SOL MELIA ANNUAL REPORT 00 COMP

MILESTONES 2000 · RESEARCH & DEVELOPMENT
E-Transformation: Creating a Company
for the 21st. Century
d
During the year 2000, Sol Meliá embarked on a
process of “E-Transformation”, a complex but
wholly necessary process to adapt the company
to the needs of a 21st. century business. With a
budget of around 12,000 million pesetas for creating
new technological infrastructures and participating
in joint ventures, the company aims to
remain highly competitive in a world in which
new technologies will play an increasingly
important role. The investment is distributed as
follows: E-Transformation (5,000 million pesetas
- 30 million Euros), E-Procurement (500
million pesetas - 3 million Euros), Prodigios
(3,500 million pesetas - 21 million Euros) and
Meliaviajes.com (3,000 million pesetas - 18
million Euros).
To assist in the implementation the company
has created a new E-Business Division led by
Luis del Olmo, also the Executive Vice
President of Sales & Marketing. Company
strategy is divided into three areas which are
enormously different but in which there are
three common objectives: to place the customer
at the heart of the organisation, to make
processes more efficient and save costs. The
three areas are:
1. Business to Consumer
(B2C) or Sell Side.-
Based on changes in our relations with our
customers, improving the distribution of our
products, improving the ability to attract new
customers and retain them through efficient
loyalty programmes and also improving the
services and information provided to real and
potential hotel guests. This is expected to
“We aim to
generalise the use of
the Internet and
new technologies to
find new ways of
distributing our
products and
improving the
services we provide
to our guests,
centralising all of
our procurement
procedures and
carrying them out
online, improving
the efficiency of our
operations and
optimising the
functionality of the
Sol Meliá Intranet
to improve internal
management at all
levels”.
”
Luis del Olmo Piñeiro,
Executive Vice President
E-Business
generate a greater number of reservations with
a consequent increase in revenues and decrease
in distribution costs.
Solmelia.com.- the company is currently
working on the development of a new generation
website (www.solmelia.com) to adapt the
site to the developing needs of users. A faster
and easier search engine, a more modern
design and the incorporation of innovative
new services are just some of the features that
the new site will have.
Meliaviajes.com.- This new multichannel
travel company is destined to become
a major player in the travel industry. Initially
the company will operate in Spain and
Portugal, before moving on to Latin America.
The investment earmarked for development is
set at almost 3,000 million pesetas.
AOL Avant.- Sol Meliá was a co-founder
of the generalist portal “Prodigios” which
was later also supported by Planeta and BSCH.
The initiative has ended up being integrated
with AOL Avant, the Spanish arm of America
Online which has been set up at the ParcBit in
Palma de Majorca. With a shareholding of
6.2%, Sol Meliá is also taking part in family
and leisure portal through Meliaviajes.com,
the exclusive provider of travel reservation services
through the site. The Banco Santander
Central Hispano (BSCH) and American Online
(AOL) hold 40% stakes in the business and
Planeta holds 6.17% with the remainder in the
hands of minor shareholders.
S OL
M ELIÁ
A NNUAL R EPORT 2000
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