Munich, August 2020 – everyone talks about digitalization – especially in the current crisis, but what is really behind it? Why are some companies worth so much (especially in other industries) and others so little?
The big problem of the hotel industry is that the benchmarks are not to be found where one would generally expect them to be. In almost every industry, the leaders with the greatest market penetration are ultimately also the leaders to learn from. For companies in the automotive industry this is, quite clearly, Tesla. A “New Kid on the Blog” that shows the established companies how it’s done.
But are the large international hotel groups suitable for copying and learning how to make money with digitalization? Probably not! The only ones in our industry that are suitable for benchmarking are, for many, the biggest enemy images: The OTAs. They show every hotelier how central data management and consistent customer centricity should look like.
The secret of these companies is basically relatively simple: they have realized that data is extremely valuable AND that the core element of IT strategy is the central guest profile!
Today, data is often referred to as the new oil. But oil is ultimately only the raw material that needs to be refined in order to be able to use it. So how do you turn oil into valuable gasoline? Figuratively speaking: how do you generate knowledge from data? A very central element is that all data sources in the company must be connected. This is a basic rule that data-driven companies must take into account in every decision.
The way to get there is a strategic one. Hotels need a leading system that bundles all data sources. But that’s not all, the existing mountains of data must also be cleaned up and a central profile created for each guest. This is the supreme discipline that needs to be discovered. We at dailypoint™ are proud to offer this to our clients. By means of artificial intelligence the interests of the guests can be calculated automatically in the dailypoint™ Profile Engine. All systems must be based on the resulting central guest profile: Customer Relationship Management (CRM), the website, the PMS, the spa system, the housekeeping system, etc. Hotels can only benefit from digitalization if a central guest profile is available everywhere.
The reality, however, is that for each guest along the Customer Journey there are about 30 profiles created in different systems. This is, by the way, also a huge problem from a GDPR point of view.
Do you ask yourself or your employees how well positioned you actually are? The following five questions should help you to answer this question:
- How much does your website cost including creation, SEO and SEA per year?
- How many visitors are you able to identify on your website?
- How many new marketing profiles have you generated through your online presence in the last year?
- How many interests were calculated last year?
- How much does the WiFi cost you per year including hardware, software and bandwidth?
- How many new marketing profiles have you generated through your WiFi in the last year?
- How many interests were calculated last year?
- How many interests have you calculated based on the booking behaviour?
- How many interests have you calculated based on the questionnaire feedback?
- How many interests have you automatically calculated based on the newsletter dispatch?
- What is the leading system that manages the central guest profile? (can’t be the PMS)
In my experience, 99.9% of all hotel companies are not doing well in these aspects. This also answers the question why many companies cannot benefit from digitalization.
On the positive side, the hotel industry has a lot of data – you just have to know how to use it. As someone said recently: “Others would kill for the data that is available to hotels”. It doesn’t have to go that far, but be honest: Right now is the best time to get it right!
With dailypoint™ we offer the leading data management system for a company-wide CRM – for hotel chains as well as individual businesses. The cloud makes it possible that today it is not the budget that determines success, but the willpower and knowledge of the management.
Fell free to reach out to us… We’re happy to help!