Mr Yap Chee Yuen (second from left), with (from left) Ms Tan Yen Yen, Mr Lui Tuck Yew and RADM(NS) Ronnie Tay.

When Resorts World Sentosa (RWS) embarked on the development of a Customer, Membership and Services (CMS) system in 2007, it faced an interesting challenge in scoping out the user requirements – most of the business users were not yet on board.

But that did not stop the IT team from deploying, just 21 months later, a system that would enable the seamless flow of information across all of the resort’s six business areas – hotel, theme parks, casino, food and beverage, retail and shows – and put the customer at the centre of its operations. It went on to win RWS this year’s National Infocomm Award for the Most Innovative Use of Infocomm Technology in the Private Sector (General).

The S$6.59 billion RWS was built in a record time of under three years, and had its soft opening in January 2010. Facilities at the integrated resort currently include four hotels, the region’s first and only Universal Studios theme park, the country’s first casino, the Festive Grand theatre, the Resorts World Convention Centre, as well as an array of retail and dining options, with more attractions and hotels scheduled to open in phases in the coming months. RWS currently attracts about 1 million visitors a month, and is on course to meet its target of 13 million visitors in its first year.

To develop the resort’s CMS system, the IT team visited the parent company at Genting Highlands in Malaysia to understand the processes that underpin the operations of an integrated resort, adopt what was suitable and improve on processes that could be carried out in a better, faster way, said Mr Yap Chee Yuen, Senior Vice President and Head of Innovation & Technology, Resorts World Sentosa. As a group, Genting has had more than 30 years’ experience in running integrated resorts. “You could say we went up the mountain to seek wisdom,”
he quipped.

Back in Singapore, the team also had to factor in requirements that were unique to the local context, such as the implementation of a levy collection and entry control system to address the requirements of the Casino
Regulatory Authority.

Conceptually, the CMS covers three areas – One Customer, One Card and One Resort. As Mr Yap explained, “One Customer is about membership – the ability to link and associate customers’ details and preferences to give our frontliners a single view of the customer in order to deliver a more personal level of customer service. One Card is about loyalty – providing the ability for customers to earn and redeem loyalty points across all six domains of the resort. And One Resort is about providing integrated services to our customers, allowing them to interact with us via multiple channels such as the call centre, the Internet and kiosks, and eventually using their mobile devices as well.”

Built from scratch by an in-house team of 50 IT professionals, the development of the 24x7 mission-critical CMS involved about 23,000 man days of effort and has over 400 functionalities, about 120 interfaces and supports
4,000 users.

“CMS has brought about improved efficiency and productivity for the resort, enhanced customer satisfaction and loyalty,” said Mr Yap. “It provides us with a framework that will enable us to continue to roll out new capabilities to stay competitive and keep pace with changing business requirements.”