For owners and operators in hospitality, few insights are more valuable to the bottom line than full spend visibility across all property-level purchasing.
Obtaining this level of data transparency can be challenging and incredibly time-consuming, however — especially without the right technological applications and, often, the benefit of external support from a third party.
Whether you manage a single independent property or oversee a portfolio of 50 hotels backed by leading hospitality brands, having access to the right reporting and technology resources can give you the extra boost to outpace your market competitors. Investing in property-level reporting can also offer additional insights into your property spend behaviors, helping identify opportunities for categorical, and even product-level, savings.
If your hotel(s) could benefit from an updated infrastructure to help you adhere to budget, control rogue spend and enjoy full spend visibility across all products and suppliers, consider connecting your team with the industry-leading analytics, cloud-based ordering platforms and comprehensive reporting to position your property at the front of the pack:
- White-space reporting. Conduct an ongoing gap analysis to identify any overlap, and/or gaps, between the products and services your property has purchased and those products and services you currently need. Not only will white-space reporting help you control rogue spend, it will also better position you to assess potential unmet needs among your customer base, uncovering both cross-selling and upselling opportunities to support strategic growth.
- Food and safety recall alerts. Keep the reputations of your guests and restaurant protected by ensuring your food and beverage leaders are in the know. If food and beverage is part of your business plan, find a trusted resource to provide your property with real-time food safety and recall alerts so you never miss a vital product safety update for your area.
- Commodity/inflation outlook reporting. As costs of raw manufacturing materials (e.g. steel, cotton) and staple food-and-beverage commodities such as beef, eggs and coffee continue to fluctuate, better position your property for future spend by leveraging existing economic and commodities reports to track high-level market drivers. Greater awareness of market trends supports informed purchase forecasting that, in turn, helps mitigate product outages, spotlight cost-effective commodity alternatives and enable better planning for lead time when ordering goods in high demand.
- Opportunity reporting. From guidance around categorical and product-level savings to side-by-side comparisons of your brand’s contracted and non-contracted purchasing options at the product, manufacturer and category levels, opportunity reports can unlock data-driven recommendations to direct and maximize your spend.
- eProcurement. Permanently simplify the purchasing process by securing a digital procurement platform for your property. Cloud-based purchasing platforms position you to order products and services with greater ease and efficiency than ever before, saving you valuable time and energy while creating immediate access to track spend details at both the property level and portfolio level. Past purchase visibility promotes greater order consistency, assisting with brand standards and compliance, while built-in spend optimization technology presents savings opportunities in real time. Many eProcurement platforms also offer integrated payment support, from touchless invoicing and contract analysis to assistance identifying payment discrepancies.
No matter the size of your property or portfolio, hoteliers are proven to benefit from simplified and scalable procurement solutions, real-time market insights and tailored reporting that supports budget analysis, forecasting, order tracking and more.
By investing in the leading-edge infrastructure to keep vital purchasing information at your fingertips, you can operate more efficiently and more cost-effectively, positioning your hotel to stand out within your competitive set. Better yet, you’ll have direct access to the data you need to promote informed decision-making at every level of your operations.
Anu Saxena is the president and global head of Hilton Supply Management.
The opinions expressed in this column do not necessarily reflect the opinions of Hotel News Now or CoStar Group and its affiliated companies. Bloggers published on this site are given the freedom to express views that may be controversial, but our goal is to provoke thought and constructive discussion within our reader community. Please feel free to contact an editor with any questions or concern.
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