Redrawing Hospitality’s Big Picture
9/1/2022
Sponsored by Track - A TravelNet Solution
Your PMS Is Just One Piece in a Larger Puzzle
Industries don’t change as fast or as much as most people think. The bigger they are, the more inertia they have, and the more resistant to change. If something is familiar, cost-effective, and, well, effective-effective, it will stand the test of time. And maybe overstay its welcome.
Hospitality has inertia, too. If it has a steep learning curve, is expensive, or unproven, it’s not worth the business disruption. As the saying goes, “if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.” But extend that over decades on end, and you wind up with some horrific old booking system that belongs in a time capsule from 1998.
Meanwhile, a few brave souls are first in line for some game-changing tech, like the cloud, and it changes everything. At its core, a property management system (PMS) is a tool for operations and revenue generation. But what about lead generation? What about email? Your website? Reservation sales? We fill these gaps over time with new tech. But if your tech stack still requires you to open 11 browser windows, what have you really gained?
It’s time to change how we think about running a hospitality business. Silos between departments worked just fine for a long time. There just wasn’t that much to be gained from knocking them down. Now, of course, we can all agree that departments have to work like an orchestra. There’s just not much room for error.
What Surrounds Your PMS
Your PMS is one part of a bigger team. Each teammate has a core role, but to win, they all have to work together. Reservations, property care, accounting, and so forth—these functions are quite different from each other, but they all have a role to play in a successful and profitable business. The level of communication and collaboration required to make this happen is substantial. To manage it and to ensure that certain things happen in a certain way and in a timely manner, we need processes.
Processes take a long time to evolve. With luck, they evolve to suit our needs. But our needs are always changing. The fastest way to fill the gap between what a process delivers and what you actually need is through technology. If the technology doesn’t fit your process, you’ve always had two basic choices: Make it work or build new processes around it. But there’s actually a third option, which is to do both.
In an Ever-Changing Market, Adaptability Is a Superpower
Some tech depends on a certain process in order to work its best, forcing you to make a big, disruptive change. Otherwise, you just sort of make it work. We think technology should adapt to your needs, not the other way around. Plugging a new piece of technology into your process should improve that piece of the puzzle without messing up the rest. Maybe it eliminates a crucial bottleneck or is easier for new hires to learn.
We believe in a more holistic approach to hospitality operations. One piece of tech doesn’t make a winning operation, just like one hotshot player doesn’t make a winning team. Aligning processes, people, and tools with the realities of the marketplace will get you to the championship. But adaptability—to the market, to competition, or even your own growth—is what will distinguish the all-stars.
Start to reveal your big picture at tnsinc.com/track.