Starwood Embraces Adaco for Hospitality Management

Following an in-depth vendor selection process, Starwood Hotels & Resorts Worldwide, Inc. selected Adaco.NET, the world’s leading hospitality procurement platform. The announcement was made at the HITEC 2010 conference that opened here today, the world’s largest hospitality technology event.

“We had several team members looking at recipe costing solutions for more than a year,” said Christoph Leu, Corporate Chef, Starwood North America Food & Beverage. “Our long-term strategy was to generate Costed Recipes tightly integrated with up-to-the-minute vendor pricing for recipe ingredients. Several requirements helped narrow our selection; for instance, we wanted to have a hosted enterprise solution, the ability to seamlessly convert metric measurements to U.S. measurements and vice versa, and the ability to deal with corporately-controlled vendors, products and pricing yet have the flexibility to add local vendors and pricing where appropriate.

Leu also cited Adaco’s scalability, its ability to track nutritional values and the ease of sharing, exporting and importing information when required. Starwood’s team went to great lengths before making its final decision, including a pilot program involving four independent Starwood properties and multiple vendors, user feedback sessions and even the provider’s willingness to fashion new functionality.

“Bids were all over the board in terms of price, support and features,” said Richard Faeh, also Corporate Chef for Starwood North America and the project manager. “As the features were compared, it then came down to what each vendor could offer in terms of their own future and sustainability. Adaco would often ask, ‘How can we help?’ rather than say an enhancement couldn’t be done.”

“We have built a strong business partnership with Starwood,” said Eddie McDonough, Vice President of Sales for Adaco. “Though there are many properties that use Adaco today, we find ourselves working at a new level with greater mutual benefits to a working collaboration.”

Frank Walbridge, Vice President of Business Development for Adaco also noted that a web-based training program customized for Starwood’s specific needs will be launched when deployments begin late this month. The first phase of the deployment will install Adaco at 10 to 20 properties every month until the more than 200 Starwood North America, owned, managed and franchise properties are fully functional. Ultimately, Adaco could be installed in nearly one thousand hotels internationally.

About Adaco
Adaco is the industry leader in hospitality procurement, management and optimization. Adaco software improves efficiency and eliminates labor-intensive manual and paper-based processes. Adaco .NET™ supports 160 regions around the world, and the company’s solutions are used in more than 54 countries. Adaco has focused exclusively on the hospitality industry since 1985.

About Starwood Hotels & Resorts Worldwide, Inc.
Starwood Hotels & Resorts Worldwide, Inc. is one of the leading hotel and leisure companies in the world with 1000 properties in 100 countries and approximately 145,000 employees at its owned and managed properties. Starwood® Hotels is a fully integrated owner, operator and franchisor of hotels and resorts with the following internationally renowned brands: St. Regis®, The Luxury Collection®, Sheraton®, Westin®, Four Points® by Sheraton, W®, Le Méridien® and the recently announced Aloft® and Element SM. Starwood Hotels also owns Starwood Vacation Ownership, Inc., one of the premier developers and operators of high quality vacation interval ownership resorts. For more information, please visit www.starwoodhotels.com.

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