IT support for Aotearoa’s first Green Star-rated hotel, The Hotel Britomart
“Sustainability is a big thing for us, and we’re always looking for ways to do more. Knowing that Brightly are on the same page and working towards their own goals is a positive for us too.”
The Hotel Britomart is an impressive new addition to Auckland’s downtown Britomart precinct. Beautifully crafted and with 5 Green Star Design and Build ratings from the NZ Green Building Council, The Hotel Britomart has sustainability built in from the ground up.
Full IT system transition by an urgent deadline
Developed by Cooper and Company and opened in 2020, The Hotel Britomart offers 99 guest rooms and five suites throughout its 10-storey tower. One year after opening, Cooper and Company took full operational responsibility of the hotel. Brightly, who has worked with Cooper and Company for some time, was asked to help with the significant transition project and provide on-going general IT support. Brightly helped The Hotel Britomart transition the full set of corporate and on-site IT systems from one company, alongside new implementations.
“We only had a three-month period to do what you’d probably spend six to nine months doing,” explains Cooper and Company IT Manager, Kelly Parlane. “The Brightly team assisted me with project management; we had five different work streams. We had onboarding corporate users, we had the actual site itself and all the systems on site, we had the marketing tools and new platforms and new CRM systems that we were building and implementing, and then we had our whole finance and data warehousing integrations.”
“The Brightly team were excellent, and we wouldn’t have been able to do it if we hadn’t had their support. Mike specifically, because he’d been across the hotel when it was first built and had been supporting some of the things on-site, he knew our best practices, so the knowledge was there already,” says Kelly.
“The whole team understood the urgency and they really did whatever was required. They were just like an extension of our own business, really easy to manage, and importantly, we met the handover deadline.”
On-going support and guidance
Since the transition, Brightly has worked closely with The Hotel Britomart team on training and documentation, as well as supporting Kelly with day-to-day hotel tech support.
“Training is massive, especially with security; we have to be really careful, as there is so much data,” Kelly says. “Brightly has provided good guidance around what to do and what not to do with awareness around emails, spam, files and sharing documents.
“Brightly are really good to work with in terms of understanding the importance of flexible and simple support. We didn’t want a complex, technical support process.
“Brightly considers what’s best for the client, and they’re not just rolling out a stock standard solution. Because they’re independent, they don’t have to do things a set way. Rather, they can look at whatever’s out there that might work for us and recommend the best, most simple solution to get the desired outcome.”
For Kelly, having the support of Brightly means she can step away from the day-to-day issues that arise and instead focus on the high-value, strategic parts of her role.
Shared sustainability goals
Sustainability sits at the heart of Brightly’s way of working, and as the first Green Star hotel in Aotearoa, it was exciting to know that embedding a more sustainable approach to IT was always going to be an important consideration for them, too.
“We knew that we were taking on a project to evolve our IT solution, and part of that was to be taking a more sustainable approach in line with our overall ethos,” Kelly says.
Sustainability also means strategies that support business resilience and continuity, even through uncertainty. With the right training and access to support, Kelly says that she’s confident The Hotel Britomart’s people are equipped with the knowledge and the set-up to be self-sufficient if needed, even during events like lockdowns.