"TOTVS has invested more and more in the hospitality segment"

How was the company born? What is the current positioning?

Laércio Cosentino, founder and CEO of TOTVS, was just a young intern when he approached Ernesto Haberkorn, president of SIGA, TOTVS predecessor, the visionary business to focus on developing software for personal computers. The name TOTVS derives from Latin and means "everything, everyone, totality". The company of Brazilian origin, founded in 1983, is among the nine unicorns in Latin America, having achieved a market valuation in excess of US $ 1,000 million in a short time. Today it is valued at US $ 2,100 million and has a presence in 41 countries, where more than 12 thousand direct and indirect collaborators work. Since 2003, he has carried out more than 50 Merger & Acquisitions operations and in 2006 was the first IT company in Latin America to make IPO in the New Market of the São Paulo Stock Exchange (Bovespa). In Brazil, it has 15 subsidiaries, 52 franchises, 5 thousand distribution channels and 10 development centers. In the rest of the world, it has 7 subsidiaries, development centers (United States, Mexico, China and Taiwan) and numerous distribution channels.

Specifically in regard to the hospitality and tourism industry, some experts argue that the business is made possible thanks in large part to technology. What is your opinion about it?

Since the acquisition of Bematech, in October 2015, TOTVS became the largest and most complete provider of business solutions for Retail, including solutions for the hospitality segment under the CMNet brand. Since the acquisition, TOTVS as a leading company in the development of business solutions in Latin America, has invested more and more in the hospitality segment and, in order to consolidate this action, presented in 2017 TOTVS CMNet, a brand focused on solutions for companies of lodging and technology for event management, spas, points of sale (POS) of restaurants and other services that cover the hotel and tourism chain.

How do the social and economic changes we experience in the region affect your business?

The balance of TOTVS is positive in general, taking into account that the electoral scenario had an impact on the economy and mainly on the decision-making of the private sector. Issues such as inflation, dollar and imports are the main variables that our focus segment evaluated when doing business, but that, thanks to our proximity and local flexibility in the negotiations, allowed us to meet the goals proposed for this year. Likewise, we expanded our offer through fluig and pushed the current initiatives such as TOTVS Cloud and TOTVS Smart Analytics (in partnership with GoodData).

Do they work with standard solutions and others customized? Which are the most successful of the tourist industry?

In both. We invested heavily to consolidate a complete portfolio that meets the needs of hotel enterprises of all sizes and types (economic, networks, independents and resorts). Among the launches developed exclusively for the segment are: pension control, electronic command, visiting module, pre-check-in, etc.

What are your priority markets? Which ones are you thinking about betting on?

TOTVS works in several segments that are: manufacturing, agriculture, services, construction, retail and hospitality (hotels) and we are 100% dedicated to each area of ​​joint work oriented to each market vertical.

Last year during the Hotelga 2017 edition, TOTVS CMNet was presented. How did the merger advance? What were the results achieved?

It is a path that is beginning and where we continue to show our novelties to the market. We communicate the strengthening and growth of CMNET in Latin America now forming part of TOTVS through the slogan "CMNET is now TOTVS", and that remains our motto. We continue offering our solutions and vision of the future to the Latin American hotel market, showing how important it is to have a technological partner for the evolution in hotel management. We are making the path of this merger together TOTVS CMNET and it is developing in a very prolific way.