CEO Sudheer Koneru explains how a move from enterprise technology into spa
software resulted in the creation of a powerful system that’s helping wellness facilities
run, grow and market their business in a fully integrated and automated way
What’s your background in the tech industry? It’s in the development of enterprise software for large corporations. I worked for Microsoft for 8 years and quit in 2000. I started a new company in Seattle with two former Microsoft colleagues, and over the next 9 years we built that company - Sumtotal Systems – into a leader in the field of enterprise software, with $100m annual revenue.
How did you move from there into the spa software marketplace? I’d taken a break from the tech industry and returned to India. A few years earlier, I’d made an investment there in a chain of fitness centres, spas and salons, which was focused on the higher end of the market and was doing very well.
When the person who’d been running the company returned to the US, I happened to be free and thought I’d have a go at running the business. So for the next year and a half I had exposure to this industry, and really got to know about the operational challenges these types of businesses faced.
What was your goal in creating ManageMySpa? Most of the spa management software around at the time was focused on single centres and had been built by people who had no expertise in creating systems for multi-site businesses with five outlets, let alone build software for a business with 50-100 outlets. I felt the larger chains were not being well served and wanted to create something tailored for them which would have a real impact on easing their business operations and growing revenue.
How did you expand the business? We developed the software in India and focused our marketing efforts there first. We had a really strong uptake from the top tier wellness brands there because there was no other Cloud-based technology that could meet all their needs at that time. In fact, it didn’t exist anywhere.
Next we expanded into South East Asia (Indonesia, the Philippines, Malaysia) and the Middle East, in particular Dubai, where we work with leading spa, salon and medi-spa chains. In the past 6-12 months, we’ve expanded into Australia and the US.
What are the core features of your software? There are the essential features that any system should have – online booking and the ability to accept payments over the phone or online, tracking those payments, an appointment book that helps the front desk meet booking goals, signing up new members, producing end of the day / month financial reports, managing loyalty programmes, etc.
Because we’re a Cloud-based software, an owner can be sitting in a cafe, open their phone or laptop and look at exactly what’s happening in their business.
Likewise, their employees don’t have to phone the front desk to find out their schedule. They can open an app, find out how many bookings they have, track their performance in terms of commissions, etc.
You’ll see mobile and digital as a consistent theme across the software. Everything from connecting a spa with their customers via their own branded app, to how we help spas market to their customers, enhance the client journey and ease operational tasks like inventory with a mobile solution for inventory counts.
We have a special set of features for medi-spas to enable them to manage the customer journey – their medical history, what treatments they’re having, their results, etc. This can be monitored by both the business and the customer themselves. It’s one of the reasons medi-spas now represent around 30 per cent of our business, because we met a need in this market that wasn’t there before.
How does ManageMySpa answer the particular needs of the multi-site operators? When you approach 30 or 40 outlets, management of this kind of business gets very complicated, and you’ll need an extra set of features.
For example, if a customer buys a gift card at one of your centres, you want them to be able to easily redeem it at another centre. If a customer calls and can’t get an appointment, you need to be able to direct them to the closest outlet that has an opening in their schedule.
If you’re a business manager or in charge of procurement, you want to know what you have in stock at any outlet, at any point in time and seamlessly move inventory around the network.
If there are things going wrong in your network, like too few bookings at a particular outlet, you want to know and stay on top of those problems on a daily basis. All this is possible with ManageMySpa with automated mechanisms like our alert system.
What are your other strengths? We’re particularly strong in two areas - data analytics, and the ability to translate this data into highly targeted marketing campaigns. Our analytics enable larger businesses to really understand their customer bases, spending patterns and behaviour across the whole network, not just business by business.
Even today, answering the simple question of how much money did we make this month often involves four employees sitting in an office gathering revenue reports from all the businesses. With ManageMySpa, you’ll be emailed a comprehensive revenue report every night, so you know exactly what your business is doing, and where.
From this data, ManageMySpa enables easy targeting of marketing campaigns to special segments. Instead of having to contact every outlet and get them to update their software, an owner can decide which campaigns he wants to run where and to whom, create it on our system, hit send and it’s done. It’s all automated.
What customer support do you offer? As a Cloud business, we’re transparent about the daily and hourly performance of our servers in a way that no other company might dare to be. A third party company constantly monitors our servers, and anyone has free access to the data. It’s a bold move, but we believe the quality of our servers are unmatched among Cloud-based industries. We also have 24/7 in-app support integrated into the software, and of course there’s phone support too.
What about future spa trends? I think the whole notion of having a front desk at a spa has to go away. It’s an unnecessary barrier, especially in the relaxed environment of a spa. Perhaps in the future there’ll be a hostess sitting at a coffee table waiting to greet the client.
