How Omniboost Automates Hospitality Success, with Vincent Gitsels & Romano Ruijtenburg

Manual processes. Disconnected systems. Expensive errors. Hospitality is full of friction, and Omniboost is removing it.

In this on-the-ground episode recorded after a major hospitality event in Las Vegas, host Rob Napoli sits down with two of Omniboost’s key players to explore how automation, integrations, and consultative SaaS are reshaping hotel and restaurant operations. Vincent Gitsels and Romano Ruijtenburg share how Omniboost is solving industry pain points, one data connection at a time.

🧩 Topics Covered
- Lessons from the Vegas hospitality tech floor: what hotels are asking for now
- Consultative SaaS: the blend of software + service that drives results
- Breaking financial data silos across POS, PMS, and accounting systems
- Why AI is becoming central to hospitality automation
- Self-onboarding, human error reduction, and operational scale
- What’s next for Omniboost: product roadmap insights

Whether you’re a tech leader, GM, finance head, or systems integrator, this episode unpacks the next phase of hospitality success.

📢 Like, subscribe, and drop a comment to share what automation challenge you're solving this year.

🔗 Learn more: https://www.omniboost.io

⏱️ Timestamps
00:00 Welcome to Hospitable with Rob Napoli
02:00 Lessons from the Las Vegas event
03:00 Vincent’s journey at Omniboost
04:30 Consultative SaaS explained
05:45 Breaking data silos
07:00 AI and automation in hospitality tech
08:20 POS to PMS to accounting integrations
09:10 Reducing human error with Omniboost
10:30 Insights from customer conversations
12:00 Future projects at Omniboost
13:30 Self-onboarding and operational efficiency
15:00 Final takeaways from Vegas

Connect
Vincent Gitsels: https://www.linkedin.com/in/vincent-gitsels
Romano Ruijtenburg: https://www.linkedin.com/in/romanoruijtenburg/
Rob Napoli: https://www.linkedin.com/in/robnap/
Omniboost: https://omniboost.io
Rob Napoli: https://www.robnapoli.com

Show Produced by: Niranjan Deshpande (Nick), Broken Frames Studio, www.brokenframesstudio.com

#HospitalityTech #Omniboost #DataIntegration #HospitalityAutomation #SaaS #HotelManagement #POS #PMS #AccountingSoftware #AIInHospitality #DataSilos #BusinessAutomation #OmniboostPodcast #HospitalityInnovation #HotelTech

Creators and Guests

Host

Rob Napoli

Rob is the Global Head of Brand at Omniboost and US Commercial Lead. He is passionate about sports, travel, and where to find the best whiskey bar in Manhattan.

Guest

Romano Ruijtenburg

Sales Director at Omniboost | Europe/North-America/Asia-Pacific

Guest

Vincent Gitsels

Operations Manager at Omniboost

What is Hospitable?

Hospitable is a podcast that discusses how to make hospitality MORE human through technology.

Hospitable focuses on discussing the leading challenges facing the hospitality industry and to explore the latest trends, technologies, and best practices that are shaping the industry. Each episode features interviews with hoteliers, restaurateurs, chefs, industry analysts, and other experts who share their insights and experiences on topics such as customer experience, sustainability, innovation, staffing, and more.

Hosted by Rob Napoli

Episode Details:
00:00:00:02 - 00:00:02:01
Rob Napoli
What are we doing here today? We're recording a podcast.

00:00:02:03 - 00:00:05:01
Romano Ruijtenburg
Okay, guess I am ready to rock. Still a bit jet lag.

00:00:05:01 - 00:00:09:10
Rob Napoli
Who gets jet lag anyway? Who is Romano Ruijtenburg tell me about how you found Omniboost

00:00:09:15 - 00:00:20:06
Romano Ruijtenburg
I started out as an interim with our, CEO and founder Kees. I didn't know what he was doing it was something with hotels where everything with Omniboost really happened for me.

00:00:20:08 - 00:00:29:24
Rob Napoli
Sometimes it's easy to understand what we do and hard to explain. The other day, we help our clients and our customers do find the right solutions the right one, the right systems.

00:00:30:01 - 00:00:46:21
Romano Ruijtenburg
Conversations that we have with clients, whether it's a smaller boutique hotel or a large chain with over a hundred hotels. In the end, they're all looking for a solution that does what it needs to do. They all do something a bit differently, but it is so important to them to do it differently because it works for them.

00:00:46:22 - 00:00:55:09
Romano Ruijtenburg
We, you know, spark questions coming up from clients. We give answers. What we have is a very deep understanding. Even before we have signed a contract.

00:00:55:11 - 00:01:01:13
Rob Napoli
And we don't want to sell you everything we can. That is what is the biggest impact for you. What is the biggest pain point?

00:01:01:15 - 00:01:20:06
Romano Ruijtenburg
Definitely shared with everyone involved is if you need anything. I would be happy to jump on this meeting because we've done this together. The fact that we're actually proud about the solution makes us into a company that is still happy to, you know, talk about it with the clients later on means that we build long term partnerships.

00:01:20:08 - 00:01:28:24
Rob Napoli
It makes it fun, does it not?

00:01:29:01 - 00:01:52:19
Rob Napoli
Hey, y'all. How are we doing? I am Rob Napoli the host of hospitable. Today is a really special episode and one that we've been wanting to record for a while. But I had to get my direct sales lead, Romano Ruijtenburg, to New York, and I had him back in New York, in the end of October unfortunately, we had a million and a half meetings on the books.

