Technology : Big data
“ Over the course of this year we have built automated reports that our executive teams use — kind of a highlevel set of reporting that incorporates our finance data , customer data , our hotel operations data , guest satisfaction , and revenue metrics . It ’ s very dynamic and updated as soon as the data comes in .”
– Brad Beakley , Carlson rezidor Hotel Group
Case study :
Big data isn ’ t all about knowing every nuance of your guests ; it ’ s also about getting a closer look at your own business . For companies like global giant Carlson Rezidor Hotel Group , that has meant completely evolving the way it performs analysis , putting greater emphasis on data and reporting and moving away from decentralized methods .
Over the last two years the company has instituted myriad changes across all departments , all tapping into big data through a variety of new interfaces and reporting systems . Executives say the move is intended to take Carlson ’ s longstanding guest focus and turn it inward .
“ Our brands have been a very guest-centric , and very highly rated in terms of our personal interactions in terms of when guests are onsite ,” explains Brad Beakley , senior vice president of commercial operations for Carlson Rezidor . “ But on the analytics and business intelligence side , we ’ ve not historically had a huge focus on that .”
Beakley says all that has changed dramatically at the company over the last 18 to 24 months . This past February Carlson pulled together all its various heads of departmental analytics and created a centralized business intelligence and analytics team , specifically to ensure the company is leveraging best practices and has some degree of oversight regarding how one conducts analysis , ensuring that operations research protocols are adhered to . Beakley says the company can also share skills across its teams much easier now .
“ It started primarily in our revenue optimization area , so the revenue management team , which typically in any company they ’ re going to have more data to begin with ,” Beakley says . “ We ’ ve thrown in a couple of key resources , starting a process a couple of years back of making sure we have our data in an accessible location and we have tools for conducting analysis .”
The movement began at Carlson with some staffers from the revenue management department downloading a free copy of Tableau to their desktops , and upon seeing the potential , using the application to build reports .
Carlson rezidor ’' s data evolution
“ Once we started sharing that data more broadly across the organization , it really started growing and momentum started building , so we pulled the team together and started putting a lot more energy around data management and storage ,” Beakley says . “ Over the course of this year we have built automated reports that our executive teams use — kind of a high-level set of reporting that incorporates our finance data , customer data , hotel operations data , guest satisfaction , and revenue metrics . It ’ s very dynamic and updated as soon as the data comes in . It ’ s all automatic and our executive team can click on their link and see how we ’ re performing .” Beakley notes the company has now built capabilities similar to that , but at a more detailed level , for many other departments . Since the trend started with revenue management , that department ’ s reporting process is relatively mature at this point , but Carlson has since added tools and dashboards for its sales and marketing teams , so staffers can ingest and analyze consistent channel and customer data to ensure marketing programs are designed for maximum impact .
“ I ’ d say we ’ re still in transition , but we ’ re rapidly advancing ,” Beakley adds .
He noted the process has been an interesting study in change management ; at many other companies a similar shift might require a longer adoption process for harnessing big data and data analytics , and analyzing social media , making such a shift into a data-driven culture a goal that may take several years .
“ At Carlson Rezidor , I ’ d say that ’ s been an 18-month journey , so it puts a lot of the challenges of making that transition right in your face ,” he says . “ It ’ s about getting our executive team to stop looking at printouts of Excel files with a thousand lines of information , and inferring conclusions based on the trends only you can pick out based on years of experience . We can create a dashboard and it can be updated as soon as any new piece of data is available and graphically guide you toward making decisions . It ’ s CEO level down to the field level .”
50 HOTELS December 2015 www . hotelsmag . com