As we emerge with cautious optimism from the uncertainty of the last 14 months, the revenue function is finding itself having to regroup based on the changing landscape. While encouraged by news of pent-up leisure demand and a healthy recovery for travel, we’re also hearing of challenges in recruitment, improvement in service delivery for the new guest, and the need to find new segments to replace those guests that won’t be returning soon. All these issues can eat into the already vulnerable revenue position. The requirement to drive profitability while finding new and innovative ways of doing things is required more than ever- but in some cases, with limited resource, we are finding ourselves with the challenge of having to do more with less…but there are solutions!
Automate the Revenue Reporting Function
One strategy that has been at the forefront of doing ‘more with less’ is to use data and technology to find ways in which to automate whatever we can. An area ripe for this is to take a long, hard look at manual revenue reporting in Excel. I struggled with this with my team, watching them in a daily basis, come into work, download data, upload it to an excel report and then wade through myriads of worksheets to analyse the data they needed. This took up so much of their time! There had to be a better way. The answer – automation of reporting. The benefits were great and far reaching. Enhanced visibility on available data not only streamlined reporting thus saving time, it also meant we were able to provide clients with clearer insights into performance, As a consequence, the communication of data trends throughout the business was made a lot easier. The revenue strategy turned into a revenue culture, with the wider team focussed on profit while remaining agile to adapt strategy where required to meet shortfalls in performance.
Could Revenue Reporting Automation help you?
I see this as a great option if you’re one of the following
· You are a hotel owner or general manager who knows their business but simply doesn’t have the time to adopt a daily revenue reporting routine. You’re relying on gut instinct and consolidating this into something you’re looking at monthly
· Post re-opening, you are consumed by operational issues and not in a position to hire a revenue manager yet…but you still need visibility on your stripling revenue streams by market segment, so you know where to focus your energy on capturing revenue opportunities
· You have a great reservations team and if they had access to the right data you know they could make robust revenue decisions at least 80% of the time…. but they shouldn’t need to be excel hacks to get there
Automated access to daily data provides a new, enhanced level of visibility on the performance of your hotel. Armed with these key business insights, the job of making timely, commercially robust, decisions is made so much easier – resulting in driving much needed profit to your bottom line.
Ally Northfield – May 2021
If you’d like to know more about how we made our system choices, or would like more information about how we can support revenue decision making, please get in touch! We would be delighted to discuss how automation of your revenue reporting can help your business thrive.
