Wyndham International grew from 14 hotels in 1985 to over 280 hotels by 1999 through acquisitions. In the late 1990s and early 2000s, Wyndham developed an innovative guest recognition program called ByRequest to improve brand recognition and personalized service. ByRequest utilized a centralized property management system and database to track guest profiles and preferences. Hotel managers were empowered to customize stays based on guest histories. This differentiation strategy helped Wyndham combat commoditization within the hotel industry. ByRequest generated $60 million in early revenues and showed potential for strategic brand-building through centralized IT infrastructure and customized guest service.

1. WYNDHAM INTERNATIONAL:
FOSTERING HIGH TECH WITH HIGH
TOUCH

2. Case details
 1981 – Tranmel Crow Company founded Wyndham hotels
 1982 – First Wyndham hotel was opened to guests in Dallas
 1985 – 14 upscale properties
 1996 – Grew steadily to 66 resorts and hotels
 1997 – acquired Patriot American Hospitality Inc. for $1.1
Billion, started an aggressive acquisition campaign focusing
on small companies
 1997 – Interstate Hotels Corp. was acquired adding 217
hotels to Wyndham brand
 1999 – Dropped REIT status and converted to Wyndham
International Corporation
 Restructuring plans – Non strategic assets were sold and
focused on premier brand full service hotels and resorts.

3. SWOT Analysis
 Strengths
 First company to use the PMS (Property Management
System) in a centralized environment
 Initiatives like „Room that performs‟ and „Women on
their way‟ were innovative ideas
 Keen understanding of customers and taking steps to
implement their requirements
 Wyndham ByRequest Program which was a guest
recognition program radically improved the Brand
Image and service quality

4. SWOT Analysis
 Weakness
 Negative net income from 1998 to 2001
 Low brand recognition of Wyndham name among
business and leisure travelers (did not appear in the
top 20 most recognizable brands to business
travellers)
 Opportunities
 Creation of large database by the guest recognition
program- ByRequest
 Wyndham‟s IT infrastructure that was in-sourced after
the arrival of Mark Hedley (Technology Officer) in
May, 2000

5. SWOT Analysis
 Threats/ Challenges
 While it is easy to generate databases but it is difficult
to make use of them
 Low Brand recognition was a major challenge
particularly because Wyndham operated in the High
Segment
 Comparison sites such as priceline.com that treated
hotels within the same industry as interchangeable,
contributed to brand erosion
 ByRequest guest recognition could only be
implemented when the customer
produced/remembered the member number
 The impact of the ByRequest program was still very
small and contributed only around $60 million in
revenue in 2001

6. Competitive Strategies
 Wyndham differentiating strategy was its novel
guest recognition program- ByRequest
 By this they defined the Brand Wyndham as a hotel
chain that provided personalized service
 ByRequest was more than just a software-
ByRequest managers were given considerable
latitude in decision making and how they satisfied
the needs of consumers

7. IT infrastructure
 Outsourced IT infrastructure to a subsidiary of TCC
 2002 – Property Management System (PMS), call
accounting, revenue management and POS systems
were installed
 Rooms that perform – first brand offering high speed
internet and cordless phones in every room
 First chain to enable online reservations and access to
guest loyalty programs
 Women on their way program

8. Strategic Implication
 Centralization and standardization were the keys to the
IT deployments
 Core set of technology people working in a single place
than having people in remote locations
 Commoditization of Hotel industry by services like
Priceline.com
 Lack of differentiation in brands
 Primary elements of decision making – place, previous
experience, price and reputation
 Wyndham needed a guest recognition program that
defines the brand

9. Wyndham ByRequest
 Program was built on centralized IT infrastructure
 Data warehouse store guest profiles and guest stay
information from PMS
 Software can be accessed via any web browser

10. Wyndham ByRequest
 Traveler or agent makes reservation using distribution channels –
website, call centre, global distribution systems
 Reservation is recorded in the inventory and available rooms is
updated
 Nightly batch process downloads reservation information to the
ByRequest application. Profiles of arriving members are extracted
and made available to ByRequest managers
 ByRequest managers retrieve arrival reports and prepare
guestrooms according to members
 Managers had considerable latitude in their decision making to
satisfy needs of members. Also in charge of training staff and
instilling importance of the programs
 Managers had to sign up new members
 Once a month the managers meet in video conference and
recorded question and answer sessions for further use

11. Strategic impact
 Focused on driving shareholder value and
developing greater brand equity
 Execution was done brand wide for
standardization
 Centralization was also achieved
 This was a system that defined the brand of
Wyndham
 Differentiates Wyndham from other brands and in
turn moves against commoditization
 Co creation of services by including the customer
in the process

12. Organizational Impact
 Won CIO 100 award two years in a row for ByRequest
 Hospitality Technology Lodging Award and
InformationWeek 500 award for IT initiatives
 In 2001, won Hospitality Sales and Marketing
Association International‟s “Best of Show” award for
success of integrated marketing and advertising
campaign
 $60 million in revenue and expected to grow
 Over 600,000 members and expected to grow

13. Key Learning's
 IT can be used as a means of key
differentiating strategy in a services
organization
 If software database across different centers
(geographies) are used extensively, then it
makes sense to centralize the databases

14. THANKYOU