How Hospitality IT Leaders Are Implementing IT Strategy

Being probably the #1 Hospitality IT partner in the UK, we are in a great position to share the experience we have working closely with IT leaders in Hotel Groups across the UK, and abroad.

The focus of today's article is on sharing insight into:

1. Todays changing challenges
2. Common industry complexities
3. 6 Tools IT leaders are using to build strategies around the above
4. Closing Comments

1. Today's Changing Challenges

IT leaders dealing with an increasingly complex remit, beyond traditional support:

• Cyber Security - hospitality is being particularly hard hit. No doubt you will have seen some of the many news headlines floating about, such as this from (at the time of writing) just 4 days ago where Booking.com hotel workers are being targeted by being sent an email pretending to be a former guest who has left their passport in their room. A few steps forward, hackers then message customers from the official app and can trick people into paying money to them instead of the hotel.
• 3rd Party Systems - far more systems than your typical industry. Each with its own complexities such as interface servers.
• Data - greater demands are being put on IT to connect the various databases and systems in the organisation, to then be able to extract more meaningful insights. Such as with PowerBI.
• Guest Experience - As with all things hospitality, the guest experience is at the forefront. The IT landscape here has sophisticating needs such as around check-in, wifi, in-room systems, digital keys, etc.
• Infrastructure Management - then there is the traditional scope of managing the IT infrastructure which is also evolving, such as - managing resources on-prem and in the cloud, compliance standards to meet (e.g. PCI, Cyber Essentials, ISO27001, etc), methods of managing (e.g. RMM, Intune, etc), and IT now building its own "apps" for the business via the likes of SharePoint and PowerApps.

2. Common Industry Complexities

In addition to the above, there are all the typical complexities of the industry that need factoring into a strategy, such as:

• Site Openings - Standardising sites and creating a blueprint for IT deployment.
• User Admin - starters and leavers have a high churn rate. Considering permissions, automation of account creation, SSO, etc all need considering as a result.
• Geo Dispersed Sites - typically with no onsite IT staff, whether UK-based or abroad, all need guaranteed SLAs. Need to consider SLA-based engineers' time to the site, proactive remote management and reporting methods, and building a highly resilient infrastructure in the first place.
• 247 - Final example, but there are plenty more - hospitality is a truly 247 business. What are you going to do to support that?

3. Tools To Deliver

How you approach the strategy will depend on what your timeline of needs dictates, but in my experience, using the following key pillars are most effective. Each of these pillars can be delivered as its own module, or they can be pulled together as part of a much broader Strategy Roadmap (if time allows).

Let us take a high-level look at each of them...

Technology Roadmap

This module focuses on building out a review of your key systems (hardware & software) and building a roadmap of events for each consideration, such as:

• End-of-life/support dates
• Renewal windows
• Refresh cycles
• Known risks/concerns
• Indicative costs for renewals and refreshes

Security Roadmap

Security is, unfortunately, an ever-imposing area of IT. Cyber-security bleeds into all areas of the organisation, both the digital and physical worlds. One of the key challenges I see here is in the organisation understanding the threat landscape relevant to them. That's why delivering a Security Roadmap is an excellent mechanism to answer this.

Part of this roadmap allows you to review all areas of security in the business, and from there you can score matter-of-fact where you are today, and then, where you aspire to be. These subcategories then create a group summary and produce a gap analysis chart such as the above. Remember that aspiring for 5/5 in each area wouldn't make sense for each business type, you have to choose what's appropriate for your business type, size, aspirations, etc...

With this, we can now:

• Easily articulate the landscape to the business
• Develop a roadmap to focus on the biggest hitting areas
• Create snapshots in time which can compare progress, closing the gaps

Digital Transformation

This can be a really exciting piece of the process to work on. It allows IT to elevate itself in the organisation to deliver operational improvements. The goal is to implement business intelligence, automation and custom apps that are unique to your business.

The good news is that you are already halfway there. You already have databases throughout your organisation with rich data that can be pulled into dashboards and enriched with other data sets. And now with the advent of PowerApps and the like, you can deploy these initiatives easier than ever.

The first steps to take are to start engaging with the business in a more involved way to understand the process of their work, what data matters the most, what tasks are most manual, which are the largest teams, etc... From there, understand which systems are involved and what can be done with them.

Data Gathering

No process like this should be undertaken without first reviewing the data. Each organisation will be different, but you should look to use the likes of:

• RMM audits
• 365 Audits
• PEN test / Vulnerability Scanning solutions
• Human deep-dive audits
• Human interviews/surveys with management, and departments

Documentation

Of course, you need to compile the typical documentation, and you should look to go further than simply IT documentation. Consider building out knowledgebases for each department on the likes of Sharepoint, or a specific tool like IT Glue, IT Boost, PassPortal, etc...

But documentation in this module also includes the likes of:

• Business Policies and Plans, such as Disaster Recovery Plans, User Awareness Training, etc...
• IT Initiatives, such as new site opening templates. This wants to include all details, from Comms Cab layouts, VLANs, cabling standards (from colours to ports behind tv's in rooms), etc

Strategy Roadmap

Finally, there is the Strategy Roadmap module which can be enacted in it's own right, or incorporate all of the above elements as a more holistic view.

The Strategy Roadmap module looks to take a more operational view on IT. Focusing more on the business. Here you must do a review with the leaders in the business and look to understand answers around the likes of:

• What are the business's short-long term objectives?
• What are the current business challenges?
• Is IT hindering the business in any way?
• Could IT help the business competitively in any way?
• and so on

Then it is a case of working on initiatives on how IT can help answer these questions.

I have put together a detailed framework that maps out each identified need, to all possible paths forward, those selected, and progress on implementation.

You can then web the above modules together into a master IT Strategy which is useful both for yourself and also in articulating initiatives and needs to the business, to ensure you are being the best ambassador to IT for your business.

4. Closing Comments

The above is not the only way of running an IT Strategy, nor is it a full breakdown of all the elements involved, but it is a very effective one that we have executed with many businesses throughout the industry. It allows IT to elevate its role in the business and can be a really rewarding process to go through.

If you would like additional info, or to discuss these steps in more detail, or even like assistance with executing, then please don't hesitate to reach out. It's an area I love working on so would be happy to share.

Oliver Coop

[email protected]

07739196028