer experience using data
driven marketing automation.
Netcore Solutions divided guests on the basis of the Taj Inner Circle (TIC) loyalty
 program membership. Members were classified as ‘loyalty members’ and others as
‘non-members of TIC’. As Taj Hotels had limited information, including city of
residence and email addresses, about the non-members, newsletters containing dining
information in their city of residence and nearby cities were sent to them every month.
For instance, non-members residing in Mumbai received information about dining
experiences at Taj Hotels in Mumbai and Pune, while the ones residing in New Delhi
received information about dining experiences at Taj Hotels in New Delhi and the
National Capital Region.

Loyalty members were sent mailers that were hyper-personalized for them based on their
city of residence, cuisine preference, and frequency of dining at Taj restaurants. This
personalized service increased the number of customer transactions. Netcore Solutions
claimed that the personalized newsletters resulted in more than 5,500 new member
transactions at Taj Hotels’ properties.

CUSTOMIZING FOR MILLENNIALS

Beginning 2014, Taj Hotels revamped its services and properties in line with the tastes of
millennials who constituted the largest consumer demographic in India. As millennials
emphasized experiences and learning opportunities and preferred itineraries that immersed
them in local cultures, the brand offered stay packages that blended luxurious stay and
indulgent local cuisine with opportunities to interact and savor the local culture, arts, and
traditions. Further, Taj Hotels offered free Wi-Fi access across all its properties as
millennials preferred to work, communicate, shop, and entertain themselves using the
internet. Further, as millennials carried several gadgets including laptops, smartphones, and
tablets, Taj Hotels modified their properties to accommodate the use of these latest devices.
The modifications included installation of mobile charging stations and internet enabled
flat-screen televisions. The brand also removed bathtubs and replaced them with state-of-
the-art shower systems that offered experiential showers such as thunderstorm showers and
Brazilian rain forest mist, among others. Traditional lighting was also replaced with modern
lighting systems that sensed the moods of guests and offered relevant, soothing light in
rooms and bathrooms.

Taj Hotels took several non-digital and digital initiatives at individual properties to offer
personalized hospitality services. For instance, at Taj Boston, the menu primarily consisted
of specialties of New England, the northeastern region of the US that comprised six states
– Vermont, Maine, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Rhode Island, and Connecticut.
Similarly, in Taj Aguada in Goa, India, the staff was trained on the needs and culture of
Russians who constituted a major chunk of the property’s guests. Taj Samudra, Sri Lanka,
hired several employees from China as Chinese constituted the majority of the property’s
guests. Meanwhile, at the Taj Mahal Hotel in New Delhi, guests were offered sushi-rolling
classes and gourmet Indian cooking sessions from well-known chefs. Moreover, guests
interested in learning about authentic Delhi culture were taken around the streets of Old
Delhi. These initiatives were well accepted by millennial guests who were eager to learn
new skills and showcase them on social media platforms.

U SE OF M ODERN CRM T OOLS

In early 2000, Taj Hotels deployed Oracle’s Customer Relationship Management (CRM)
tool for hotels called Fidelio to offer personalized services to its guests. Individual guest
preferences such as ‘feather down pillow’ or ‘hot chocolate cake’ were stored on the tool
and these were offered to the guests on their arrival at any of the Taj Hotels properties
across the world. To ensure that every preference of the guests was captured and stored on
the Fidelio tool, butlers at all Taj Hotels properties carried a small booklet with them called
the ‘Wow card’ in which they noted down information that could be used in future to
delight the customer. (Refer to Exhibit II for features of the Fidelio tool). According to
Chinmai Sharma (Chinmai), Former Executive Vice President & Chief Revenue Office,
Taj Hotels, “As a premier hotel chain, it is critical for us to understand that the one size fits
all approach will not work anymore. We need to use technology as an enabler to record and
deliver on each guest preference. Our loyalty program aims to achieve this for our most
loyal guests through active profile management and CRM.”

In 2017, Taj Hotels selected the Oracle Sales Automation cloud to bring together various
aspects of the hotel chain. The focus was to have a solution that would cater to the diverse
clientele that included mature people and millennials. The technology helped Taj Hotels
develop a deep

knowledge of customers to help serve them better. Also, the hotel chain had more customer
records than before and with the technology, it was able to store them more effectively to
provide a seamless experience to customers. According to Renu Basu, Global Head of
Sales, Taj Group of Hotels, “We wanted something that gives us a 360 degree view of the
customer.”
 P ROXCE M OBILE A PPLICATION

Mobile internet had become affordable and accessible to a large section of Indians since
2016 with the launch of inexpensive data plans by telecommunication companies and the
availability of affordable smartphones. As a result, an increasing number of Indians
browsed the internet on their mobile phones for information. To reach out to consumers on
their personal smartphones and at a time convenient to them, Taj Hotels in partnership with
Proxce, launched a mobile application in 2017. According to Chinmai, “Data accessibility
and mobile usage is growing exponentially across the world, especially in growing travel
markets like India. Nearly 50 per cent of our guests are now using a mobile device to
explore our hotels and destinations somewhere in their purchase path. Online and mobile
are our fastest growing channels and we will continue to invest in this area with the goal of
creating a consistent guest experience across all platforms.”

The versatile application offered several functionalities, including booking of rooms across
any of the brand’s properties across the world, booking of safaris, paperless check-in to
properties, keyless access to rooms, and access to the brand’s customer loyalty program –
‘Taj Inner Circle.’ The application also notified users on the latest deals and discounts
offered by Taj Hotels.

The mobile application featured an easy-to-use user interface and a map-based search tool
that allowed guests to browse through booking options for all available Taj properties.
Further, the application featured Internet of Things (IoT) technology that installed a digital
room key on the mobile phones of guests after they checked into the hotel and triggered a
message to the valet car parking team after they checked out of the hotel. Thus, the valet
car parking team was able to promptly deliver guests’ cars as soon as they checked out of
the hotel.

As customers increasingly began booking rooms and trips directly on Taj Hotel’s mobile
application, the brand got better insights into their behavior and offered hyper-personalized
services such as targeted marketing campaigns and tailor-made offers and promotions.
(Refer to Exhibit III for pictures of the mobile application).
 R OAD A HEAD

Following the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic, the hotel group adopted and enhanced
its services in accordance with the norms of the World Health Organization (WHO), Food
Safety and Standards Authority of India (FSSAI), and the Government of India. It partnered
with organizations specializing in safety and hygiene, and sourced high-grade protective
equipment and disinfectants for use at its hotels. IHCL created and implemented ‘Zero-
Touch Service Transformation’, a range of digital solutions across the Taj Hotels properties
that ensured social distancing through zero-touch check-ins and check-outs, online
payments, digital invoicing, and digital menus.

In future, the brand planned to implement advanced IoT tools that had the capability to
anticipate the needs of guests and serve them appropriately. According to a spokesperson
from the Taj Hotels, “We anticipate moving even further into the realm of hyper-
personalization especially with the new generation of guests that will come to IHCL
branded hotels in the next 10 years. This also means an increase in digital interaction from
start to finish. The key will be to do this without sacrificing the personal touch and the
warmth and sincerity that comes with every stay.”