citizenM Redefines Hospitality With Juniper's AI-Driven Enterprise Solutions

0:00 hi my name is Jamie pitchforth I am head

0:03 of strategic business here at Juniper

0:05 today we're in conversation with bowian

0:07 pavitich who is the director of

0:10 technology and digital here at Citizen M

0:12 welcome thank you good to be here I'm

0:14 delighted to be here

0:16 um I've been here a couple of times

0:17 before on business and it's it's a

0:20 lovely venue great location but it's

0:22 different to all the other hotels that

0:24 that we go to to stay in tell us a

0:26 little bit about the hotel and how are

0:28 you all different to the others for your

0:29 competitors glad to have you here and uh

0:32 and happy to hear hear that you noticed

0:34 the the difference well um I think we

0:37 are different in the way how we think

0:40 about hospitality and how we think about

0:42 serving our guests so our guest is is at

0:45 the Pinnacle at top of of our thinking

0:48 always all that the guest does we try to

0:51 support with human touch and with

0:54 genuine care and with technology so

0:57 that's how we are different I think we

0:59 are really Nate even natural in

1:02 delivering the digital of this world to

1:04 the wishes of our guests and when you

1:07 say digital what kind of Technologies

1:08 are you using to Aid and deliver that

1:12 that wow factor for your guests that

1:14 experience we use a lot of technology in

1:18 our hotel to support we have technology

1:20 from let's say the area of smart

1:22 buildings and how our Management systems

1:26 work in the behind we have frontal

1:28 technologies that we use in

1:29 communication with the guests so wired

1:32 Wireless communication across the whole

1:34 state and we try to use the technology

1:37 that actually drives forward our way of

1:40 thinking and operating the hotel and

1:43 satisfying and providing to the guest

1:45 the best Journey that they can have okay

1:48 and you've chosen misters as your

1:51 underlying technology for uh for your

1:53 network infrastructure how are you using

1:55 the technology at the at the front end

1:58 eye the guest side

1:59 one of our main Pro parts of our product

2:03 is a very high speed internet so the

2:07 guests that are coming into our hotel

2:09 they're digitally Savvy people they're a

2:12 mobile citizen that move around so

2:14 technology for them should be almost

2:17 invisible they should use what they use

2:19 so in that frontal part uh mist is

2:22 leading with a lot of thinking

2:25 the missed Network or the missed

2:27 wireless network is uh enabling us to do

2:31 all the things that we want to do with

2:34 the guests being inside of the hotel so

2:37 so we try to to to remove all of the

2:40 snags that a lot of technology in one

2:43 place can have and we try to be on top

2:46 of the ball and seeing if things are

2:49 going wrong where they are going wrong

2:50 and how they're going wrong so you

2:53 relatively recently chose misters as

2:55 this technology but you looked at the

2:57 market at other vendors why did you

2:59 choose and why do did you conclude that

3:01 the Miss technology was the the

3:03 direction you wanted to take at the

3:05 point we were presented with a with a

3:07 challenge in operating uh certain part

3:09 so far landscape uh when looking into

3:12 the market mist is one of the

3:15 um let's say devices and systems because

3:18 it's not only a device that provides

3:21 flexibility and transparency that we

3:23 need from the get-go from the part that

3:26 is for us very important which is

3:27 building of our hotels into operating

3:30 our hotels so the way how we onboard uh

3:33 the devices and how we how we get them

3:36 into the place is much easier with mist

3:39 Mist has a logic uh Cloud logic and a

3:42 huge Cloud compute area which is exactly

3:46 what we want to achieve with all of our

3:49 systems we centrally manage

3:52 all our hotels just because we want to

3:55 be very flexible on the offering and the

3:57 product that we give to our guests

3:59 today's mobile citizens they are very

4:03 used to the digital way of thinking

4:05 around mobile apps devices in which you

4:08 mean you are actually changing your

4:10 opinion and your wishes and your your

4:12 need very fast to be able to operate in

4:16 that fast changing consumer world you

4:19 have to adjust your services to the

4:22 guest wishes and that's where what is

4:25 the most important for Us guest wishes

4:28 yeah mist is one of the technologies

4:30 that is enabling us to do that so I know

4:33 there was a a proof of value a process

4:35 that you undertook tell us a little bit

4:37 about that uh we usually when we're

4:40 implementing new technology we try to go

4:42 through a process of ensuring that

4:43 that's a fit for a for a longer period

4:45 and we first do proof of concept that we

4:48 do in in the lab but then we first go

4:51 further on with the pilot pilot means we

4:54 are running actual technology in a

4:56 certain hotel for a certain period of

4:58 time we did a pilot of the Miss

5:00 technology in couple of our hotels

5:02 before we actually decided to go fully

5:06 uh that is important for the

5:08 standardization factor of ours uh when

5:11 we change certain technology we want

