Digital Transformation: Addressing the elephant in the Room
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What’s your Hotels story?
All hotels today face the same challenge. No, I am not referring to COVID-19. Though I am confident it has added some extra fuel to this challenge.
This challenge is about digital information and the ability to communicate effectively in a new reality.
Psychologists tell us that our brains are wired to seek out stories. We understand life through stories, and we cannot live without them.
When I write my stories I look at several resources for inspiration. And for this article, I found inspiration in books, online articles, and a wonderful eBook from my friends at Red Hat.
Red Hats production management director Burr Sutter wrote an eBook about digital transformation titled “Teaching an elephant to dance”.
The title itself inspired me, and I learned that digital transformation is about addressing the elephant in the room.
For hotel to create more effective stories that helps generate more direct bookings without competing with OTAs then the elephant in the room has to be addressed.
The elephant in the room
Digital transformation entails both a people and a technology transformation. It is with people like it is with technology, not every combination works flawlessly in every single environment. ?
The brands that experience success with their digital transformation frameworks have been able to identify new ways for people and technology to work in harmony.
A recent report from Duetto verified data we saw from STR that booking pace and demand are up. But the elephant in the room here indicates that review scores have a negative trend.
We all welcome an uptick in the booking pace and demands. But is essential that hotels don’t forget the people in this process.
It doesn’t matter how great your team or your technology is if they don’t work in harmony. And one thing I can’t stress enough is that this harmony has to be in context with current market conditions.
Simply put you can’t sell 100 rooms if your current staff and technology only allow you to handle 50 rooms.
Hotels today have to scale inventory accordingly to what their resources allow for.
If not hotel's reputation will be hit hard in the aftermath of this increase in booking pace and demand. And the damage control will be even harder than what many hotels experienced post-COVID.
Identify the elephant in the room and start learning and help to learn
Every day presents you with new ways to grow and to help other people grow.
Opening the digital gateway for hotels to more direct bookings without competing against the OTAs represents a new dynamic and flexible digital journey. This is a digital journey that will require a new mindset shift.
Together with people start to utilize new technology to gather information and improve communication.
One of the most common elephants in the room today for hotels is data silos.
For most hotels, digital data has been stored in data silos. A data silo is a set of data that is controlled by one department and isolated from the rest of the organization. And data in data silos is stored in a standalone system that is incompatible with other data sets in the organization.
Data silos served their purpose at a time when consumers were not accustomed to real-time data.
Digital transformation helps hotels become more successful by breaking down data silos and sharing data across the organization. It democratizes data, making it readily available and more powerful to the organization at large.
Today hotels need to leverage emerging technology that embraces data lakes to deliver a connected experience across departments and to customers.
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The most critical elephant in the room today for hotels is the technology gap. And COVID-19 has exposed this challenge in more ways than many hoteliers like to admit.
Hotels have to collaborate and work with people today to take a new look at how technology can be better and more effectively integrated.
With digital transformation, you can either take a reactive or a proactive approach.
Hotels tend to take a reactive approach avoiding the challenge by not recognizing the changing realities and focusing on the comfortable way of doing business. Or believing this is a passing trend that will not impact the industry in the long run.?
Addressing the elephants in the room will require a proactive, honest, authentic, and collaborative approach.
A proactive approach will require your hotel to work with people. When embracing the challenges with people that is when you start closing the technology gap.
Value innovation focuses on differentiation and low costs. But you have to do things in smarter and more effective ways to reimagine a new future for your hotel.
Collective strengths are now defining the future of hotels. And with a holistic approach hotels can guide the future in collaboration with employees, customers, and the local community.
Digital transformation success happens when you combine people and technology in harmony and your hotel function as one high-performing team as opposed to separate silos.
Hotel Challenge
What do you believe are the elephants hiding in your hotel? (Share your feedback in the comments…)
Is your hotel ready for a new exponential partnership? If you have some feedback or questions, let me know in the comments below…
Are Morch?is a digital transformation coach helping hotels open their digital front door, reimagine their processes and culture, and transform experiences in a fast-paced world!
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