BroadSoft (News - Alert), a BroadConnect technology partner, has acquired Systems Design & Development, Inc. (SDD), a software and services provider that targets hotels, resorts and meeting facilities. The move will extend unified communications (UC) and hosted phone services to the hospitality sector.
Details on the transaction were not released by the companies.
Much of the focus instead is on the new UC-One Hospitality, which is a hosted UC offering for the hospitality industry. The initiative combines BroadSoft’s UC strengths and SDD’s Jazz Fusion (News - Alert), which means integration of communications services with hotel management systems.
The deal comes as many hotels and resorts have dated phone systems in place. The new offering will let them move to newer phone technology.
Many businesses in the hospitality sector also now want cloud communications services to replace legacy PBX (News - Alert) solutions.
“UC-One Hospitality will allow hospitality properties to create customized communications services using dynamically targeted pricing, packaging, service authentication and digital content presentations,” the companies said in a shared statement.
The need for such improvements come as guests at hotels are overall expecting more in terms of the technology found in hotels or resorts.
In fact, “speed and precision will be a requirement when it comes to accommodating Millennials in upcoming years,” Hotels.com recently reported, according to the Hospitality.net website. “Fast booking, fast check-in, fast Wi-Fi and fast responses to customer service needs will need to be implemented within hotels,” hotel industry consultant Robert Rauch also points out.
It is time, too, for technology upgrades at many hotels. “Many of the hospitality premise-based PBX solutions are reaching their end-of-life, creating a need for the industry to seek new innovative communication alternatives that better align with their integrated guest services strategies,” said Michael Tessler, BroadSoft’s CEO. “We believe the services capabilities of SDD, when integrated with our Unified Communications (News - Alert) services, will unlock a sizable new vertical market opportunity for our service provider customers.”
The new initiative provides a bundled offering which features connectivity, minutes, UC and property management system data integration. Among its many benefits are being more economical and efficient than other options. It will also lead to improved productivity because of how business processes are now seen across multiple hotel premises. Customers and hotel guests will likely have increased satisfaction with the new technology, as well.
Edited by Alisen Downey