We are delighted to welcome Lybra as an Expert Partner of Revenue Hub
In this “Who Are We” video we are joined by:
Fulvio Giannetti – CEO
Fulvio talks us through his background, who Lybra are, their core service offering and what does he sees as some of the challenges moving forward.
Hope you enjoy the video.
Here is the video chapter timeline:
1:27 Who Is Fulvio Giannetti
3:38 Who Are Lybra
6:29 Typical Customer Profile
7:34 Core Solution Offering
18:12 Forward Looking
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Below you will find a transcript of the interview
Please Note: Transcripts are generated using speech recognition software and human editing so may contain slight modifications compared to the video/audio
Trevor Grant
Hi, Fulvio, welcome to Revenue Hub. Great to great to have you with us. How are you? You Well?
Fulvio Giannetti
Very well thank you Trevor, nice to meet you and a pleasure to be here.
Trevor Grant
You’re welcome. Great to have you and great to have Libra tech as an expert partner, great to have the opportunity to talk with you today, hear a little bit more about you hear about your organisation, hear about your core solution, the Lybra assistant, so we’ll get into all of that. But I guess the best place to start is to hear a little bit about who Fluvio Giannetti is, and a bit about your background, so if I hand it over to you.
Fulvio Giannetti
Yes, thank you for the perfect pronunciation of my name. I am Fulvio Giannetti I’m actually the CEO of Lybra tech, which is a revenue management company and I’m also, probably more than a CEO, I’m a data scientist. So I used to work in many companies before, starting from Coca Cola, then moved into hospitality industry working for a Channel Manager, and then moved to Pricematch, then I moved to Booking.com and then we decided to create this company, which is Lybra tech. Also I’m a teacher at the university. I teach data science and big data applications, so I feel, I feel very comfortable this speaking about data science more than speaking about a company.
Trevor Grant
Yeah, no, I could imagine, very interesting background number of different companies and the teaching part must be a nice addition, but also a nice distraction, being able to educate people, people coming up into the industry.
Fulvio Giannetti
Yes, yes. Yes. I would say that before, I had more time, now I’m trying to reduce the time to the lessons, because it’s now it’s a …. to be involved in technology in these times is very, let’s say unique, you need to have a lot of commitment a lot of time, because it’s very challenging.
Trevor Grant
Very time consuming, absolutely. Brilliant. Well, I guess the the next thing is having heard a little bit about you it makes sense to obviously hear about Lybra tech, just an idea if you can about how long the business has been established, size of the company. I know, there’s been some changes going on over the last few months. So insights into that would be great.
Fulvio Giannetti
Okay, so we founded Lybra two years ago, but we established the company four years ago, because we needed one year to test the system – was a very long. Then in 2017, we entered into the business. So we developed this revenue management tool, starting from a different point of view, let’s say.
So we started to integrate directly all the market data into the algorithm, so this was very, very time consuming, because we, you know, there was no literature to look into in this stance for this kind of developments, algorithm development, because it’s a, let’s say revenue management in terms of data sciences, is a young. So we had to start from the scratch everything, it was a very nice journey. After three years, we had a very nice results and we recently, six months ago, we were acquired by Zucchetti Group, which is one of the biggest groups, they provide technology solutions to more than 30,000 hotels worldwide basically. And, and now we are here in, in the middle of the biggest crisis ever, which is an extraordinary time of change for us, for all the people involved, not only in the hospitality industry, but this is something we have to come across, and we have to put more effort to fix all the issues related to this new situation and I think we are working very well, in this case, on this side.
We are 18 people and we have three offices in Europe, in Rome, in Barcelona and in Athens
Trevor Grant
A you were saying, whilst Zucchetti has a global profile, from Lybra’s point of view have you been predominantly Europe up until this point? What’s your, what’s your kind of geographical focus? Your customer, is it sort of the chains, independent hotels? Could you give a little insight into that?
Fulvio Giannetti
We have both, let’s say in terms of geographically speaking, we have clients in Latin, in Asia, in Europe, mostly everywhere, I think, in more than 30 countries now. But I’m not sure about this number, and I think it’s, I mean, we have big chains as clients, but also small hotels. Because I mean, Lybra, we have different modules, so it’s very, can be a lot.
Trevor Grant
Adapted accordingly Okay, well, that sounds like a perfect opportunity to kind of get us to talk about your core solution. So, the Libra assistant, and you mentioned a little bit earlier that when you started the company, you came at things from a slightly different perspective. So, can you talk to us about that, that core solution, the core offering and if you want to touch on the adaptability of it, feel free to.