00:01:52:20 - 00:02:16:13
Rob Napoli
It was a quick and fast week. That culminated in us going out for Halloween show and the Halloween parade. But we wanted to really drive this conversation and talk about the Omniboost selling cycle and how we approach sales, how we do consultative selling here at Omniboost and really talk a little bit more about who we are, what we do, and why we do it.

00:02:16:13 - 00:02:28:14
Rob Napoli
So it is my honor to jump into the show with Romano, our sales lead for the direct team here at Omniboost enjoy the show, Romano How we doing, my guy?

00:02:28:16 - 00:02:38:09
Romano Ruijtenburg
Yeah. Doing well. Rob. Third day already in New York. Still a bit jetlagged, you know, honestly, but, Yeah. Doing well overall.

00:02:38:10 - 00:02:41:02
Rob Napoli
Jet lag who gets jet lag anymore?

00:02:41:04 - 00:02:45:08
Romano Ruijtenburg
Yeah, I still do. I mean, it's getting better, but, yeah, it still happens.

00:02:45:11 - 00:03:07:05
Rob Napoli
I mean, I flew over to Europe, what, six times, seven times this year. You did still, it's still a jet lag. We'll catch you. You gotta find, you got to find a way to do it. So for me, 24 hours for a fly no caffeine, which is out for lots of water. I try to adjust my sleeping schedule, so I go to bed later.

00:03:07:05 - 00:03:26:07
Rob Napoli
I get up earlier, kind of a just a few things. And then the first thing I do before I fly, especially across the Atlantic, is, carbs. So I eat a plate of pasta. That's the meal before I fly out. I tend not to eat. I always get the meal on the plane, but I usually just eat the dessert and maybe the bread and pick at it, but I don't.

00:03:26:07 - 00:03:41:19
Rob Napoli
I try not to eat on the plane pasta is a big one ahead of time. So you have carbs slow burning. It's not going to spike you as hard, and it's easier on the transition of your body as you're going up in the plane. And then when I land, the first thing I always do is either a pasta or a burger.

00:03:41:22 - 00:04:11:19
Rob Napoli
So again, protein, carbs, slow acting. And then I tip for one of first things I do really take my shoes off and walk around barefoot in the new place. I'm really help ground. I know some people that will, but that has helped me. And as you know, I love my coffee. So to go 24 hours without coffee or caffeine is hard, but it's one of the big difference makers and, avoiding jetlag for me.

00:04:11:21 - 00:04:26:02
Romano Ruijtenburg
Interesting. It's almost like if you have an entire process on this, I got to be honest, I did lose you when you said 24 hours without any caffeine. That's not going to work for me I'm a big coffee guy, you know that? Yeah.

00:04:26:04 - 00:04:49:08
Rob Napoli
I mean, it's it is the hardest part of that process of traveling, especially because there's nothing better to me than a cup of coffee. And for whatever reason, when I'm on a plane, I don't like diet coke, ever. I don't drink diet coke when I'm on a plane all I crave is a diet coke. Don't understand it, still don't understand it.

00:04:49:14 - 00:05:07:11
Rob Napoli
And so six hours with temptation of drinks. It's tough. I know it's tough, but you'll adjust it. But you know, again you gotta find that process. I'm just sharing that with you in the sense of it. It's something that has helped me as I travel. And you're starting to travel a lot more, for work. And that's that's why we're here today.

00:05:07:11 - 00:05:27:11
Rob Napoli
We have here in New York, in fact, that brought the whole direct sales team in to New York City as we sit here, early December, this podcast will probably drop, I think, in January. We brought you in friend of the year, you and the team in the front of the year. Because we really want to talk about what we expect for next year.

00:05:27:13 - 00:05:58:07
Rob Napoli
How do we continue to go to market, how tend to expand the market, and honestly changing the narrative a bit, right. When we think about Omniboost what are we, who are we Right? And we're putting a big push of expanding our service offerings on what we can do. And that's really exciting. So we really want to bring the team in aligned, set clear goals, KPIs, kind of, adjusting a little bit the way that we structure what we call our direct team.

00:05:58:07 - 00:06:17:21
Rob Napoli
So here at Omniboost we have two sides. And I'm talking a lot to set the stage. But we have two sides of our business. We have our partner channel. We have amazing partners and amazing guests like Richard Valtr from Mews, Jacob Messina from Stay in Touch. We've had folks on from other partners like Market Man and Meal Ticket.

00:06:17:23 - 00:06:38:15
Rob Napoli
So we have that partner channel and, and that, that that's where we've really built the business building integrations. And I think of PMS accounting, POS to PMS and POS to accounting. So that's the partnership. Now the other side is what we call our direct side business. And this is the team that's really focused on kind of our new our market and what we've really grown last year.

00:06:38:15 - 00:07:01:11
Rob Napoli
When we think of the deal with Strawberry, the project we had with MCR we'll get into the project we've just completed with Midas Hospitality out of Saint Louis. We're really working with management companies and hospitality groups and hotels, even independent hotels, directly to develop a data unification process for them. And I'm excited to kind of share on this podcast some of the systems.

00:07:01:11 - 00:07:18:15
Rob Napoli
But I'll let you do the reveal on some of the systems that we've opened up this year. Thanks to the heavy lift of you so what we're going to do today is I'm going to give you a little insight to who Romano is, and we're going to talk about what it means to be a consultant of sales here at Omniboost and what we expect to do later this year.