Our Cloud technology enables spa customers to fill in forms and email them ahead of their arrival. As they arrive, the therapist could be alerted on their iPad and greet the customer by name, maybe let them relax in a massage chair for a short while and then show them round.
This type of personalised experience will be essential in the future, and with ManageMySpa it’s already possible.
Read more from this issue of Spa Business magazine
View contents of Spa Business 2015 issue 3
Letters:
Investors better placed to make profits in spas than operators, says Roger Allen
News report: LivNordic
Raison d’Etre signs a deal with Viking Cruise Lines for its LivNordic spa brand
Trends: Spa Foresight™ 2015
The team behind Spa Business share their insights on what the world of wellness will look like in the future
Interview – Craig Cogut:
The founding partner of Six Senses’ investment firm Pegasus Capital Advisors reveals his vision for the spa operator. Rhianon Howells reports
Promotional feature: RKF Linen
Founder and CEO Riadh Bouaziz talks about the development of the linen company’s revolutionary
new Dreamsoft product and its uptake in leading hotels and spas worldwide
Thought Leaders: Expert predictions
Thought leaders from around the world, working in different industry sectors, talk about spa trends, challenges and growth opportunities
Promotional feature: Thalgo
After 50 successful years in the professional spa and beauty industry, the Thalgo brand is as strong and as innovative
as ever
Promotional feature: ManageMySpa
CEO Sudheer Koneru explains how a move from enterprise technology into spa
software resulted in the creation of a powerful system
In today’s premium spa environment, every detail shapes the guest experience – right down to
the softness of towels and the freshness of linens. [more...]
CEO Sudheer Koneru explains how a move from enterprise technology into spa
software resulted in the creation of a powerful system that’s helping wellness facilities
run, grow and market their business in a fully integrated and automated way
What’s your background in the tech industry? It’s in the development of enterprise software for large corporations. I worked for Microsoft for 8 years and quit in 2000. I started a new company in Seattle with two former Microsoft colleagues, and over the next 9 years we built that company - Sumtotal Systems – into a leader in the field of enterprise software, with $100m annual revenue.
How did you move from there into the spa software marketplace? I’d taken a break from the tech industry and returned to India. A few years earlier, I’d made an investment there in a chain of fitness centres, spas and salons, which was focused on the higher end of the market and was doing very well.
When the person who’d been running the company returned to the US, I happened to be free and thought I’d have a go at running the business. So for the next year and a half I had exposure to this industry, and really got to know about the operational challenges these types of businesses faced.
What was your goal in creating ManageMySpa? Most of the spa management software around at the time was focused on single centres and had been built by people who had no expertise in creating systems for multi-site businesses with five outlets, let alone build software for a business with 50-100 outlets. I felt the larger chains were not being well served and wanted to create something tailored for them which would have a real impact on easing their business operations and growing revenue.
How did you expand the business? We developed the software in India and focused our marketing efforts there first. We had a really strong uptake from the top tier wellness brands there because there was no other Cloud-based technology that could meet all their needs at that time. In fact, it didn’t exist anywhere.
Next we expanded into South East Asia (Indonesia, the Philippines, Malaysia) and the Middle East, in particular Dubai, where we work with leading spa, salon and medi-spa chains. In the past 6-12 months, we’ve expanded into Australia and the US.
What are the core features of your software? There are the essential features that any system should have – online booking and the ability to accept payments over the phone or online, tracking those payments, an appointment book that helps the front desk meet booking goals, signing up new members, producing end of the day / month financial reports, managing loyalty programmes, etc.
Because we’re a Cloud-based software, an owner can be sitting in a cafe, open their phone or laptop and look at exactly what’s happening in their business.
Likewise, their employees don’t have to phone the front desk to find out their schedule. They can open an app, find out how many bookings they have, track their performance in terms of commissions, etc.
You’ll see mobile and digital as a consistent theme across the software. Everything from connecting a spa with their customers via their own branded app, to how we help spas market to their customers, enhance the client journey and ease operational tasks like inventory with a mobile solution for inventory counts.
We have a special set of features for medi-spas to enable them to manage the customer journey – their medical history, what treatments they’re having, their results, etc. This can be monitored by both the business and the customer themselves. It’s one of the reasons medi-spas now represent around 30 per cent of our business, because we met a need in this market that wasn’t there before.
How does ManageMySpa answer the particular needs of the multi-site operators? When you approach 30 or 40 outlets, management of this kind of business gets very complicated, and you’ll need an extra set of features.
For example, if a customer buys a gift card at one of your centres, you want them to be able to easily redeem it at another centre. If a customer calls and can’t get an appointment, you need to be able to direct them to the closest outlet that has an opening in their schedule.
If you’re a business manager or in charge of procurement, you want to know what you have in stock at any outlet, at any point in time and seamlessly move inventory around the network.
