CHARLOTTE, North Carolina — A perfectly aligned commercial group, including revenue, sales and marketing, is the ideal most modern hotel companies strive for, but experts say getting those three departments on the same page requires effort and thought.
Speaking during the "What Does Successful Commercial Collaboration Really Look Like" session at the 2024 HSMAI Commercial Strategy Conference, Wendy Norris, vice president of sales, marketing and revenue optimization for Valencia Hotel Group, said a part of that is making sure the performance metrics for the three disciplines are at least "somewhat aligned."
"We're all going through a metamorphosis right now trying to align sales, marketing and revenue management, so I think we're all thinking the same things," she said. "We already have all the expertise for each discipline, but we really have to be moving in the same direction."
Historically, each sector functioned in separate silos, with differing goals that sometimes pulled the groups in opposite directions. Smoothing out those goals, an ensuring the efforts of each team also align with the operations team, is paramount, she said.
"If your [guest reviews are] not doing well, it's really hard for marketing, revenue and sales to do our jobs," she said.
Chris Hardy, vice president of commercial strategy at Parks Hospitality Group, said part of the challenge in aligning key performance metrics is the systems each team works with still don't communicate well.
"I think the silos have been broken down, but the systems for each discipline have not," he said. "We're still working in an environment where revenue has systems, marketing has their systems and sales has more systems. There's still fragmentation there."
He said it's up to leaders to "bridge all the gaps." He said his team has developed an internal business intelligence platform that "really brings all that data together."
"We can just go to one dashboard, one place to look at the [key performance indicators], look at trends and do some data analysis," he said. "I think that's so important to be able to do as a leader."
Lisa Jordan, senior director of digital marketing for Red Roof, said another important part of getting teams moving in the same direction is for each team to have a better concept of the other teams' capabilities.
"It's important to be realistic about your capacities, your in-house strengths, what you can achieve and what's most likely to make the biggest difference," she said. "So when you're selecting your tools, when you're focusing on a strategy, [it's about] what can you do and what can you do well."
Jordan agreed getting tech and systems in place that allow for greater collaboration is key, and part of the goal for all leaders in the discipline should be to "have a positive, productive working relationship with your IT colleagues."
"You can't really do anything in digital marketing without the support of IT," she said.
Norris noted the idea of winning hearts and minds across different teams as the foundation for any sort of collaboration, and having unified business intelligence tools in place helps bridge that gap.
She said some people are still reluctant to share data across functions.
"As an industry, our business intelligence has got to get better," she said.