00:07:18:17 - 00:07:20:00
Romano Ruijtenburg
So sounds good.

00:07:20:02 - 00:07:41:22
Rob Napoli
I did a little bit of a diatribe, and if you're still listening to episode, I promise it's worth it. But I wanted to give you give the listeners out there a little bit of, an understanding of why this matters to us because I feel very passionate about what we're building and what we're doing as well as, you know, because you hear me talk about it week in, week out.

00:07:41:24 - 00:07:56:23
Rob Napoli
So, Romano, why don't you give you a little bit of, I love time I. Romano. Sorry. We had a long conversation about this yesterday, but why don't you give a quick background on who is Romano Ruijtenburg and, tell me a little bit how you found Omniboost?

00:07:57:00 - 00:08:29:10
Romano Ruijtenburg
Yeah, definitely. Thanks, Rob. So it is, a bit of an interesting story, or I would say a coincidence. Really. So just to start with the basics. My name is Romano. I'm 27 years old. I'm a Dutch guy, and I've been with Omniboost for four and a half years now, almost five years. I started out as an intern and yeah, the background story as of why I started out as an intern at Omniboost because Omniboost is a company that is based in Zealand, the Netherlands.

00:08:29:12 - 00:09:00:24
Romano Ruijtenburg
It is where I grew up, but it is not where I lived. Yeah. For the for the past ten years. So I was finalizing my master's thesis in finance, but I wanted to go to a place abroad to finish my masters. That place was Madrid. I don't think I chose the city for the fact that it has a university or multiple universities, but rather because of the good food and the great weather, if I'm being honest.

00:09:01:02 - 00:09:24:09
Rob Napoli
I mean good food, great weather especially. I mean, I've spent a lot of time in the Netherlands, sunshine, warm weather is always great. I mean, you know, I, I chose to go to Milan, when I was following my wife, but, you know, I wanted good food. I wanted that Italian culture. I wanted to drink Aperol Spritz, like I, you know, obviously, I had a good education.

00:09:24:09 - 00:09:48:06
Rob Napoli
I got to coach American football. Like, those were part of the reasons I went to Milan and to Italy. But I went. Yeah, sometimes, you know, we choose schools. Yes, for the degree, but also for the experience that I try. I think to me, experience is not about length of experience, it's about experience gained. And so when you make decisions for experience, that's to me that's more important.

00:09:48:06 - 00:09:52:01
Rob Napoli
So I love that you talk about that as part of it. So sorry for interrupting.

00:09:52:07 - 00:10:20:21
Romano Ruijtenburg
No worries. Yeah. So I really chose Madrid for the good university and indeed the weather, the food, you know, just everything added up. You know, I want to see, I stopped renting my place back in Tilburg, which is a Dutch, student town. And, you know, I pack my bags and I was ready to fly out to Madrid, just, I would say one week before I would fly out, my university told me, you know, you can't go because there's too many Covid cases.

00:10:20:21 - 00:10:41:20
Romano Ruijtenburg
That was back in 2020. So we had the Covid, pandemic going on. Obviously, you know, people all over the world were affected. So yes, it was a bit you know, I was a bit sad that I couldn't go. But I also realize, you know, there's people, you know, losing relatives and the like. So it was it was a minor thing for me.

00:10:41:22 - 00:10:58:11
Romano Ruijtenburg
But yeah, I didn't have anything going on in the Netherlands really back then because I would ride my master thesis I couldn't do that in the Netherlands. My university told me I had to postpone with at least six months because I didn't do it in Madrid, so I had to wait. So I decided I need to do something.

00:10:58:11 - 00:11:18:21
Romano Ruijtenburg
I'm not going to sit on the couch and don't do anything. So I started looking into my LinkedIn network, looking into previous internships that I did, and I actually did an internship with our, CEO and founder Kees seven years before that, when I finished high school.

00:11:18:23 - 00:11:21:10
Rob Napoli
Like early, early days back in the company.

00:11:21:10 - 00:11:45:22
Romano Ruijtenburg
Yes. When he had another company. So I knew Kees from back in 2014, I guess. And, I reached out to him because I still followed him on LinkedIn, and he was doing pretty cool stuff. I didn't know what he was doing. It was something with hotels. He was telling me about pipelines, about repositories, and was like, I mean, I don't get any of that because my background is in finance.

00:11:45:24 - 00:11:57:02
Romano Ruijtenburg
But yeah, I reached out to Kees we, you know, scheduled a meeting and, we just started talking and that's where everything with Omniboost really happened for me.

00:11:57:03 - 00:12:14:06
Rob Napoli
I love that and you know, I always like to joke, with Romano, and, when I always introduce him, on calls I always say, you know, Romano is a lot of times when we work because of what we do, we do a lot of stuff with accounting and finance and, the likes.

00:12:14:10 - 00:12:37:01
Rob Napoli
I was, you know, a lot of times people like to introduce themselves as, recovering accountants working on the tech side of things. And I was like a joke that, you know, Romano, if he'd got on his path, was bound for big corporate finance world. But we recruited him to Omniboost and, changed his path. I mean, partly because of, you know, what, what happened in the world at the time.

