How can Business Intelligence software help the hospitality industry get back on track?
The onset of the COVID-19 pandemic took the world completely by surprise, and dramatically changed the nature of our work and social lives. For the hospitality sector, it meant the immediate closure of restaurants, cafes, pubs, hotels – with no indication of when they would be able to re-open.
Thankfully we now know that, as of July 4, 2020, some of these businesses will be able to open their doors to guests once again – provided social-distancing conditions are met. But it’s likely that many will still have concerns about the future. Will their guests be reluctant to return, worried about the spread of COVID-19, or will they be bursting to escape lockdown and enjoy a change of scenery?
Some pubs, restaurants and hotels may also be concerned about disruption to supply chains – especially as hospitality businesses across the UK will all be gearing up to re-open all at once. These uncertainties will make it more difficult to plan and make important business decisions.
While we’re not claiming that Business Intelligence (BI) can solve all the problems the UK hospitality sector is facing as a result of COVID-19, it can help you to learn the lessons from the present situation and get back up and running as quickly as possible. And if the situation continues, gathering data around current customer behaviours and patterns will put you in a much better position to make decisions in the future.
While you’re preparing to re-open your hospitality business, ask yourself a few questions to see if implementing or optimising BI should be one of your priorities.
- Measuring and reporting on business performance in real-time
Before the lockdown, how were you measuring success? Did the metrics generate actionable insight? If monthly reporting was standard practice, did it provide timely information so that you could implement immediate changes to improve business performance?
Proper metrics and reporting can provide a clear, measurable heartbeat on the true performance of a business beyond the basics. If you weren’t measuring your performance with scorecards and you weren’t generating real-time reports, maybe it’s time to explore what is achievable.
- Reviewing and enhancing existing systems
Are you getting the best value out of the tool and systems that you currently have in place? Data Analytics tools are often under-utilised, and businesses fail to really get the benefit from them. If you have tools that have unused capabilities now is a good time to explore how they could help you or revisit whether this is the best tool for the job.
During this period of change, hospitality businesses can take the time to run server patching, or version upgrades of key tools and potentially even software rollouts without causing disruption to the running of the business. It’s also a good time to record faults with existing systems and get these resolved before re-opening to the public.
There’s no doubt that this is a challenging time for all, and much is uncertain. The last crisis of this kind was the outbreak of SARs in 2003. The hospitality sector weathered the storm then, it will overcome the challenges it faces now. The best we can do is to make sure we’re prepared as we get up and running again.
Our BI Health Check will give you a clear view of how the various components of your business intelligence are performing. Using this information, you can address any weaknesses and gaps, but also learn from and build on the strengths. The health check report will also help you understand whether the tools you have in place are delivering for your users and your business.
To help get your business get back up and running book your change++ Business Intelligence Health Check
