Comment: Stop the false prosperity of China's hotel information technology

Recently, I heard that a hotel group is busy in the process of bidding to upgrade the IT system. I know that they are now excited because they have spent millions of "buy and buy", and they are anxious because of the system switching "disorderly", but they still can't help but want to pour a cold water.

It is understood that although their old system is worn out, it can satisfy basic use. The new system upgrade did not bring qualitative improvements, such as changes in business models, innovation in marketing channels, or improvement of business processes; it is also unlikely to bring significant improvements in business, as business models and conditions have not changed. It just changed to a more complete system; there was a partial improvement in work efficiency, but it also brought new problems such as unstable interfaces. The advantages and disadvantages are offset, and the investment of several million is in exchange for the effect of close to zero. This is another farce of labor and wealth caused by the decision of the brain.

Other groups also have such cases. A group of CRS and e-commerce systems have been on the line for many years, and the benefits have not changed much from the previous ones. They have also invested hundreds of millions of dollars in vain; a group has been engaged in a private cloud system, but the utilization rate is not high, and the problem is constant. A "fake cloud"; a group spent huge sums of money to set up an IT company, expecting to become a new source of profit, but it is not well managed and heavily in debt.

When a new system went online, consulting companies and IT vendors all made money, and the hotel IT department also created “performance”. The hotel management department did not benefit significantly. Due to the sharing of IT costs, the operating pressure was even greater. Looking at the country, this seems to be a common phenomenon. Throughout the Chinese hotel information technology industry, the author heard a self-proclaimed and self-proclaimed clinking sound, and saw a chicken boom or garbage project with a small return on investment or a large number of unclear, a false prosperity scene.

Surprisingly, no one ever said this truth. This reminds me of the emperor who changed the new clothes in Andersen's fairy tale, and obviously did not wear it, but everyone said it. People who don't understand, don't dare to say, afraid of jokes, only people will be clouded. People who know, don’t dare to say, afraid of eating rice bowls, so they blink one eye and close one eye. Others have been kidnapped by huge investments and are not willing to say more.

A large number of IT investments have not achieved the rewards they deserve, behind which are the foolish arrogance and quick success of decision makers.

The history of hotel information technology development in China is a painful history of low-level redundant construction. What is the reason for this result? The author summarizes three main reasons and shares with you.

CIO is incompetent, and the layman is posing as an expert.

Information technology is the most advanced production tool of our time. Its importance is increasingly recognized by all. The hotel groups have set up CIO positions in their top management institutions and report directly to the CEO. The CIO has gradually become a "toon" in the eyes of everyone, so "A cat and dog" want to rely on this position. They feel that since there are bosses and financial support inside, there are so many consulting companies and IT providers outside, even if they are outsiders, they should be able to make a good job.

But their wishful thinking is wrong, and the CIO's position is not for anyone to sit on.

The most basic quality of a competent CIO is to understand both technology and business. Some CIOs, not from the hotel industry, but from other industry technical positions or Internet companies airborne, did not advance in the hotel industry from the bottom to the high level, there is no deep understanding of the hotel business. But they are particularly confident that the hotel business is not complicated and can be quick. In fact, to become an expert in this industry, it is not enough to have no more than ten years of hotel work experience.

Because they don't understand the business, these CIOs are likely to make the following three types of mistakes: first, the importance of the infrastructure and basic marketing tools, and how to build a marketing, service and management integration. The comprehensive platform; secondly, “reinventing the wheel”, the hotel industry has re-invented it with a mature program for several years. It is considered to be a great innovation and complacent. I don’t know that it took a lot of effort to repeat the unnecessary turning back. Third, the direction is unknown, can not truly understand the hotel business needs, can not grasp the inherent logic and law of the development of the hotel industry, blindly based on past experience in other industries, implemented some unreliable programs, committed A big mistake in direction.

There are also some CIOs, the hotel business department, knowing the business, but do not understand the technology, thinking that IT is very simple, find an internationally renowned consulting company to do the program, let the top three IT suppliers in the industry come to the landing, you can complete the merits. Therefore, under the slogan of shouting the value slogan but actually wanting to make money, these self-righteous and unrecognizable CIOs piled up a pile of white flowers and built one chicken rib or garbage system. People are sad.

Other CIOs handed over the plan to the software vendors, but they didn't realize that these suppliers had their own interests. The solution they gave was probably the “over-treatment” solution, 1 million things. It takes 2 million to complete, and even runs counter to the hotel's own situation and interests.

One of the most important responsibilities of a competent CIO is to complete the master plan and the top-level design "independently" on the basis of integrating the resources of all parties. It is necessary to "top the sky", have considerable height and forward-looking, and must "There is considerable feasibility and ground-breakingness, rather than blindly listening to the flicker of Party B, or Dongyi Shantou West a hammer, thinking about where to do it."

