The parallels between fashion, laundry and revenue management are uncanny.
Look at yourself in the mirror. See that carefully curated ensemble you’re wearing? See all those textures, patterns and fabrics with just the right pop of trendy color? Looking that great takes work, especially the ongoing maintenance to keep those clothes looking good. Let’s face it: this part of fashion is a chore.
During the university years, you probably used the cost-efficient approach of washing all your clothes together in one load. Your laundry got fairly clean, but over time your whites were not quite as white, your coloreds became dull (thank you, blue jeans) and your sweaters pilled and frayed. As a student, these poor results probably didn’t bother you much.
But now you’re grown up, living and working in the real world. You’ve upped your laundry game and now separate the lights and darks, isolating the whites from the colors. Let’s not forget though, that within these minor categories are a plethora of variances in color, fabric and weight. The key for laundry aficionados is knowing which methods get you the best possible results.
Where am I going with this, you ask?
Is this sorting process really any different when you want to optimize your hotel’s business?
Similar to your clothes, your data needs to be organized in a way that’s best for optimization. For a very long time, and for a lot of other revenue management systems, this is where you can run into issues. This is because oftentimes the best way to organize your data for optimization is not the best way to report on it from a business perspective.
At IDeaS, we attack this “chore” with a sophisticated analytical segmentation process to break-down the traditional PMS business coding (e.g. market codes) and organize your data based on different behavioral elements. The key to this separation is how we optimize the business differently to drive better revenue performance.
When throwing in a dark wash, you can’t wash your dark wool sweater at the same temperature as your dark blue jeans. Similarly, a revenue management system needs to separate corporate business that can be priced and yielded (e.g. discounted, non-LRA corporate rates) from fixed priced business that can only be managed by availability (e.g. fixed price, non-LRA corporate rates.)
Furthermore, there are often business codes in the reservations system (such as corporate and promotional) that contain a mixture of elements which shouldn’t be considered with one another. Examples of these are LRA and yieldable rates; fixed and flexible priced rates; fenced and un-fenced rates, etc. Separating out these rates supports more robust forecasting and more importantly: the best basis for business optimization.
IDeaS’ advanced analytics engine separates your data to best optimize for transient business – considering both pricing and rate availability decisions – while still allowing you to granularly report the way you want. So you can re-unite your jeans and sweater into the darks category and enjoy the best of both worlds.
In this colorful world bursting with a plethora of hotel guests, you can leave it to IDeaS to help you effortlessly sort out your messy, complex business.