00:12:37:01 - 00:12:53:11
Rob Napoli
Partly because, you know, life happens and changes. And so we're glad to have you and Romano started on our onboarding team, building pipelines for some of our biggest partners. So he's seen. So you didn't know what pipelines and repositories were then, but you sure as hell no, right? No, I do.

00:12:53:13 - 00:12:55:24
Romano Ruijtenburg
Yes, I can dream of it.

00:12:56:01 - 00:13:18:12
Rob Napoli
So Romano worked his way up from, you know, really working on the front line, building pipelines, onboarding some of our biggest customers and biggest partners in the early days, been a part of, you know, the 0 to 1, and the one plus, as we've really grown and, as about a year ago, well, I met we met almost two and a half years ago.

00:13:18:14 - 00:13:21:06
Romano Ruijtenburg
Back in 2021. We met, yeah, in New York City.

00:13:21:06 - 00:13:25:23
Rob Napoli
Yeah, in New York City. And you guys came over. That was the Korean barbecue night. That's a story for another time.

00:13:25:23 - 00:13:28:14
Romano Ruijtenburg
Yes.

00:13:28:16 - 00:13:55:09
Rob Napoli
And, you were still kind of in a transition period from onboarding and getting more on the South side and doing some partner management. I joined, back in 23, early 23. And then by the end of 23, we're really looking at the commercial team. And that's when I stepped into my current role of chief commercial officer and taking over all of sales, marketing and brand from being head of brand marketing to full on commercial.

00:13:55:11 - 00:14:13:07
Rob Napoli
And we looked at the team, we had a lot of kind of people in places that were doing dual roles. And I remember, you know, you were like, I want to be commercial, I want to sell. I want to work with our customers more. And so got you kind of fully aligned. And we were like, let's, let's see if we can go.

00:14:13:09 - 00:14:33:03
Rob Napoli
Let's see if we can go direct. Let's see if we can go about this new channel and, me or the right person for it. So we brought you on. I think that what's made this, successful is, the building is because we don't take a traditional sales approach, and I know this can be, you know, pedantic.

00:14:33:03 - 00:14:47:02
Rob Napoli
And you could look at it in different ways. And everyone says they sell differently. I think sales and sales are sales, but I do think there's different ways to go about the way we sell. And we like to talk about us as a consultative SAS company, a consultative sales company.

00:14:47:04 - 00:14:47:22
Romano Ruijtenburg
We do, yes.

00:14:47:22 - 00:15:06:19
Rob Napoli
So what is consultative sales and consultative selling mean to you, and how do you approach that in your day to day? So I obviously have strong opinions, but I'd love to hear. I'm sure they want to hear from you more about how you think about it and go about it as the sales leader for us on the direct side.

00:15:06:21 - 00:15:39:18
Romano Ruijtenburg
Yeah, definitely. So, indeed, what I did in the in the first two years in Omniboost is really building those, those pipelines, as we call them, or integrations. I'm not a coder, but, you know, I can now read a pipeline and understand what it's doing. And because I did more than a thousand of those integrations, building and testing them, doing meetings with clients, that's really when I learned about what exactly does our product do?

00:15:39:20 - 00:16:04:07
Romano Ruijtenburg
Obviously, we have all the products right now, but PMS connectivity into accounting systems is still one of our main, and core businesses. A thing because I did it for two, two and a half years and did thousands of meetings and integrations. It really, you know, shaped me into the role I am in right now. And it's just my second nature to explain everything to clients.

00:16:04:07 - 00:16:20:03
Romano Ruijtenburg
It's also, you know, a disadvantage every now and then because sometimes clients don't want to go that deep, especially not in the first meeting. But it's just within me to to, you know, engage the client into our complete solution and not just talk about what it does and how it transfers data.

00:16:20:04 - 00:16:46:01
Rob Napoli
Yeah. And I think that's where what I think is, is special and how and why we're so big on consultative SAS and and consultative selling is sometimes it's easy to understand what we do and hard to explain. And Omniboost for data unification platform or identification company with a platform that we've built. And they used to think of us as an integrator partner.

00:16:46:02 - 00:17:12:01
Rob Napoli
Some people used to say cost middleware and I and originally we kind of started out that way building integrations. And as we've build and scaled, we've created a full unification layer and a full on platform that it's configuring systems. And we talk about repositories and things like it can get very technical. The day we help our clients and our customers do is find the right solutions, the right one, the right systems.

00:17:12:02 - 00:17:41:14
Rob Napoli
Sometimes the clients come to us and they don't know which systems to use. Sometimes they have systems in place, but they don't. They don't integrate with each other in the transfer data is a very repetitive, manual, laborious process. And when you're thinking of a hotel or a restaurant that can be anywhere from hundreds to thousands to hundreds of thousands of transactions on a monthly basis, when you look at some of these large hotels and processing, you know, turnover of rooms to room charges.

00:17:41:14 - 00:18:07:00
Rob Napoli
So all these things and on the back end and the accounting world, you have to reconcile, you have to make sure that your numbers are straight. And we do at a base level is automate all those process processes with a semantics layer to make sure that the data gets transferred into your. At the end of the day, customers like to use the PMS as a source of truth, but accounting is where it all has to end up and it has to be right.

00:18:07:02 - 00:18:38:02
Rob Napoli
Otherwise the effects downhill of that being wrong are many. And we have created a way to reduce errors, reduce time, and have our clients focus on what really matters customer growth, customer satisfaction, reconciliation processes and more. Focus in on the product side of things or the experience side versus the manual labor of entry.

