Overview

Luxury hotel brand Sofitel Singapore City Centre follows the group’s (Accor) standards and requirements to go fully cloud. The most efficient route for the hotel is through “Lift and Shift”.

The migration was swiftly completed in two months, but then they hit a technical detail that threatened to halt their entire business: the inability to generate and save a critical payment file to the local drive. Delayed payments, supplier friction, and operational chaos loomed.

Discover how Sofitel, together with TRG International, turned a major roadblock into a case study for seamless, secure, cloud-based financial mastery.

Industry: Hospitality

Website: Sofitel Singapore City Centre

Solutions implemented:

Infor SunSystems
Infor Query & Analysis

Integrations:

OPERA PMS (Hotel Property Management System)
Future Log (Procurement System)

Goals

✓ Align with group cloud strategy
✓ Enhance scalability
✓ Ensure seamless financial operations
✓ Achieve user confidence and adoption

Innovation strategies

★ Strategic lift and shift adoption
★ Customised reports
★ Comprehensive user enablement

At a glance

Part of the prestigious hospitality brand, Accor, Sofitel Singapore City Centre carries on the group’s mission of providing stellar services and unforgettable experiences for every guest with its contemporary décor, epicurean gastronomy, sustainably beautiful rooms right in the heart of Singapore’s central business district.

Following the group’s shift from the on-premises deployment model to the cloud, Sofitel Singapore City Centre also upgraded their financial management system using the lift and shift approach.

Why lift and shift? Benefits for Sofitel

Lift and shift is a cloud migration strategy, where the organisation transfers (or lifts) all its workload, applications, data, operating systems, etc., from one environment and shifts it to another. Typically, from an on-premises data centre to a public or private cloud.

The process involves minimal or no changes to the application’s architecture or code. For Sofitel Singapore City Centre, this means the hotel can save significantly on time and resources:

✓ Faster migration: As there is less re-engineering involved, lift and shift allows Sofitel to quickly get up and running with minimal to no downtime.
✓ Cost reduction: The approach reduces upfront migration costs as well as unnecessary redesigning.
✓ Free up human resources: The team at Sofitel manages the operating system, applications, and data, while the solution provider manages the underlying infrastructure (maintenance, updates, bug fixes, etc.) which free up their IT team to focus on more strategic areas.
✓ Scalability: Gain access to the cloud’s on-demand scalability.
✓ Disaster recovery: Improved disaster recovery capabilities by having data and applications in a highly available cloud environment.

The project was carried out under TRG’s standard five-phased process: 1. Initiation, 2. Elaboration, 3. Construction, 4. Transition, 5. Optimisation. The project was done in just two months.

Bridging the on-premise and cloud gap

By moving the hotel’s financial management system to the cloud, Sofitel hit a major roadblock.

Challenge

The payment file blockade

After executing a payment run, the Finance team generates a text file using SunSystems Reporting, which is saved directly to a local folder. The file is then manually uploaded to their online bank transfer platform. This simple, direct method will not work in the cloud.

This seemingly small technical detail has significant implications for a critical business process: the payment run.

If SunSystems cannot generate and save the payment file, the entire payment process halts. This could lead to a series of issues:

⚠️ Delayed payments, which can strain relationships with suppliers, potentially lead to late fees or a loss of goodwill.
⚠️ Operational bottlenecks, from purchasing new supplies to settling invoices, disrupting the hotel’s day-to-day operations.

For a brand like Sofitel, delays in financial transactions can damage its professional image and reliability.

While temporary manual workarounds might be possible, these are inefficient, error-prone, and unsustainable for a routine, high-volume process like payment runs. They also defeat the major purpose of moving to the cloud, which is for automation and efficiency. This requires a re-evaluation of Sofitel Singapore City Centre’s current workflows to ensure seamless financial operations post-migration.

From frustration to functionality

★

Customisation and Workarounds

The TRG team retrieved the SunSystems Reporting configuration from Sofitel’s on-premises environment with the intention of a direct transfer. However, this proved incompatible with the newly implemented SunSystems due to crucial version differences and changes in field mappings. This meant the existing reports, including the critical payment run report, could not be “lifted and shifted” as-is. TRG had to meticulously edit and customise the report to align with the cloud version’s structure and ensure accurate data extraction.

Additionally, Sofitel users still face the issue of having SunSystems directly accessing local computer folders, the report logic was modified to output the text files to SFM (Server File Manager), which acts as a centralised, accessible repository within the cloud environment.

TRG’s Approach

This provided a workaround. Users can now access the SFM folder to download the generated text files to their local machines, bridging the gap left by the inability to directly export. This solution, while requiring considerable time and effort to implement and customise the SunSystems Report, proved to be an effective workaround.

★

Comprehensive User Enablement

Recognising that a new process flow would impact daily operations, TRG organised:

One-day online training for end-users: A dedicated session to walk users through the updated payment run process and other changes within the cloud-based SunSystems.
On-demand training courses via TRG Academy platform: Users were enrolled in relevant TRG Academy courses, providing them with structured learning resources to deepen their understanding of Infor SunSystems and Infor Query & Analysis.
Customised SunSystems Reporting: The training specifically covered the usage of the newly customised SunSystems reports, ensuring users understood how to generate and retrieve the necessary files from SFM.

This multi-faceted training approach was crucial for successful adoption. Despite the initial frustration of redesigning the reporting and file transfer process, TRG’s persistence in finding a workable solution and their commitment to user enablement paid off. The finance team at Sofitel Singapore City Centre is now confidently utilising the new system and updated workflows.

For more information about our solutions, visit: www.trginternational.com

Discover more case studies in other industries here: trginternational.com/stories/case-studies

From On-Premise to Cloud: How Sofitel Singapore City Centre Overcame Financial Migration Hurdles

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