Wyndham Hotels & Resorts

With an extensive experience in aligning IT departments with business needs and P&L management, Scott Strickland is on the path to crafting his own legacy? Strickland is proficient in digital marketing, supply chain systems, business intelligence, organization design, franchisee engagement, call center automation, and cost optimization. He has served as Global CIO, IT Executive, CIO, and VP of Information Systems, Associate Partner, and more. Currently, Strickland works as EVP and Chief Information Officer at Wyndham Hotels & Resorts.

Please share with our readers about your current roles and responsibilities.

I joined Wyndham Hotels & Resorts about six years ago, entering the hospitality industry for the first time. I was unsure why they were interested in me as a candidate. After interacting with the CEO, I understood their rationale. Wyndham Hotels & Resorts had a history of growth through acquisition and they need someone who could consolidate platforms and rapidly integrate new companies. Coming from a background in private equity, where my role involved merging and streamlining companies and their information systems, I possessed the skills that Wyndham required. When I joined Wyndham, they had 17 brands and most were acquired. We had multiple property management systems, multiple ticketing systems, and central reservation systems. We needed a strategy to execute and consolidate these systems across the brands. Since then we have grown from 17 brands to 24 brands through acquisitions, partnerships, and organic brand launches.

In terms of my responsibilities, I serve as Executive Vice President and Chief Information Officer. I am accountable for the organization’s IT needs, which include a digital stack, guest-facing technology, websites, ticketing systems, and overall infrastructure. I am also responsible for vendor management within indirect procurements, which includes IT contracts and service contracts.  Finally, I also oversee three types of call centers. So my experience in running call centers for IT-related matters expanded my responsibilities in this area.

Can you share some of the challenges you noticed in the industry?

Over the past few years, customer expectations have drastically shifted in the hospitality industry. This drastic change in customer expectation is fueled by the consumerization of IT. After the pandemic, customers expect technologies to work seamlessly just as it does in their home. We have six thousand hotels across the globe where contactless payments such as Apple Pay, and Google Pay are implemented.  We have upgraded our infrastructure enabling guests to cast and stream content from their mobile devices to the in-room TV, providing them with the flexibility to watch what they want, how they want.

Finally, the ubiquity of Wi-Fi has become an essential expectation for guests. People expect the Wi-Fi in a hotel environment to match or exceed the quality they have at home. To meet these expectations, we made significant improvements and upgrades which include guests being able to connect as soon as they check in. This consumerization of IT has shaped our customers' expectations and continues to drive our roadmap for the future. This drove us to be agile and respond quickly to these evolving demands. For example, customers no more carry cash in hand but still they want to be able to tip housekeepers. So to facilitate this, we have implemented a QR code which on scan provides pictures of housekeepers. So consumerization of IT has resulted in us investing in non-traditional areas in which we tend not to invest before.

"Every CIO should explore the possibilities of AI utilization and establish the necessary security and privacy policies to govern its implementation and while encouraging experimentation. "

Another challenging area is security. Security is a paramount concern for us. We need to find the right balance between protecting the guest's information and ensuring a user-friendly experience. To address this challenge we implemented a technology called tokenization. Through this technology, credit card numbers flowing through the system are tokenized rendering them meaningless to anyone who may intercept them. In such a way, we protect guest information while still allowing guests to interact with us in the way they prefer.

What are some of the recent trends you have noticed in the industry?

One of the recent trends that comes to my mind is the evolution of FinTech. One of the latest trends in FinTech is to pay for the vacation stay in installments. And another trend we recently see is that of digital wallets where we pay through Apple Pay, Google Pay, and PayPal. The hospitality industry is leveraging these alternative payment techniques. The recent rise in awareness of the environment has caused customers to see if the company and its corporate chain are following environmentally sustainable methods. For example, we provide the provision for skipping housekeeping, where you can choose not to wash your sheets and towels each day thereby saving unnecessary water usage. Our six thousand hotels by the end of this year will be Wyndham Green Certified, where recycling programs and electric vehicle charging provisions will be implemented. So these are the two trends seen in FinTech and Green Tech space.

Can you share any project initiative that you are part of lately?

One of the big projects I am part of right now is the shifting of property management systems to the cloud. This marks a crucial step toward our next-generation property management system. Internally we refer to this as Project Solars. This project entails us engaging with our hotels, installing new systems, and providing training on their usage. This also includes removing servers and conducting post-implementation health checks to ensure proper usage. We have implemented this in four thousand of our hotels. Rather than treating it solely as an IT project, we approach it as a collaborative effort between IT and field operations. We also conduct sessions where we gather feedback from the involved personnel, discussing what went well, what challenges were faced, and what improvements or adjustments need to be made.

How do you envision the future of the hospitality industry?

In the coming years, I strongly believe that CIOs will embrace innovation and leverage partnerships with key vendors where treating a few vendors as partners rather than having a multitude of vendors can prove more effective. Partnering with these vendors involves co-developing a roadmap or go-to strategy and a communication plan. AI is another aspect that plays a significant role in the industry. I believe every CIO should explore the possibilities of AI utilization in companies and establish the necessary security and privacy policies to govern its implementation and experimentation.  

What is your piece of advice to your fellow peers?

My piece of advice is to embrace servant-based leadership. Always focus on eliminating roadblocks of your team in order to empower them to succeed.