00:18:38:04 - 00:19:06:17
Romano Ruijtenburg
That's correct. And that's exactly what I'm telling clients throughout the process. And I mean, I think that in all of the conversations that we have with, with clients, whether it's a smaller boutique hotel or a large chain with over 100 hotels, in the end they're all looking for a solution that, you know, easily sets does what it needs to do, which means transferring the entries from the PMS into the accounting system.

00:19:06:19 - 00:19:28:21
Romano Ruijtenburg
However, what's also a thing that we do see in this industry is that every client is different, and there is no consistency across large hotel chains. There is no consistency across smaller hotels. They all do something a bit differently, but it is so important to them to do it differently because it works for them. And they've done it like this for the past ten years.

00:19:28:23 - 00:19:52:07
Romano Ruijtenburg
And I think in, in, in my and, you know, this is also something that other people we don't normally do when talking to prospecting clients is we really engage with them about the complete solutions and not just about what the solution does, but also about the onboarding process and what we do after a connection goes live. And because we engage about the entire process, we, you know, spark questions coming up from clients.

00:19:52:09 - 00:20:07:18
Romano Ruijtenburg
We give answers, we ask them, questions. And ultimately, what we have is a very deep understanding of what solution we need to enable for the client. Even before we have signed a contract. And I think for me, that is what consultative selling is really about. Yeah.

00:20:07:20 - 00:20:37:18
Rob Napoli
And I and I love that you kind of walk that through because it could be that we the end of the day, you know, we get a contract and it's for PMS to accounting. But before we sign that contract, we've already discussed PMS to accounting. Understanding what the what a data services layer could look like, understanding what POS you have enabled, what additional systems are being brought in, whether we're integrating or connecting them or not, or understand that full picture, and walking you through how those different changes affect that.

00:20:37:20 - 00:20:56:03
Rob Napoli
So that even if it's this part of the solution, they understand the full landscape and we understand the full landscape with them and have walked through how we can help make all those different things efficiently. And that is where the difference is, is that we're not trying, and we don't want to sell you everything we can. That is what is the biggest impact for you.

00:20:56:03 - 00:21:26:20
Rob Napoli
What is the biggest pain point? And then we want to give you a full picture of the ecosystem so you understand, what you're stepping into and how that's going to affect your lives in a daily way monthly way. You're the way. What is the return on investment in terms of, reduced reduction of labor hours into certain processes so that you can reassign those to other things, to the efficiency of the data and how that really affects the numbers and how that fact that you can reconcile your books faster, right?

00:21:26:20 - 00:21:47:07
Rob Napoli
Usually you get them 2 to 3 weeks for the month before, and then you have to start the next month. If we can reduce that time by days or weeks. All those things are what we want to do before we even sign that contract and just make them understand. And that's where I think that the bigger picture of of consultative selling comes in is just how does this really affect downstream?

00:21:47:09 - 00:22:11:19
Rob Napoli
And then we are a SAS company and they want at the end of the day, they want the integration to work right. And it's really easy. When you think of SAS you think of what is onboarding. It look like we have self onboarding right? We have automated platforms that make it as easy as possible to to onboard into our systems and, and in the process.

00:22:11:22 - 00:22:31:01
Rob Napoli
But there's always someone available and we make we make sure to overcommunicate what that support channel looks like so that you have support on a regular basis. We have, you know, we kind of walk with them through the whole process from start to finish to going live. Right?

00:22:31:03 - 00:22:33:13
Romano Ruijtenburg
We do. We definitely do.

00:22:33:15 - 00:22:58:11
Rob Napoli
So when we talk about consultative selling, I think a great example and a really cool project that we just completed was Midas Hospitality. What, 60 hotels, multiple different systems. And a lot of you have to understand why this is so impactful is some hotel chains have one PMS and one accounting. They able to streamline. But some other chains are groups have what are called branded hotels.

00:22:58:13 - 00:23:18:14
Rob Napoli
And if it's a Marriott it's a Wyndham, Choice., Hyatt whatever it is, some of those brands have to use certain tools so they could have 6 or 7 PMS is but one accounting system, and they have to create a process that works for all those different systems. And those systems are very different, which is what happened with Midas.

00:23:18:16 - 00:23:35:12
Rob Napoli
So walk me through and we are going through the whole process of Midas, and we are thinking of the consultative lens of what were some of the things that we had to put in place to make sure that we can deliver. And then what I'm really excited about is what systems did we unlock with this project that we're really excited for for 2025?

00:23:35:14 - 00:24:23:14
Romano Ruijtenburg
Yeah. So let's let's kick it off with the systems. The systems we connected were the, PMS, which are used by Hilton, Marriott and IHG hotels. So those are own QPP Fossey and Oprah, Oprah on prem. You know, each of those systems is is a great system in its own way, I would say. But one thing for sure is that they were never built with the intention to have fully automated accounting connectivity between the PMS and any sort of ERP or accounting system that is specifically the solution that we have been delivering and that, yeah, we have been working on for for Midas, I think it's been a great project, honestly.

00:24:23:16 - 00:24:49:03
Romano Ruijtenburg
I can't thank the Midas team and our other partners within this project enough because they've been delivering great work and, you know, they've been putting in all of the effort that that I've asked them to put into the project. But what I'm really proud of, I would say in this project, is that, you know, because those property management systems are more like legacy systems.

