In Episode 17 of Speed Economy’s Growth Swarm podcast, John Siefert , Bob Evans , Tony Uphoff , and Scott Vaughan continues down the path of analyzing vertical industries and the role that the cloud, AI, and other technologies are playing to accelerate innovative solutions plus digital transformation. This week’s episode focuses on the hospitality industry , with an emphasis on increasingly “frictionless” customer experiences.
Highlights
01: 09 — John kicks off the discussion by referencing a recent EHL Insights report that looks at the latest innovations, both technological in addition to non-technological, in the hospitality business , with a look ahead to what’s next. The innovations are usually divided into three categories: technology innovation, service development, and process innovation.
02: 11 — On the tech innovation front, the statement found that 72 percent of hospitality executives said they implemented a significant portion of their budgets towards technology for both hotels and AirBnB vacation rentals. Innovation was focused on the particular before, during, and after periods of guest stays.
02: 50 — Upon the service innovation side, the record explored the use of service solutions and support products to create compelling value propositions with regard to guests. John says that a key thing that came out of this segment was a focus on profitability, which typically the group has talked a lot about in this context associated with growth.
03: 19 — Steve says the process innovation section focused mostly on the customer, or hotel guest, experience and other front-end processes, as well because how various systems usually are tied together on the back end.
04: 00 — Frank recounts the conversation with the CIO of one of often the leading airlines in Asia. The CIO said that your company spent years trying to build up a client experience that was heavy on human interaction , but that this rise regarding digital technology and apps on phones led to its best customers not wanting to have any human interaction until they were in their seats on the exact airplane. The particular more the airline could get people out of the way, the happier the customers were.
04: 51 — Bob discusses frictionless experiences inside the food industry. Phones can be used in order to check in to be able to hotels and even as room keys, so guests have no human interaction or transaction until they leave the particular hotel, together with that’s how they like it. Maybe typically the “real deep love” and additionally personal human being interaction aren’t what people want. It’s not that will technology is replacing the human experience, but it’s delivering a different experience.
06: 20 — David references comments by Workday’s Sharon Schell at the Food Industry Cloud Battleground session during Cloud Wars Expo. Schell stated that Workday is looking to simplify the landscape and break down this silos inside the hospitality organizations with which it works. She also mentioned that often the hospitality CIO is evolving into much more involving a trusted business partner with your CFO not to mention CHRO in terms connected with enabling massive transformations, accelerating business agility, implementing intelligent automation , and democratizing data for you to aid within faster and better business decisions.
07: 30 — Hospitality “got rocked, ” says Scott, over the exact past three years as the industry ground nearly to help a halt, but this slowdown also allowed regarding a bit of a reset, with a big emphasis on an understandably frictionless experience intended for guests.
07: 55 — Jeff touches on silo-busting: If you can think about knocking over the silos internally, then you may actually focus and build the particular technology, typically the process, as well as the experiences externally. Scott says that although this may sound obvious, it often gets overlooked because organizations will be so obsessed with surveys and also customers.
08: 26 — Martin references another takeaway from the Hospitality Industry Cloud Battleground: Namely, bringing data from an AI perspective to better anticipate consumer needs therefore that when you build interactive apps or chat, for example , they can all be driven increasingly by AI. Further, if humans do get involved, it may be at a certain point of the experience, say, “VIP” or even something else. The whole personalized convenience encounter hasn’t changed in hospitality, but the delivery has.
09: 17 — Ruben asks Tony for his thoughts on this frictionless visitor experience found in the context of food, as well as privacy and security considerations around frictionless buyer experiences in general. Bob references comments made simply by Oracle VP of Hospitality Product Development David Clifton in Cloud Wars Expo close to privacy laws and how all that needs to be taken in to consideration when implementing frictionless or automated hospitality environments.
09: 56 — Tony reiterates that it’s all regarding taking the friction out, yet that there are still so many laggards within the hospitality industry whenever it comes to implementing “technology to get customer use. ” Logging onto WiFi, among other offerings, is still a subpar experience. He recalls Bob’s point about the human touch versus the use of technologies regarding travelers and guests, but this particular mix can also end up being applied to B2B sales: “When do we introduce ourselves since salespeople? ” Tony asks. Regardless of the ideal balance, often the hospitality market must focus on taking friction out as your north star.
12: 08 — Even so, Tony a2z says he would encourage the industry to get even more aggressive and bold and develop customer experiences that go beyond the obvious, such as checking directly into a room: A resort chain, like Marriott, for instance , could develop a “super app” that could not only be used to check in but also book airline tickets or reserve a VRBO. A motel chain such as Marriott should be far more aggressive as well as look at this extraordinary platform it has, which isn’t just a hotel, but rather an unique knowledge that this can have with customers almost all over the exact world. Tony adamowicz reiterates of which “stripping the friction out” remains mission number one, but nevertheless he still wants “to become able to log on to the particular WiFi seamlessly. ”
13: 2009 — Still, the frictionless experience needs balance. Frank says he was happy to get an email from his airline before an upcoming trip asking him to choose the meal he wantsed but found the options to preorder drinks and snacks in order to be a new frictionless step too far.
14: 04 — Mark shares some sort of positive frictionless experience he had during a good recent summer trip along with his family. The airport restaurant not just offered menus and ordering via QR codes, but additionally the ability to pay via QR code from a phone, right from the table. That’s convenient enough on its own, but an added discount for paying ahead via QR code offered an even better incentive. Lastly, having choices to select between walking up and getting the food or having a server bring that out delivered “a frictionless experience to be able to actually get exactly what we wanted, ” recalls John. Plus, “our food was done faster plus it cost less money. ”
15: 15 — John points out that this specific great food example doesn’t happen without a technology (and often cloud-based) infrastructure “that will be pulling, reacting, acting, in addition to prioritizing me as your customer within the framework of the fact that business, while well like a PCI compliant commerce system that enables me for you to order that food and even those sorts of things. ” In other words, a frictionless environment only happens any time all of these things are inextricably connected.
17: 10 – A2z tony says that will hospitality furthermore extends to help apartment complexes, where digital and electronic experiences happen to be being designed for tenants before the building is usually even built. Entire expertise teams really are developing the customer experience through integrated uses of technological innovation, adding everything from seamless together with powerful WiFi to proprietary ride-sharing services and a lot more.
nineteen: 12 – John arrives back to the three engineering innovation sections of the IHT Insights review, concluding of which they’re just about all inextricably connected in today’s world, for both the front end plus the back end. To see the entire Food Industry Impair Battleground, register for your free Cloud Battles Expo About Demand pass here .
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