Kimpton Hotels and Restaurants Invests in Oracle to Support Rapid Growth and Maintain High Customer Service

CRMToday: Boutique Hotel and Restaurant Collection to Standardize on Oracle’s JD Edwards EnterpriseOne

Oracle today announced that Kimpton Hotels and Restaurants, the first and leading collection of boutique hotels and chef-driven restaurants throughout the U.S. and Canada, has selected Oracle's JD Edwards EnterpriseOne in a competitive RFP process. Kimpton, which currently operates 43 hotels and 44 restaurants, will rely on Oracle to manage growth, consolidate business processes through improved integration and automate reporting.

In recent years, Kimpton has experienced tremendous growth, both organic and through new hotel property acquisitions. As a result, the company's business systems and processes have become overly complex. Kimpton executives decided to standardize all business operations on a single instance of JD Edwards EnterpriseOne. Once the implementation is complete, Kimpton will benefit from a scalable business platform capable of supporting the company's growth and maintaining its ability to provide exceptional customer service to each of its properties. Kimpton will also be able to streamline its profitability, forecast budget performance for various projects, manage construction and property requirements and control real estate portfolios.

After evaluating competitive offerings including Microsoft Dynamics AX (Axapta), JD Edwards EnterpriseOne was selected based upon its success in the real estate and construction industry. Additionally, the Oracle applications can be implemented quickly and are expected to seamlessly integrate with Kimpton's current environment without costly or time-consuming modifications.

"We were impressed with the extensive history that JD Edwards brings as the market leader in real estate and construction management systems," said Kimpton Hotels and Restaurants Senior Vice President and Corporate Controller Alan Baer. "Kimpton Hotels and Restaurants will double in size by 2011. So choosing a proven system that will integrate quickly and easily was key to maintaining the growth momentum that we are experiencing."

Hitachi Consulting was engaged to help manage Kimpton's software selection process and to team with Oracle to implement JD Edwards EnterpriseOne. By leveraging Oracle's track record and expertise in the hospitality sector, Hitachi Consulting was able to work closely with Oracle to identify the most relevant solution for Kimpton, based on the company's short and long-term business goals. Hitachi Consulting's value proposition to Kimpton is to assist them as their trusted business advisor. The Hitachi Consulting team has been successful in identifying redundant or obsolete systems and processes that should be eliminated or improved. Hitachi Consulting expects to use this project to improve Kimpton's processes and workflow, as well as eliminate unnecessary applications.

The implementation project began in November 2006 and is expected to go live with Kimpton's various properties in the United States in the July 2007 timeframe. The project team is a blending of Kimpton key users and IT resources, Hitachi Consulting functional and technical experts, with support and QA provided by Oracle Consulting Services.