00:24:49:05 - 00:25:29:19
Romano Ruijtenburg
We say they like functionality. They don't like functionality, I guess, but I do like functionality when it comes to transferring accounting entries to the accounting system. Right. And that is something that we have covered on the Omniboost and we have some very technical but still strong workarounds. And it was, such a great process because, of the, communication with our partners alone, but also because of the internal communication we've had with our tech teams, with our engineers, all of the due diligence and the checks we've done before, implementing such a workarounds, and then ultimately seeing those workarounds coming into place and seeing what the results are and having a fully automated

00:25:29:19 - 00:25:34:10
Romano Ruijtenburg
accounting connection for 30 plus hotels is just an amazing thing to see.

00:25:34:14 - 00:25:58:08
Rob Napoli
Yeah, it was an amazing project, and I think it was one that really highlighted what we can do as a company and what makes us unique in terms of our approach to selling and what we call consultative SAS. And I will say the workaround, it's not really a workaround. It's, I want to clarify because I want to hear work around it could be a positive or negative.

00:25:58:13 - 00:26:45:13
Rob Napoli
What we do is because of our unification platform and our semantics layer, we're able to take the data from all the systems and basically manipulate it to fit the accounting, our ERP system. And we're able to do that because we've worked with so many different systems that the depth and breadth of what we've done, whether it's consume, flow, close flow, whether it's, you know, SLA standard or whatever standard you're using, whether it's US versus Spain to France, to Germany to UK, we have built the semantics layer into our process so that we can really create the efficient automation of the data and it was a team effort.

00:26:45:13 - 00:27:05:11
Rob Napoli
It was, an effort from the client. It was an effort from all of our partners involved. It was a huge effort from our tech team, our support and onboarding team. There are so many people involved in that. But it that's that's what you get when you get a consultative SAS. A lot of times when you SAS, you pay, you sign up and as opposed to work and then you're lucky if you get support.

00:27:05:13 - 00:27:21:09
Rob Napoli
Well, you have automated support. You get real support. What we do differently is we're there to hold your hand all the way through. We're not going to let you leave you high and dry. We're going to make sure that we are with you every step of the way and really drive the best overall solution that we can.

00:27:21:15 - 00:27:25:06
Rob Napoli
And it's it makes it fun, does it not?

00:27:25:08 - 00:28:06:02
Romano Ruijtenburg
Yeah. It makes it, you know, real fun. You know, after the project, something that I've definitely shared with everyone involved is if you need anything, you know, in the upcoming weeks or months or years, just let me know. Whatever it is about, I would be happy to jump on this meeting because we've done this together. We've learned so much throughout the the project, especially about the systems and the solution that, you know, the fact that we're actually proud about the solution makes us into a company that is still happy to, you know, talk about it with the clients later on if it's, you know, an issue, we can solve it.

00:28:06:02 - 00:28:29:06
Romano Ruijtenburg
Obviously, but there's always more to the table that we can, and that we can help, clients out with. And I think the approach we take within our, you know, consultative, projects, as a SAS company, means that we build long term partnerships. And me doing those projects is not just a moment of being proud.

00:28:29:06 - 00:28:39:14
Romano Ruijtenburg
It's also a moment of building this company and expanding our, you know, portfolio of clients. We have a strong partnership. And yeah, that's a nice part about it.

00:28:39:14 - 00:29:05:01
Rob Napoli
It is super interesting. And it really creates this opportunity for us to continue to work at a deeper level with so many different systems and people and companies and things. And that's what I think makes our SAS solution so unique, because we add that layer of the consultative layer into it, and that's something that is driven at every layer of the company.

00:29:05:01 - 00:29:23:01
Rob Napoli
Right from our founder, who talks about it incessantly to all of our frontline teams, where we take the methodology of unreasonable hospitality, we are always going to figure it out and solve a problem. And that is who we are at our core and our core DNA.

00:29:23:03 - 00:29:49:04
Romano Ruijtenburg
Yeah. I mean, I would say and this is something that's very often set within the hospitality industry, right? Whatever send or whatever product you have is it's always said, we want to give time back to people within the hospitality industry. I think what we do is give time back to people, but also give people the opportunity to always reach out to us and have a chat about whatever's going on.

00:29:49:06 - 00:30:11:09
Romano Ruijtenburg
Because in the end, we're all working together in this industry. You can give time to people, and they can spend with loved ones and have some spare time and do nice things. But in the end, if you're working and you have a question or an issue, you need to be certain that you can reach out to someone and get that answer within the next five minutes and that is the Omniboost does with clients.

00:30:11:11 - 00:30:15:14
Rob Napoli
It could also be the next couple of hours or within a business day. Not always the next time.

00:30:15:16 - 00:30:26:02
Romano Ruijtenburg
It's I mean, you know, my standards are very high and that I've been on the onboarding, team for a long time as I likes. Yeah, I need to respect them.

00:30:26:02 - 00:30:26:15
Rob Napoli
Absolutely.

00:30:26:15 - 00:30:30:14
Romano Ruijtenburg
Five minutes is, is a bit short, but you know what I mean.

00:30:30:16 - 00:30:49:12
Rob Napoli
I love it, and this is where, you know, as you said, you're based out of the Netherlands, up in Utrecht. Just outside of Amsterdam. You're in New York often I'm over there often our team is very fluid in terms of being kind of everywhere. So how do you kind of structure management?