Building a system is like building blocks, and there are a lot of bricks in the market. CIOs must understand that the most powerful technology is not necessarily suitable for themselves. It is necessary to tailor the appropriate situation according to the current situation of the enterprise, formulate appropriate solutions, and build a suitable system that is both advanced and not advancing. After all, you have created a nuclear weapon for Tubal Road. They can't use it. They both waste money and delay snoring. They can use rifles and soil mines to fight invincible. CIOs need to be able to identify which are real kungfu, which are the flowers and fists, to understand which parts of the program need to be purchased, which should be developed by themselves, and how to combine.

It's not that easy to be a qualified CIO.

Good plan is hard to find, only the dwarf can pull the general

The development of science and technology is changing with each passing day, but the technological innovation of the hotel-labor-intensive industry is relatively slow and partial. In the past 20 years, small-scale technological innovations have been numerous, such as one-stop services, intelligent linen management, etc., but failed to subvert innovation in core systems such as CRS, PMS, and RMS, and failed to effectively help. The hotel has achieved rapid revenue growth, significant cost reductions, and significant employee and guest satisfaction.

The degree of intelligence of products is generally not high, there is no technical threshold, just some low-level technology. For example, the CRS system only connects the upper and lower hotels (and is not particularly smooth), and does basic management of the core business processes, but lacks the high-tech features such as intelligent matching.

In the past 20 years, the domestic hotel industry has not seen an IT company with strong independent research and development capabilities. Most IT companies are generally not large in scale, and the R&D methodology is not perfect enough, lacking good R&D personnel, especially excellent system architects and product managers. Since the hotel does not make money, the software can't sell for a good price. The company is only enough to eat and drink, can't get enough money to do research and development, to introduce and digest the most advanced technology, and the research on hotel management mode and user experience can't be done. Thorough and forward-looking. Coupled with low return on investment, capital's support for such companies is not in place, resulting in a product that is unsatisfactory.

There are also some IT companies that are independent from the hotel group, claiming that their systems carry the best management practices of the group and are exported to other groups. But the reality is, let's take a look at China's hotel management group. How many of them are well managed? Even those groups with relatively good performance, you go to their company to see, management is not good enough. These groups have achieved certain results by relying on the wolf and luck to grow wildly, or relying on national policies to support the siege. Therefore, good business performance does not mean that the management level is high. It does not mean that their management experience can be exported to other groups as a sample. If you fantasize about buying their system and you can buy their performance, it is tantamount to daydreaming.

In order to meet the needs of the business, suppliers have smeared their products, from salt-free makeup to Xi Shi, and put on various new technology labels such as cloud computing, big data, artificial intelligence, etc., and set off rounds and rounds in the market. The technological innovation boom seems to have reached that height.

Let CIOs make choices in the products of these companies, only the short ones are high, and there are problems in choosing.

Inadequate promotion, the system is not fully functional

No matter how good the system is, it doesn't work and it doesn't work. For example, the PMS system has a guest-like management function. Guests who are excavated by employees in a hotel can synchronize to other hotels via the system. When the guest stays at that hotel, they will be pleased to find that the staff's service is very suitable for him. habit.

Such a basic function, if all employees of all the hotels in the group are used according to the uniform rules, will greatly improve the quality of service and customer satisfaction, and the customer's repurchase rate will be greatly improved.

Unfortunately, the reality scene is not like this. Many groups lack effective management of their preferences. Employees either forget to record their preferences into the system in a timely manner, or misplace the invalid preferences to cover their true preferences.

Simple and low-level systems can also be of great value if combined with effective operational rules. We often mistakenly focus on the construction of the system, and lack of sufficient attention and input in the operation of the system, such as the use of rules, training, inspection, etc., so that the effectiveness of the system is greatly reduced.

It is worth mentioning that some budget hotel groups have done relatively well in system promotion. Their systems are simple and rough, they can only satisfy basic applications, and they are not advanced, but they have gained a certain value. The effect proves that a system should be used for three-point construction and seven-point use.

In summary, the incompetent CIO, the unqualified technical solutions, and the inadequacy of application promotion have resulted in a kind of personal technology, store construction system, and individual experience, but the false prosperity that the return is not obvious. . In order to break this game, the Chinese hotel industry still has a long way to go. We expect that in the future, we can form a virtuous circle: the hotel group continues to rely on information technology to innovate business models, improve operational efficiency, and generate substantial benefits, so as to ensure that sufficient IT funding can be provided to develop or support itself. Software companies develop more truly valuable IT products, and bring further business enhancements, so that IT's return on investment can be clearly stated and made clear. (The original title "To the false prosperity of China's hotel information technology, stop" Zhu Mingsheng)

Editor in charge: Han Tianjun