Business Intelligence: How Dashboards Drive Profitability
Is your business running hot or cold? Check the dashboard
Pittsburgh, PA (PRWEB) June 20, 2007 -- Aptech Computer Systems, Inc. will demonstrate new dashboarding functionality of its Execuvue business intelligence product in Booth # 525 at HITEC in Orlando, Florida, Orange County Convention Center, June 25 to 28, 2007.
Hospitality companies are implementing business Intelligence (BI) systems at a rapid pace, with top performers including Starwood, Extended Stay America, Sage Hospitality, Ashford Hospitality, Merritt Hospitality, and Peabody Hotel Group relying heavily on the accurate data analysis for running their operations. BI systems set a magnifying glass over all areas of a company's performance management reporting and unlock the reasons behind the numbers. That insight helps hotel management maximize revenue, minimize expenses and increase profitability with informed, data-rich decision making.
The term 'business intelligence' refers to a broad category of business management software applications and technologies for gathering, storing, analyzing and providing access to operating data that enables enterprise users to make better business decisions. BI applications encompass decision support, query and reporting, online analytical processing (OLAP) and data mining.
Now, the next generation of business intelligence is here. The newest BI tools take informed decision making to the next level with on-screen dashboards. Dashboards are flexible graphic displays that communicate complex information more quickly for rapid response to changes in performance. While traditional reporting uses cross tab spreadsheets that require line by line searches for specific information, dashboards enable quicker, more confident decision making by translating numerical information from multiple corporate systems into easily understood, visually rich presentations. Gauges, maps, charts and other graphical elements show multiple results in a visual format that frees managers from cumbersome hardcopy reports to save them time.
BI Dashboard - 'head's up display' of performance
What makes hotel operators and management companies unique is how they direct their enterprises - every company establishes its own performance indicators to manage by. Business intelligence dashboards can display a customized data screen designed for each company which enables managers to focus on their own specific data set to guide their operation. Multi-property hotel groups gain the greatest value from executive dashboards because dashboards provide a 50,000-foot view of an entire hotel portfolio across regions, flags and segments - like a heads-up display of global operations. For example, underperforming properties or regions may come up red, others in green so executives can easily identify areas that require action. This type of clear graphic exception reporting is faster to use and more detailed than any previous technology and lets executives act instantly where necessary.
Among the top BI providers, Cognos Incorporated (NASDAQ: COGN) is the most widely used by hospitality companies, and Cognos' newest Version 8 release delivers powerful dasboarding capabilities. In our market, third-party hospitality specialists like Aptech Computer Systems have added their extensive knowledge of hotel related systems and operations to Cognos' business intelligence and corporate performance management solutions. This combination produces an application with world-class functionality and hospitality-specific interfaces and metrics. Some of Aptech's Execuvue licensees include Concord Hotels, Strand Development, Innkeepers Hospitality Management, Sandals Resorts, HI Development, Highpointe Hotel Corporation, ZMC Hotels, CHIP Hospitality and Dolce International
What separates true BI systems from simple data-mining tools is their ability to gather and analyze data from many different systems. A true business intelligence system is a free-standing data warehouse that captures, standardizes and stores information from separate applications for analysis, reporting and graphic presentation and dashboards. In the hospitality industry, BI systems also access data from sources outside the enterprise like Smith Travel Research and PKF cost numbers, and combine them with in-house metrics like occupancy, budgets, guest satisfaction, labor expenses and other measures to create a unified picture of a property's performance as well as its surrounding business environment.
With the introduction of business intelligence dashboards hospitality companies have a tool to condense the stack of daily corporate reporting into a format that makes the most efficient use of an executive's time. It is simply a better, more effective way to leverage important operating data for faster decisions - and higher profits.
Cam Troutman is director of sales for Aptech Computer Systems. He may be reached at http://www.aptech-inc.com/?campaign=PRWebViewpointDashboardsJune202007.
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