Overview

Making use of ‘big data’ has gone from a niche application for large and wealthy tech companies to a must-have for even the smallest, most analogue organisations. This is especially so in hospitality, where data generated by your existing systems can be combined and analysed to generate actionable marketing insight. A raft of companies has now sprung up to help hospitality operators to create, use and make sense of their data to improve service, drive sales and reduce waste.

Critical functions

Data and insight companies will take different approaches, so it’s worth doing some research to find out what’s available. Most will provide some sort of dashboard that brings together your existing data (e.g. from sales, inventory, customer Wi-Fi and so on) and present it in easy-to-digest reports. This will enable you to manage performance, forecast accurately, plan marketing campaigns and make decisions based on evidence. You may want to ask how you can manage access to the data, as well as if you can create automated reports that are grouped by function, area and so on.

Some providers will also help to generate new data, for example, by integrating guest feedback or mystery customer information. Think carefully about what data you would find useful and whether this already exists before commissioning an additional service.

Important integrations

The service provider should be able to tell you which POS, finance and other systems it integrates with. As is often the case, just because they say an integration with another system is technically possible, doesn’t mean it’s straightforward. When evaluating providers of data and insight systems, ask them which of your other systems they have a live link with already. This will save a lot of hassle later on.

Users

• Finance teams, to report on performance, spot trends and manage resource

• Operations teams, to manage performance and target interventions for improvement

• Marketing teams, to plan campaigns and monitor their success

• Senior managers / board, to understand the business and make good decisions