Tag: data-driven

Artificial Intelligence, Hospitality

Innovation- Chatbots in the Hospitality Industry

Chatbots were one of the most significant trends of 2017. These small pieces of software with pre-programmed interactions allow you to communicate with them naturally and simulate the behavior of a human being within a conversational environment. It can be a standalone service or integrate within other messaging platforms like Facebook Messenger.
The adoption of these virtual assistants is growing, and brands are using chatbots in lots of exciting ways. You can order food, schedule flights and get recommendations for pretty much anything. Chatbots seemingly are the future of marketing and customer support.
The use of chatbots in the hotel industry is still evolving, but it currently encompasses a wide range of services, from hotel bookings and customer service inquiries to pre/post-stay inquiries and general travel advice.
The hotel industry can experience many benefits from the use of chatbots, among them:
  • They can be used as a reservation channel to increase direct bookings.
  • Since chatbots are available 24/7, they will reduce reception workload by giving guests instant and helpful answers around the clock.
  • Guests can check-in/check-out on the fly with the aid of a chatbot.
  • They will help independent hotels to build accurate guest profiling so that they can provide personalized offers to their guests. The hotel will be able to deliver tailor-made offers instantly and directly via chat before, during or after their stay.
  • Guests can opt-in to be notified from chatbots about the places to visit, the rates of the hotel’s cars, etc.
  • The ease of booking and the proactive concierge services create brand loyalty and improve guest satisfaction.
  • Hoteliers will be able to obtain customer reviews post-stay via a chatbot. This is much less invasive compared to traditional email marketing, which is often ignored.
What challenges do they pose for hoteliers?
Adopting this new hotel technology involves many challenges for hoteliers. For instance:
  • Independent hotels will need to simplify their booking process to accommodate chatbots.
  • Hoteliers will need to provide a consistent booking experience on chatbots in comparison to other channels.
  • General managers will need to monitor chatbots where there is a human element. They will need to allocate staff resources.
  • Hoteliers will need to manage guest expectations since guests will expect a quick turnaround on their requests through chatbots.
As you can see, chatbots present many opportunities for hoteliers, from increasing customer loyalty to enhancing the guest experience. To keep your guests coming back for more, definitely consider joining the chatbot revolution – but only if your hotel is equipped and prepared for this big step.
Self-service Analytics

My World 2030 – Harness data to drive sustainability and corporate responsibility

Over the past couple of months if not years we have seen headline grabbing scandals in various sectors of the economy worldwide.  The public trust is being hugely impacted with regards to the competence of executive leadership, integrity and transparency.

Earning trust requires the utmost attention to demonstrating ethical leadership, responsible (and responsive) business practices, transparency, and a genuine commitment to an organisation’s mission.

Companies are being encouraged to put their increased profit into programs that give back to society in terms of environmental, social, and governance (ESG) aspects More than ever before, there’s growing expectations that organisations will continue to play a very active role in solving social problems such as poverty or discrimination. It’s important that organisations set standards of ethical behaviour for its peers, competition and industry.

So how can data drive sustainability and corporate responsibility? The writing is on the wall!  With the rapidly evolving technology and high velocity and volume of data flooding organisations, it becomes imperative to provide users with an ultimate analytics experience, one with zero discernible latency when interacting with data. By giving users the right tools, they will explore avenues to use data to solve real world problems.

As data becomes more available and analytic literacy more pervasive, it is crucial that companies continue to focus on how their business operations are impacting the value chain, from the farm to the factory to the boardroom.

With the advent of sensors and devices in mobile objects, companies can now leverage spatial data for powerful geospatial analysis for environmental risk assessments. The better the data sets available to assess these risks, the more informed the decisions about adaptation are likely to be.

Energy and Resources give modern society its high standard of living and produce vast quantities of data, from the energy used to the resources needed to make many of these things that help us in business and our everyday lives.

Without a deep understanding that energy is finite and that energy transformations impact not just individuals but also the environment., companies and society at large won’t be able to make informed decisions about the future. With an efficient platform for gaining insights across geographies, products, services, and sectors, companies can maximize downstream profits and minimize upstream costs.

It is the era of data-driven environmental policy-making. Governments can now harness data to effective policy making. Data analytics and visualisation give the opportunity to make the invisible visible, the intangible tangible, and the complex manageable. A data driven government calls for strong leadership and investment. This is highly feasible.  A data driven government would make it easier to identify problems, track trends, highlight policy successes and failures, identify best practices, and optimize the gains from investments in environmental protection. A responsive government would work in close collaboration with businesses, NGOs and the academic community for more conscientious environmental decision-making.

Data alone will not help us achieve the UN SDGs. What we need is strong leadership both from businesses and governments, transparency , integrity and a genuine commitment to the UN 17 SDGs. These combined with modern data analytics will provide collaborative, multilateral solutions to global challenges.

This is My World 2030!!

Data Governance, Data Regulations

GDPR and Data Governance: A hand in hand affair

The introduction of GDPR should not be seen as a burden for companies but rather as an opportunity to review all the data governance policies that are in place. Companies should be able to find the right balance between GDPR and their data governance structure.

Companies could create a competitive edge by not only addressing how they manage the personal data but for all the data they hold. If companies get it right, they could discover new business opportunities waiting to be exploited.

As we all know by now, the GDPR gives every EU citizen the right to know and decide how their personal data is being used, stored, protected, transferred and deleted.

Those companies that put data privacy at the forefront of their business strategy would be the ones who are clearly and efficiently managing their customer data in a fair and transparent way. Hence giving them the competitive edge based on privacy.

One of the requirements of GDPR is to document what personal data is held, where it came from and who is it shared with. By really understanding the data they hold, companies could be made aware of the data they can gather, as well as analyse and apply this data to boost sales or marketing efforts.

Companies should ensure that their data governance structure will support the GDPR requirements. Policies and procedures need to be created or re-assessed to help keep corporate data consistent and ensure that it meets the information needs of business users. It is also an opportunity to review data management practices.

The GDPR requirements combined with a robust data governance structure could give organisations the opportunity to become a data-driven company based on building tools, abilities, and a culture that acts on data hence really making an internal transformation around data.