00:30:49:12 - 00:31:13:10
Rob Napoli
Right. We have clients all the way from Hawaii to, across the globe, in Europe and, and India, all the way out to a in Australia, New Zealand. And we jump on calls at different times. So how do you kind of manage, from a global standpoint to, to handle that, that schedule, but also, you know, finding time to sleep and eat and be a human.

00:31:13:12 - 00:31:52:07
Romano Ruijtenburg
Yeah, exactly. And I mean, it can be a real challenge, but over time, you you get better in managing your schedule and and understanding when you can have a meeting and when you can definitely not have a meeting. I think, that, in the beginning of, of doing this and managing a global, set of clients ranging from the western coast of the US up until New Zealand was it was definitely a challenge and something I couldn't really manage that well, I mean, I could manage it, but I was having meetings at, you know, 7 a.m. in the morning and still doing meetings at sometimes 9 or 10 p.m. in the evening and not

00:31:52:07 - 00:32:12:02
Romano Ruijtenburg
really taking of a few hours in between because I felt like, hey, I got to cover my emails, I got to cover my my meetings. I got to prepare them. I think right now it's going way better because I do those US hour, days. Right. So I start a little later in the morning and then work until 8 or 9 p.m..

00:32:12:02 - 00:32:32:16
Romano Ruijtenburg
Sometimes. But also sometimes it's, you know, although you want to serve clients and you want to have those meetings with, with clients to help them out or with prospects, it's also about protecting yourself a bit. Right? And sometimes it's all about saying, hey, I'm sorry, this day doesn't work for me, for this or that reason. Can we meet a few days later?

00:32:32:16 - 00:32:48:19
Romano Ruijtenburg
And in those cases, clients are totally okay with that. And I think as long as you respect that schedule, yeah, things work out. Yeah. But so it can be a challenge, especially, you know, if your, chief commercial officer reaches out. Hey, we need to have a chat. We have this big opportunity. What are we going to do then?

00:32:48:19 - 00:32:53:00
Romano Ruijtenburg
I'm not going to say, hey, sorry, Rob. I'm not meeting you. So.

00:32:53:02 - 00:33:19:02
Rob Napoli
Yeah, it's it's a balance, right. And I think what I love about it and that part of what we've continued to build is we also with our clients and customers. Protecting your calendar a little bit is is smart and but also giving the reason not just, hey, I can't make it. Hey, I could make it, but for my calendar, it'd be better if we do this or this, because usually if you just given the reason that you're not available, but I can do it the following day or the day after, it's usually okay.

00:33:19:02 - 00:33:47:11
Rob Napoli
And obviously there are certain exceptions to the rule of things that need to happen now problem solutions, whatever, sometimes tight timelines. But one of the things that we've worked on heavily is, is protecting your time, right? And setting up that schedule. And then we've also been bringing people in, you know, obviously in New York, whether you're New York, US team have a lot of people in Europe, we've also have a couple of people over in the eight pack as we are expanding, out there and looking at expanding offices across, Dubai and Singapore.

00:33:47:13 - 00:34:18:02
Rob Napoli
So we're continuing to grow. Our team put people in different time zones to be able to locally establish that internally with our team, we have folks who've spent years living in markets and working in markets that we can leverage that that kind of cultural understanding of the markets and building that out and then utilizing our team and the way we're building to put the right people in the right positions while also having that that kind of good global structure and scalability, which I think is really important.

00:34:18:04 - 00:34:34:17
Rob Napoli
And I think a really cool piece that we've really managed to find those differences because is, you know, like Tuesday, Thursdays are my early days, European hours. And then Monday, Wednesday, Friday, my U.S. hours and we have those things where we can really scale out and really create scalability together. And that's what I think makes us unique.

00:34:34:19 - 00:34:50:19
Rob Napoli
Everyone in the leadership team is willing to jump on a call at 11 p.m. or 5 a.m.. And every support front line is willing to jump on a call at 5 a.m. or 11 p.m. if it makes sense, and that that's the difference. You protect your time, but you also offer flexibility to be there when our customers need it most.

00:34:50:19 - 00:34:57:21
Rob Napoli
And that's that's part of that consultative SAS methodology mindset of being unreasonably hospitable.

00:34:57:23 - 00:35:23:22
Romano Ruijtenburg
Yeah, definitely. And I mean, we all know this, but people within the hospitality industry are very appreciating of others overall. And the flexibility we offer is, is, is something that's recognized by a lot of clients and partners. So indeed, we have those meetings every now and then where it's 10 or 11 p.m. your local time and you're still in that meeting and you see this black background and people say, hey, where are you at?

00:35:23:22 - 00:35:36:19
Romano Ruijtenburg
I'm in Amsterdam. Isn't it like 10 or 11 p.m. over there? Like, yeah, it is like, oh wow, I really appreciate your time. And that, you know, builds the trust along the process. Together with this consultative approach. And it just all adds up.

00:35:36:21 - 00:36:08:23
Rob Napoli
Yeah, I love it. And it's it's really impactful and important. And as we head into 25 really excited about what we can offer, having advanced capabilities, not only, you know, we have over 80 accounting systems, 50 PMS, 35 POS and then a multitude of other things and marketing and inventory management and you can look at our website. There's a lot for me to to rattle off on this, but I really am excited about what we've been able to unlock this year from Fassi from.

