Interview: Oracle Hospitality's New Boss Looks to the Cloud for Growth
Skift Take
Oracle Hospitality is the market leader in selling hotel tech software. But the company has made some missteps. It is adjusting course, and two weeks ago it appointed a new top boss, Greg Webb. The industry will watch his moves closely.
Oracle Hospitality provides the most widely used property management systems and point-of-sale systems in hotels worldwide. Giants like Hilton, Hyatt, and Marriott rely on it, as do many small independents.
Two weeks ago, Oracle Hospitality installed Greg Webb as its new top boss. Webb was previously vice chairman of Sabre, a travel technology company with a large hospitality division of its own, for 16 months. Webb rose up through the ranks there. His stints included five years running Sabre's biggest division, which powers global airline distribution.
Webb takes the helm at Oracle Hospitality during an era of industry and technological change.
In 2014, Oracle bought Micros for $4.6 billion. Micros ran the most widely used hotel property management system, or PMS — a centralized database that keeps a golden record on guest data and that is today the heart of the typical hotel operation.
The merger didn't go smoothly.
But Webb says that transition is mostly over. Renewed growth and improved customer satisfaction will be the new normal.
What follows is an edited version of our conversation with Webb at HITEC, the Hospitality Industry Technology Exposition and Conference, last Wednesday in Houston.
Skift: As you've settled into the top job, what has stood out?
Greg Webb: I've only been in the job for two weeks. But the thing that has become obvious is that the transition from Micros to Oracle was painful for both employees and customers. It went from a federated system to something more centralized.
What's happened over the last couple of years is that Micros had some issues that Oracle has fixed. And Micros also had some things that worked w