Fulvio Giannetti
Yes, everything starts from the name, which is Lybra. Lybra, the logo of Lybra is the name, of course this is Latin for balance, because we have tried a few years ago to create something to balance the human experience with the machine learning technology, okay, which is which was very interesting approach for us, because we can say that, I mean, Lybra is an assistant more than a revenue management, but it is an assistant. An assistant, because we want to assist the revenue managers. So
Libra thanks to machine learning is able to, to be very close to the revenue manager. So, we adapt the machine learning system is able to be adapted to adapt itself to the revenue manager strategies on the long term. So, what we do with these is just a follow up to give a results to any to any action taken by the revenue manager. So we are able to measure the efficiency of running of any strategy So they are free to decide everything they want in terms strategy, what we do we measure and we we store all this information, and we’re able next time to propose and to give them some suggestions very close to the way they think. This because, this I mean, even if we collect a lot of data, still, we are not able, of course to replace the revenue management manager experience, it’s quite impossible. At least for the next five years, then we’ll see.
Technologies is moving at an incredible pace. So but for now, what we do is just to be close to them. So to analyse the patterns, the behaviour, the revenue management, the results from the other side, matching them and try to be very close because, as I told you before, we are not able to replace the disappearance of the revenue manager but we were able to integrate this experience into our algorithm.
Trevor Grant
So is it more sort of analysing what they are doing and their strategies and the outcomes from those strategies to then see where there could be improvements next time around.
Fulvio Giannetti
Yes, exactly Yes, for example, in terms of pricing, when we suggest the price, of course, the client, the revenue manager can accept or not this price. If he is going to accept this, okay. If you make a choice to not accept the price, we store all the, let’s say, the picture around, around this, this choice, we store, the second time we store, the third time it does not accept it, we store. So at the end, we can be the partner. It means that the revenue manager has a strategy, because in the other side, one of the problem is that most of the decisions in some time can be based on just on emotions, not logic. So, rather, find a path doesn’t find a pattern, so it means the logic behind it means is based on emotions, so we don’t store, we don’t follow up with with the recommendation based on revenue management strategy, but we go we follow our standards to reduce the bias related to the emotional side.
Trevor Grant
Okay. Yeah. Yeah
Fulvio Giannetti
Yeah, because at the end, any choice, I think that most of our choice are based on emotion sometimes.
Trevor Grant
Yeah, absolutely. As you say, emotions, how we’re feeling beginning of the day, end of the day, end of the week, beginning of the week, it’s amazing, when you look at the decision making, how that gets influenced, according to the human mindset and mood. So no, it’s as you say it is a different approach to what is what is typically out there from, say, an RMS system.
Fulvio Giannetti
Yeah, yeah. Yeah, I don’t know very much about other RMS system, but the only thing that I know is once we demo, usually clients say that we are very different from others, this for me is very rewarding, not because it’s that, it means that we are working in the right direction, we are going to correct direction. I’m very glad when they say this, because it means that the hard working were put on the system has some results
Trevor Grant
No, absolutely, and you mentioned, when you were talking about your company, and your clients, that there’s some adaptability around your solution, whether it be for large chains, medium sized groups or smaller properties. Can you just give a little bit of an insight into what into what you mean by that?
Fulvio Giannetti
Yes, yes. So we have different modules, like the group displacement, the gap analysis, or the allotment management tool, we are developing now, but we’ll be ready in a few months. So, we have more modules, what we are trying to do, because, you know, one of the problem in the Hotel, but it’s not a problem it’s real situation, is that that there is a lot of ingenuity in Hotels, so many Hotels have different ways of thinking, different approach, different needs, and what we do it just to create some clusters, and provide them with the main tools that they need and according to this, we developed all these modules, there are many and now we have more modules available for different situations. And then what we have tried to do is also what to say, I mean, this is a more philosophical, but it’s not philosophical, revenue manager or any revenue management is a is a soft science, which is different from hard science. Our science means like physics, when if I have this mouse, I’ll drop this down. It happens everywhere. I think in London where you’re based in here in Rome. But it’s different for revenue manager, economics no, I can do something, but doesn’t mean that the things that I do now will be equal in any situations because you cannot replace all the variables at the time, it is like a soccer game. When they say well, it was better to play 433 than 442 but we cannot check.
Trevor Grant
so many variables.