5:13 that the future process is frictionless

5:16 so we continue doing that flow but the

5:18 pilot is important to ensure that we can

5:21 do all that and on the back end you know

5:23 the operational side AI operations so

5:26 inherently within the platform built on

5:29 Market Services Cloud architecture and

5:32 artificial intelligence how is that

5:34 benefiting you and your operators of the

5:37 of the networking structure across the

5:39 business

5:40 well as you mentioned we are relatively

5:42 young in the missed world so we're still

5:44 learning how to live with that but

5:46 definitely the abundance of data lying

5:49 around us not only from from the obvious

5:51 parts and from the from the let's say in

5:54 user interactions but you have a lot of

5:56 data lying around in systems in the way

5:58 how systems operate AI is is an

6:02 important helper in triaging dissecting

6:05 getting to the right point because it's

6:07 simply uh it's overwhelming for for

6:10 human uh cognition right yeah so so so

6:13 the AI is a helper like it can sift

6:16 through a lot of things we experiment

6:18 with a lot of uh uh new technologies AI

6:21 also and uh actually uh

6:25 we are experimenting with how can we use

6:28 Mist even better than that so so we

6:32 we're looking forward to actually future

6:33 use cases of of the AI uh helping handle

6:38 the data and in terms of looking out to

6:41 that future and and various different

6:43 use cases what does the future hold what

6:45 uh what services and experiences are you

6:49 expecting or planning to deliver to to

6:51 your guests and to to the staff of the

6:54 the brand well we believe in in um

6:59 removing frictions so so anything that

7:02 in a customer Journey or a gas Journey

7:05 uh same for the employee journey is a

7:09 friction that's what we try to to remove

7:11 so I believe the future of technology is

7:14 exactly there and I believe the future

7:17 of technology is same as the facilities

7:19 today so same as the the the water uh or

7:23 electric uh once the digital

7:26 Technologies at that level of enablement

7:29 that's where then the the the main play

7:32 of the of the guest will be so we're

7:35 looking into how to get to that world

7:37 we're trying to do everything that's

7:40 current technology enables but we

7:42 explore continuously future looking

7:43 Technologies to support the gas journey

7:46 in different ways some of the

7:48 Technologies we park for a while because

7:50 guests are not actually still right

7:53 there so for me the the Technologies

7:57 like Ai and etc etc cannot ever uh

8:02 substitute the human touch

8:05 and that's where the magic is of the

8:08 citizen app we believe in human touch we

8:11 believe in genuine care uh supported by

8:14 technology and those Technologies we

8:16 Implement in in our hotel now one of the

8:19 things I've heard you talk about is

8:21 cloud only tell us a little bit about

8:23 that sure well we're looking into

8:25 getting to the cloud only strategy at

8:28 one point but uh basically to enable the

8:31 standardization and control and

8:34 operation of the a huge amount of

8:36 distributed locations we have to use

8:40 cloud and uh and we use cloud across

8:43 different system and different

8:44 Technologies because that enables us to

8:47 to provide the exact operational uh

8:50 let's say standards that we that we want

8:52 and that we need we cannot be truly

8:56 Cloud only always because our delivery

8:58 points are hotels but everything else

9:01 can be Cloud so so we expect that future

9:04 for us is perfect delivery on location

9:07 supported by a huge compute on the cloud

9:11 and how do you think your competitors

9:13 are the other hotels and the brands when

9:16 you see a new disruptive differentiated

9:18 product effectively coming into the

9:21 market what's been the feedback what's

9:23 uh what are people saying well uh I I

9:26 love that part uh I think people are

9:29 reacting quite well on on our disruption

9:33 of the market meaning down the the lane

9:35 of what we want to uh to do uh we see a

9:39 lot of copycats uh we see people

9:42 changing the postures in different types

9:44 of hotels and in different parts of the

9:47 world uh I think what differentiate us

9:50 than maybe all of the other aspects is

9:53 it's it's about the guest Journey we are

9:56 fanatic about our guests I always say

9:58 that like it's we do that with Ultimate

10:01 Care and all of the tech teams actually

10:04 first think about the guest and that's

10:06 that's how we do it that's what we

10:08 believe it felt like that when I arrived

10:10 and greeted by an ambassador and so

10:13 helpful and actually they weren't able

10:15 to answer my question they went off to

10:17 find out and then they came and found me

10:19 and so it was it was good it was it was

10:22 a great experience coming in so

10:23 brilliant I want to say a great big

10:26 thank you I think this is an exciting

10:28 Journey for you um it's an exciting

10:30 Journey for us and we certainly look

10:32 forward to Growing the partnership and

10:35 enabling you to excel in in delivering

10:37 these great guest experiences and

10:39 growing the brand thank you very much

10:40 thanks