NEC, a giant player in Japan's information technology and electronics field, boasts a diverse portfolio of services in both the B2B and B2C domains. Among its services are hospitality solutions. For multiple decades, packaged as NEC Smart Hospitality Solution (NEHOPS), one comprehensive service, NEC has been the leading leader in providing global integrated hotel management solutions for hotels and chains. However, rapid technological advances in recent years have pushed the hospitality industry into a digital revolution, and NEC's offering needs to upgrade to meet the evolving needs of its partners and unlock new growth opportunities.

As NEC's trusted partner, we are tasked with a crucial mission: revamping NEHOPS. This is not just a routine update but a strategic move to align with the changing needs of the industry and our partners. From information architecture and server interaction to the structure of the service package, every aspect of the service needs to be reimagined and upgraded. This case study will focus on the new service package's Employee Experience service.

Originally launched as NEC’s Smart Hospitality Solutions suite, NEHOPS quickly became a foundational platform in the global hotel industry. For years, it supported over 1,000 hotels and hotel chains worldwide—empowering both boutique brands and international groups to streamline operations and elevate guest experiences.

Yet, as the digital landscape evolved, NEHOPS began to show its age. Built on an outdated legacy system, the platform struggled to integrate with newer technologies, particularly modern IoT infrastructures. Maintenance became increasingly complex and costly. Simultaneously, as software development tools became more accessible, a new wave of agile competitors emerged, challenging NEHOPS’ relevance.

Without a clearly defined USP to anchor its position in the market, NEHOPS faced an uncertain future—a potential decline NEC was determined to prevent.

To address the limitations of NEHOPS and reestablish NEC’s leadership in the hospitality space, a bold transformation was set in motion. Rather than simply modernizing the existing system, our team recommended a complete rebrand—introducing NEXUS, a name that reflects connection, evolution, and a renewed vision for the future of hospitality management.
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NEXUS was more than a new name. It marked a fundamental shift in the service model—from a tool for hotel managers to a comprehensive platform designed to serve all stakeholders, including hotel staff and guests. Its new brand positioning, “The Hospitality Enabler,” redefined the platform’s purpose: to deliver seamless, high-quality service experiences across the entire hospitality journey.

Under this renewed vision, we also reimagined the system’s technical foundation. Transitioning from a linear legacy framework, NEXUS was rebuilt on a headless, API-first architecture, enabling smoother integration, faster deployment, and greater scalability for future expansions—whether mobile, IoT, or third-party services. This architecture empowered our design team to break free from past constraints and completely rethink what a modern, intuitive hotel management experience could be.

With the redefined product vision of NEXUS, our team was challenged to go beyond modernizing the core system. While rebuilding the hotel manager-focused features was straightforward—using NEHOPS as a foundation—creating a complementary service for hotel employees required a more thoughtful, user-centered approach.
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The goal was to design a solution that would serve frontline hotel staff—without overlapping with tools for managers or guests—while still embodying the broader NEXUS vision: a connected, flexible, people-first platform. Through field interviews with hotel staff, we uncovered a shared pain point: fragmented tools and unclear task visibility. In response, we conceptualized NEXUS-eX—an assistant-style application enabling staff to easily track tasks, schedules, and operational needs in real time.

NEXUS-eX stands as a distinct yet integrated product within the NEXUS portfolio. Built on the same headless architecture, it can operate independently or as part of the full suite, offering unmatched deployment flexibility—a first in the industry. To support this vision, our team also established a clear set of design principles for NEXUS-eX, laying the groundwork for consistent experience and rapid development moving forward.

Through in-depth conversations with end-users, we discovered that each hotel role—whether front desk, housekeeping, or concierge—has distinct functional needs. Moreover, the information required varies significantly depending on task context and device usage. To address this complexity, our team designed a multi-level widget system, built for adaptability and scalability within the NEXUS platform’s new API-first architecture.
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This widget-based approach empowers users to personalize their interface—adding, removing, or rearranging widgets based on individual roles and workflows. Combined with a responsive layout framework, the design supports seamless transitions across devices while maintaining usability and relevance.

The result is a highly flexible and intuitive solution tailored to real-world operational demands—ensuring every hotel employee, regardless of role or device, can shape their own experience without compromising system cohesion.

With core operational challenges addressed, our team shifted focus to an often-overlooked yet critical aspect of hotel operations: security access. Traditionally, hotels have relied on physical master keys—a decades-old solution granting staff access to guestrooms and restricted areas. While effective in the past, this method comes with serious drawbacks: it's difficult to track usage, prone to misuse, and costly to issue and manage at scale.
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The development of NEXUS-eX presented an opportunity to radically improve this model. By leveraging NEC’s proprietary IoT and security infrastructure, along with the capabilities of modern smart devices, we introduced a digital security passport—a secure, staff-specific access system tied directly to employee IDs.

This new solution allows authorized hotel staff to unlock designated facilities quickly and securely via their mobile device, while maintaining a full digital trail of access activity. In doing so, we eliminated the operational burden of physical master keys and introduced the hospitality industry’s first integrated digital access system—a solution that seamlessly combines user experience, operational efficiency, and enterprise-grade security.

While operational tools and security enhancements greatly improved staff productivity, our team recognized that for NEXUS-eX to truly embody the NEXUS brand vision, we needed to go beyond functionality and address a deeper challenge: human connection.
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Through field research conducted at both partner hotels and traditional Japanese ryokans—the gold standard of omotenashi (hospitality)—we uncovered a persistent pain point: internal communication. In large hotel operations, departments often operate in silos, making real-time collaboration difficult. Hierarchical, top-down communication structures slowed information flow, particularly in chains employing large numbers of part-time staff. As a result, knowledge-sharing across teams and even across hotels within the same brand was severely limited.

To address this, we collaborated with stakeholders and developed a series of native communication features within NEXUS-eX. These include secure direct messaging, team-wide channels, and insight-sharing functions—all designed to foster faster, safer, and more collaborative communication without relying on third-party tools. The result: reduced operational friction, enhanced staff cohesion, and a powerful step toward making “The Hospitality Enabler” a lived experience at every level of hotel service.

Great products are never built in isolation—behind every successful launch is a team of dedicated individuals bringing their expertise, passion, and collaboration to the table. I’m deeply grateful to every project member who contributed to the creation of NEXUS-eX. This achievement would not have been possible without your commitment and vision.