Fulvio Giannetti
So many variables and of course, you cannot replace, recreate, I mean, the experiment. And so based on this concept, we so we have tried to build something to be more let’s say, to make revenue management, a little bit more hard in terms of science. Trying to get more and more data into the system, feed the algorithm with all this data, but of course, not all the Hotels need all the data and that’s why we built some modules
Trevor Grant
So you can have a baseline for every hotel, but then depending on the difference of the hotel, its location and its market, its facilities, they can build modules into it as they need
Fulvio Giannetti
Yes, but what is the same is the constraint, we have one constraint, just one – which is anything we build, any graph, any table, any help will need to be understandable from the client side in maximum five seconds. Based on this, which we develop, I cannot tell you how many we develop and threw away because was out of this constraint, but was very useful, even if without taking into consideration the hard work, but it is very useful, because now we can say that we have a system that is very easy to understand, very oriented to actions.
Trevor Grant
And that’s key, because I think one of the one of the questions when anyone says, talks about data, unless you’re a data scientist or a data analyst, a lot of people’s eyes start to glaze over, because they suddenly feel there’s going to be so much information, how am I, I know, I will be given charts and graphs, but how do I know that it’s the core information that I really need to be able to help me to maybe make better decisions. So having that constraint that it must be understood, within a very short period of time drives you towards that user experience and the user interface that actually works and delivers.
Fulvio Giannetti
Yes, yes, yes., exactly.
Trevor Grant
Perfect, perfect. Now, we’re in, we’re all globally in a very interesting scenario, because of the COVID crisis. So when I ask you looking forward, what are the challenges, certainly not expecting you to answer how we solve the COVID scenario, but more specifically, in terms of what you foresee from a revenue management, from a data point of view, from what you see with your clients and their demands? Looking ahead over the next few years, what’s kind of on the, what’s on the agenda for Lybra tech and obviously not giving away competitor intelligence, I appreciate that.
Fulvio Giannetti
So, we have a lot I mean, this period is very bad in terms of business for anyone, but the other side from my data science perception and the business perception is that there are many, a lot of opportunities because people now anyone wants to change anyone is open to change more than before, of course. And this is a very, very good environment for us in terms of development, because what we did now, even more in the Zucchetti Group, we have now, since as I told you, there are 30,000 hotels, we have a lot of connection with the PMS, so we have, we started like a lab, so to improve integrations, because we are one the same company now. You know one of the main problems in the hospitality industry is that there are many PMS and the integration are the main problem, the PMS are very closed to this, but working together in the same company. So we have they open up all the technology to us so there is a new world now that we are exploring and in terms of connection with the PMS and channel managers but leave in terms of data, because adding 30,000 hotels it means also I have a lot of data and this is something we are working very hard on now, because I think then we, as I told you before, we are in an extraordinary time of change, but the change now should involve a paradigm change, the paradigm of the revenue manager now is going to be, will be, will change in the, in the, it means that anything would be based on the future data than the past data, even if it’s very complex and I think this is one of the most complex things to do, because any prediction with, regardless the algorithm or the meetups, is based on some past data, anytime, everywhere. There’s some thinking to give more or less importance to the past data and more importance to the future of data it means to open new door and understand better this future that data understand better the correlations and so we are creating a new, like a new a new field
Trevor Grant
From a data science background, as you say, no wonder it’s an enjoyable time for you, you’ve just been given a whole lot more data to work with. Brilliant. That’s superb. I mean the purpose of this short conversation, just to hear a little bit more about you hear a little bit more about Lybra, hear more about Lybra Assistant. Any final thoughts from your side or any final comments, we’ve covered everything that we wanted to during this during this conversation.
Fulvio Giannetti
No specific questions for the moment.
Trevor Grant
Perfect. Well, it’s been wonderful to have you, I really appreciate you finding the time to sit down and talking with us. Look forward to hopefully exploring a little bit more into what Lybra doing and hear a little bit more about your innovations and developments and what exciting opportunities there will be going forward. Thanks so much.
Fulvio Giannetti
Yeah, yeah. I’m glad. I will get you an update in the next month, we are working a lot. I mean, a lot means a lot in the day and night. But it’s our job, so I’m happy when I work a lot, it means there are many things to do. Many projects open. So the problem is the opposite when there is nothing to do, because you have no idea. So there is no future.
Trevor Grant
Very different. No that’s superb. Thanks so much for joining us. It’s been a real pleasure.
Fulvio Giannetti
Thank you
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