Until recently, the hospitality industry wasn’t considered to be a front runner in technological advancements. But the emergence of big data, cloud-based systems, and business intelligence have propelled hospitality into a new reality. Processes that used to require hours of manual work are now done with the push of a button, and hotel staff is more connected than ever before, even across properties. But how does business intelligence specifically improve your software and drive profits? There are three crucial features that are needed in your BI tool to maximize your success.
Faster, Accurate Reporting
Every revenue manager knows the struggles of working against the clock. There’s simply not enough time in the day to collect the reports you need from disparate systems, compile them into one cohesive set of data, and then analyze the patterns to formulate conclusions. Worse still, manually prepared reports have the greatest potential for human error. An improperly formatted cell, an incorrect or missing formula, or the inadvertent subtraction of spreadsheet rows and columns are honest mistakes with huge implications. Even if you have exceptional reporting, it’s not helpful if you can’t apply it to make actionable decisions. You need a tool with the ability to pull all the data you need from across departments and even properties into cohesive and easy to interpret reports.
Imagine having the ability to focus on rate decisions instead of spending your time building PACE reports every morning. Kristi White, Rainmaker’s Vice President of Deployment, says that “You could build a report from your RMS if you have a spare twelve hours, and another two or three hours a day to run the macros. Now, with a BI tool I can get actionable data instantly.” Having all of your reporting available in seconds, not hours, helps you tackle the important decisions that drive profits. Plus, since room revenue is constantly in flux, BI-enabled tools give you the power to deliver quantifiable results as changes occur.
