Schloss Elmau, an iconic resort in the Bavarian countryside in southern Germany, has selected Infrasys Cloud for their point-of-sale (POS) platform. Split into two resorts, a luxury spa retreat and a cultural hideaway, the hosting site of the G-7 summit also counts with several F&B outlets including their two Michelin-starred restaurant, Luce d’Oro.
Infrasys Cloud POS, a Shiji Group Brand, delivers a cloud-based point-of-sale designed for enterprise hotel operations. With over two decades of building POS systems for the hospitality industry, Infrasys is one of the most versatile and efficient systems on the market and has over 7,000 installations today.
Challenged to operate multiple F&B outlets
Schloss Elmau was looking to switch to a POS system that was feature rich, flexible and user friendly, so that their team could manage the system on their own with less dependency on the POS vendor. Based on this criterion, Infrasys proved to be the right fit, as the software was designed to be easily customized. With such a broad F&B offer, Schloss Elmau needed to make configuration changes to the software without assistance from the Infrasys support or development teams.
In addition, Schloss Elmau appreciated the hardware agnostic design of Infrasys. The flexibility to use any type of hardware device and operating system, significantly lowered their financial investment as they can re-use the existing POS workstations that they had previously installed throughout the resort’s 16 dining outlets.
The importance of flexibility
Schloss Elmau deployed Infrasys POS on the newest Apple products throughout their property providing every waiter and every service staff member more opportunities to improve interactions with their guests. With Infrasys’ flexibility, the resort has the option to add additional iPhones to their portfolio, or even Windows and/or Android devices at any time, without worrying about a disruption in service or compatibility troubles. Infrasys is built to have the same user experience across different hardware devices, whether a mobile device or POS workstation, reducing the need for additional training.
Learn how a flexible point-of-sale solution can improve your guest’s experience.
Tracking guest profiles and needs
To define the different guest profiles and their needs and make the most out of Infrasys’ enterprise-level capabilities, Schloss Elmau is in the process of integrating with their Property Management System (PMS). The owner, Dietmar Mueller-Elmau, founder of Fidelio and Opera Software Systems, is very tech-savvy and one of the peak performers in hotel software. He knows how to change things for the better and how to make the most out of the available software.
In his own words: “It was important to us to select a point-of-sale vendor that not only provided professional customer service, but also a cloud based mobile POS System which has a fast reaction time and is very easy to use and reliable. The state-of-the-art systems architecture allows us to adapt to changing requirements in different outlets in a timely and reliable fashion, which we need to stay competitive.”
Ensuring efficiency between F&B outlets
Additionally, Gabriel Apitzsch, Schloss Elmau’s director of Food and Beverage, pointed out that they view their multiple outlets as one overarching outlet financially. They don’t differ between, “How much over budget was the bar versus our Fidelio restaurant?” and,“How did the main restaurant perform last month?”.
For them, it’s key that technology optimizes efficiency between all the different F&B outlets. At the end of the day, they all act as one huge outlet – from staffing to resources. For example, some employees only work for the Asian restaurant but can be called to support the bar team if necessary. Back-of-the-house is also connected. For instance, the ice-machine is accessed by the bar but also the restaurant next door. The wine cellars are connected digitally, which is quite important as it shows all of the information about the available wine across the restaurants.
“We view all performances as a combined performance and budget our total F&B spendings accordingly. It’s all about sharing resources across our entire property”, said Gabriel Apitzsch.
At Shiji Group we are honored to support Schloss Elmau’s F&B operations. “Having the chance to work with Schloss Elmau is tremendous. We are proud to be their POS partner, and are pleased that Infrasys has already had a positive impact on their operation. We look forward to the continued partnership” said Sven Maas, Senior Vice President for EMEA at Shiji Group.
About Schloss Elmau
Dietmar Mueller-Elmau, who has been the founder of Fidelio & Opera Software Systems, is the owner and CEO of Schloss Elmau, a Luxury Spa Retreat & Cultural Hideaway ranked as one of the world´s best Luxury Resorts. Schloss Elmau has hosted the G7 Summit in 2015 with Barack Obama and Angela Merkel and features two 5 Star Hotels with 162 rooms & suites, 6 Spas, 9 Restaurants and a concert hall celebrating a unique cultural program with the great artists of our time.
About Shiji Group
Shiji Group is a multinational technology company that provides software solutions and services for enterprise companies in the hospitality, food service, retail, and entertainment industries, ranging from hospitality technology platform, hotel management solutions, food and beverage, and retail systems, payment gateways, data management, online distribution and more. Founded in 1998 as a network solutions provider for hotels, Shiji Group today comprises over 5,000 employees in 80+ subsidiaries and brands in over 23 countries, serving more than 91,000 hotels, 200,000 restaurants, and 600,000 retail outlets.