If there are things going wrong in your network, like too few bookings at a particular outlet, you want to know and stay on top of those problems on a daily basis. All this is possible with ManageMySpa with automated mechanisms like our alert system.
What are your other strengths? We’re particularly strong in two areas - data analytics, and the ability to translate this data into highly targeted marketing campaigns. Our analytics enable larger businesses to really understand their customer bases, spending patterns and behaviour across the whole network, not just business by business.
Even today, answering the simple question of how much money did we make this month often involves four employees sitting in an office gathering revenue reports from all the businesses. With ManageMySpa, you’ll be emailed a comprehensive revenue report every night, so you know exactly what your business is doing, and where.
From this data, ManageMySpa enables easy targeting of marketing campaigns to special segments. Instead of having to contact every outlet and get them to update their software, an owner can decide which campaigns he wants to run where and to whom, create it on our system, hit send and it’s done. It’s all automated.
What customer support do you offer? As a Cloud business, we’re transparent about the daily and hourly performance of our servers in a way that no other company might dare to be. A third party company constantly monitors our servers, and anyone has free access to the data. It’s a bold move, but we believe the quality of our servers are unmatched among Cloud-based industries. We also have 24/7 in-app support integrated into the software, and of course there’s phone support too.
What about future spa trends? I think the whole notion of having a front desk at a spa has to go away. It’s an unnecessary barrier, especially in the relaxed environment of a spa. Perhaps in the future there’ll be a hostess sitting at a coffee table waiting to greet the client.
Our Cloud technology enables spa customers to fill in forms and email them ahead of their arrival. As they arrive, the therapist could be alerted on their iPad and greet the customer by name, maybe let them relax in a massage chair for a short while and then show them round.
This type of personalised experience will be essential in the future, and with ManageMySpa it’s already possible.
Read more from this issue of Spa Business magazine
View contents of Spa Business 2015 issue 3
Letters:
Investors better placed to make profits in spas than operators, says Roger Allen
News report: LivNordic
Raison d’Etre signs a deal with Viking Cruise Lines for its LivNordic spa brand
Trends: Spa Foresight™ 2015
The team behind Spa Business share their insights on what the world of wellness will look like in the future
Interview – Craig Cogut:
The founding partner of Six Senses’ investment firm Pegasus Capital Advisors reveals his vision for the spa operator. Rhianon Howells reports
Promotional feature: RKF Linen
Founder and CEO Riadh Bouaziz talks about the development of the linen company’s revolutionary
new Dreamsoft product and its uptake in leading hotels and spas worldwide
Thought Leaders: Expert predictions
Thought leaders from around the world, working in different industry sectors, talk about spa trends, challenges and growth opportunities
Promotional feature: Thalgo
After 50 successful years in the professional spa and beauty industry, the Thalgo brand is as strong and as innovative
as ever
Promotional feature: ManageMySpa
CEO Sudheer Koneru explains how a move from enterprise technology into spa
software resulted in the creation of a powerful system
Four Seasons Resort The Nam Hai in Hoi An, Vietnam, has put together a Global Wellness Day
(GWD) agenda with activations rooted in nature and shaped by four pillars of Joy – in
alignment with the day’s theme #JoyMagenta.
The Global Wellness Summit (GWS) will celebrate its 20th anniversary at the 2026 event in
Phuket, Thailand, later this year with the theme: The Science, Art and Soul of Wellness.
Auko, an all-inclusive development, is opening in Phong Nha in Vietnam in Q3 2026, with a
series of 30 tented eco-lodges and wellness hospitality operations by Lumina Wellbeing.
Therme Manchester’s 28-acre development, which will include interconnected glass pavilions
that measure 65,000sq m, will be the largest bathing and wellbeing attraction in the world once
complete, according to prof David Russell, CEO of Therme UK.
Naples Beach Club, a Four Seasons Resort, has opened a 2,800sq m spa called The Sanctuary,
with the design and concept inspired by the Native American people that populated Florida’s
Southwest coast – the Calusa.
Swire Hotels’ luxury hospitality brand Upper House has revealed it will roll out its two-day
House of Healing retreats at its three hotels in Hong Kong, Chengdu and Shanghai.
LVMH-owned beauty house Guerlain will launch up to five spas with partners a year as part of
its plan to expand globally, according to the brand’s international spa and wellness director,
Diane Davody.
A new global study by Kevin Kelly and Peter Yesawich, called WELLSurvey 2.0, has revealed
more than half of consumers in the UK, US and Germany would not choose numerous high-
profile wellness resort brands for a future trip.
Luxury hospitality and wellness pioneer Jeremy McCarthy has launched Leisure Alchemy, a
digital platform that will provide professionals with strategic guidance on how to build
transformational leisure experiences that drive profit.
In today’s premium spa environment, every detail shapes the guest experience – right down to
the softness of towels and the freshness of linens. [more...]