00:36:08:23 - 00:36:38:10
Rob Napoli
ONQ, PEP, Opera Cloud, Opera on Prem, the 5.5 and 5.6 Lightspeed Galaxy, some other systems, but then obviously our connectivity to, the Mews the cloud beds to stay in touch as of the world down to the those and the, Noovy. Right. And when you look at all these different systems and our ability to support all those things is really allow us to provide data unification and be a go to.

00:36:38:10 - 00:37:03:22
Rob Napoli
And we want to continue to be, a go to for the industry to really help make things happen. And I think that is the most impactful thing that we continue to build on at the company, as I say on the team. But I think companywide, everything we do, we always think about, you know, what has impact Omniboost and the wider ecosystem.

00:37:03:24 - 00:37:28:03
Romano Ruijtenburg
Yeah. Yeah. I mean it's almost scary at this point. How many you know, PMS is an endpoint of sales we have connected and into how many accounting systems. We we have done that. I'm very excited for 25, because of a variety of reasons. It's I mean, mostly the team, the motivation we see, but also the systems we've unlocked.

00:37:28:05 - 00:37:50:09
Romano Ruijtenburg
Yeah, some of those systems have been there for the past 30 or 40 years, and they are huge and there are so much potential. And that's that's great to see. And yeah, it's it's going to be a busy year, I guess. Definitely there will be challenges and we will have busy schedules where we have to hop on a meeting at 8 a.m. and do another one at 8 p.m..

00:37:50:11 - 00:37:52:23
Romano Ruijtenburg
But, it is what it is. Yeah.

00:37:53:00 - 00:38:06:23
Rob Napoli
And I think 25 is going to be a great year. We're going to be growing a team, growing the company. You know, we have over I think it's we're over 7000 integrations and 85 countries around. Right.

00:38:06:24 - 00:38:09:17
Romano Ruijtenburg
I think it's 7500 right now.

00:38:09:19 - 00:38:11:04
Rob Napoli
So 7500 sure.

00:38:11:04 - 00:38:12:03
Romano Ruijtenburg
But I figure this.

00:38:12:05 - 00:38:36:06
Rob Napoli
I mean, you might know better than me, but 7500 migrations across 85 countries. It's amazing. And the amount of systems that we have connected to the amount of, I always like, talk about processing volume, the amount of things that we process on a daily basis. I think over 6 million, processed on a given day is is amazing, if not more.

00:38:36:08 - 00:39:06:11
Rob Napoli
And that is something that this is going to continue expanding with the capabilities of our system and what we are continuing to build in to our systems, but also leveraging our data services and, and the full on warehouse capabilities, for further connectivity, further unification. You know, we want to help unlock potential with these systems and help hoteliers, whether it's independent through big chains and everything in between, from management companies to hospital groups to restaurant groups.

00:39:06:13 - 00:39:25:10
Rob Napoli
If we can help, that's what we want to do. What, we want to make things smoother and really, we it's about freeing up time. We brought this up earlier. I think what's really impactful is freeing up time for a purpose, so that that time can be given back for the right things. Improving on product, improving our guest experience, customer satisfaction.

00:39:25:10 - 00:39:44:06
Rob Napoli
And you can spend less time fixing things on the back end so you can spend more time focusing on your core business, then that's what makes us happy. Our core business is to help you focus on your core business, and that is something that we get to do. And it's so much fun working with, with these groups to do so.

00:39:44:06 - 00:40:03:19
Rob Napoli
So I'm excited for 25. Excited to see you continue to grow as you take on your next level of the career as the global sales lead for our new business, a lot of, challenges coming up for you, but also a lot of growth. And that's just a lot of fun. I was really glad to, first podcast ever.

00:40:03:21 - 00:40:04:05
Romano Ruijtenburg
First podcast ever

00:40:04:05 - 00:40:18:16
Rob Napoli
Yes, first, the first of many, as you continue to do to get out there and, you know, want to have you back on to talk further and 25 as we continue to grow and expand and really build out this Omniboost rocket ship. Right?

00:40:18:18 - 00:40:34:23
Romano Ruijtenburg
Yeah, definitely. Yeah, I'm excited for it. And, excited to be, in New York. Next year, flying over every now and then. I'm not going to do no caffeine for 24 hours on those planes, but, yeah, yeah, it's going to be a good year.

00:40:35:00 - 00:41:06:15
Rob Napoli
Awesome. Well, we're excited for next year and really glad that, you know, you've been through the journey with Omniboost and started from the bottom and work your way up to this role. And I think that makes what we do unique. So many of our sales team have worked in the industry, come up through our our company and really, you know, every way the company kind of goes in and does some sort of do I call our tour of duty, so we understand what building a pipeline looks like, understanding what an integration does and how it makes it makes a difference to, you know, if we're going to sell it, we're going to

00:41:06:15 - 00:41:17:10
Rob Napoli
know how to do it. I think that's also part of what makes us different. So excited for 25 of a job in 24 and looking forward to taking this thing next level. Appreciate you, Romano.

00:41:17:12 - 00:41:19:03
Romano Ruijtenburg
Thanks, Rob. Appreciate it.

00:41:19:05 - 00:41:36:24
Rob Napoli
All right. That has been another episode of hospitable. As always be a tier one like rate. Subscribe. Review. If there is people that should be on, if there's topics you want to cover or if there's feedback you have, click the link down below. Let us know. Really appreciate you and until next time, stay well.