Hotel Revenue Management Secrets

As vice president of client operations, Heidi Albignac oversees the complete client experience within IDeaS—from project management to ongoing client relationship management. Heidi is also responsible for creating and maintaining a creative, fun and prosperous environment for all IDeaS’ global clients as well as the dedicated staff within the client services department. She is known for her high standards and always making client welfare her top priority.

Heidi graduated from the Hotelschool The Hague, obtaining a bachelor’s degree in business administration in hotel management. At IDeaS, Heidi started as a client training specialist and held various positions within the client services area, eventually becoming manager and later director of client services. After an already hugely successful 20-year career with IDeaS, Heidi was promoted to vice president of client operations in January 2019.

Bijal Shah, IDeaS’ vice president of product development, has been deeply involved in software innovation throughout his career. He joined IDeaS in 1998 to provide his unique leadership and vision. Quickly demonstrating a command of architecture and design, he gained the trust and loyalty of those he worked with and became a valued team leader within the organization.

From there, Bijal led the charge on a wide range of initiatives. A relentlessly strategic thinker and development authority, he helped spearhead all IDeaS’ leading products and played an instrumental role in transforming IDeaS into a revenue technology leader.

Bijal holds a degree in electronics from the University of Mumbai. Widely acknowledged as a thought leader within IDeaS, Bijal continues to drive the organization toward excellence in both its internal culture and external delivery.

Charles Wang joined IDeaS in 2010 with more than 20 years-experience in the hotel and manufacturing industry. Charles is responsible for IDeaS regional offices in Beijing and Shanghai. In this role, Charles is responsible for IDeaS China business growth, establishing a long-term growth strategy complemented by operational excellence. For many years Charles has been a revenue management missionary and built IDeaS Professional Services teams in the APAC and China regions. Charles continues to serve as a revenue management evangelist and a trusted advisor to IDeaS clients and prospects throughout China.

Prior to joining IDeaS, Charles held different revenue management, sales and marketing leadership positions in Starwood Hotels and Resorts. He also served as director of Six Sigma, Master Black Belt in Ingersoll Rand driving operational excellence in four manufacturing and thirteen sales business units across Asia Pacific. Charles received his Bachelor of Business Administration degree in Tourism from Nan Kai University.

In his role as managing director of the Americas at IDeaS, Garth Peterson leads a team of professionals across North America who are invested in helping hoteliers drive profitability through better revenue performance. Garth is a recognized leader in revenue management in the hospitality industry. He currently serves on the Americas Leadership Board of Hospitality Sales & Marketing Association International (HSMAI) and has previously served on HSMAI’s Revenue Management Advisory Board. He is an accredited Certified Revenue Management Executive (CRME).

In 2012, Garth was recognized as one of HSMAI’s Top 25 Most Extraordinary Minds in Sales, Marketing, and Revenue Management. He speaks regularly at industry events for organizations such as Preferred Hotels & Resorts, HSMAI, and Meeting Professionals International (MPI). He holds a bachelor’s degree in Hospitality and Tourism Management from the University of Wisconsin – Stout and has been a guest lecturer at several hotel schools, including NYU, UNLV, UW-Stout and Kendall College. Garth lives in St. Paul, Minnesota with his wife and two children.

As area vice president of IDeaS’ Europe, Middle East & Africa (EMEA) territory, Fabian Specht is responsible for IDeaS’ regional offices located in London and Dusseldorf, as well as all sales and operations in the region.

Prior to joining IDeaS in 1999, Fabian was the director of sales for hotel systems, EMEA for Micros Fidelio Software GMBH. Before starting his experience in the hotel technology sector, he worked for InterContinental Hotels & Resorts across multiple properties in many different countries and regions.

As IDeaS managing director for India, K.S. Prashant is responsible for the IDeaS regional offices located in Pune and its operations within the region. Prashant brings more than 20 years of experience in strategic business development, service delivery and global leadership to the executive team.

Prior to joining IDeaS, Prashant held senior-level management positions with KPIT Technologies and Parametric Technology Corporation, and was co-founder at Auric System Integrators. Prashant received a Bachelor of Engineering degree from the College of Engineering in Pune, followed by a Master of Science degree in Electrical Engineering from the University of Utah.

Hospitality leader and innovator, Audrey Murante, brought over 30 years of industry experience and achievement to IDeaS in 2018. As Director of Global Alliances & Initiatives, she now drives the continued success and growth of IDeaS’ partner relationships.

Audrey is passionate about being a catalyst for change. With an entrepreneurial approach, she seeks new and unique opportunities to solve complicated challenges. In her 23 years directing global distribution and third-party relationships for the Radisson Hotel Group, Audrey designed key partnerships to enhance the hotel’s brand, profitability and guest satisfaction.

Audrey holds a B.S. in marketing management from Bellevue University and completed the Carlson School of Management’s Executive Leadership Program. Originally from Omaha, Nebraska, she was drawn to IDeaS’ global headquarters in Minneapolis, Minnesota by the opportunity to follow a bold new path while still serving the industry she knows and loves.

Mohamed “Mo” Khanat joined IDeaS in 2012 with over 20 years of industry experience in both hotels and hospitality technology. He is currently the global director of account management where he leads a team of global industry experts primarily focused on elevating revenue management culture and ensuring the ongoing success of IDeaS’ diverse client base.

Prior to IDeaS, Mo held several positions in the hospitality sector, including director of revenue for Accor Canada and regional manager for Travelocity. He continues to be committed to the discipline of revenue management and focused on finding innovative opportunities to drive asset-value growth for his clients while seamlessly integrating into current business practices. Mo holds a diploma in hospitality management from Al-Zaytoonah University of Jordan. He is currently based out of Toronto, Canada where he enjoys spending time with family when he is not busy traveling the globe.

As IDeaS’ area vice president for Asia Pacific, Rachel Grier is responsible for growing IDeaS’ Asia business and enhancing the company’s leading brand reputation in the dynamic Asian hospitality sector. Rachel possesses a unique combination of successful leadership experiences in enterprise software and hospitality sales and marketing. With more than two decades of experience, she has a record of growing businesses in the regional hospitality and travel sectors across a range of established and emerging markets in Asia, Pacific and the Middle East. She developed her travel industry sales and marketing skills across a range of travel technology and hospitality industry brands.

Most recently, she was the senior vice president of sales, Asia Pacific and the Middle East for hotel central reservations leader Pegasus Solutions. Rachel previously worked as the area director of sales and marketing for the InterContinental Hotel Group in Japan, where she oversaw a major restructure and was responsible for sales, marketing and revenue results. She also held senior leadership roles within organizations such as Per Aquum Resorts, Spas, and Residences, Rendezvous Hotels International and FCm Travel Solutions (Flight Centre).

As IDeaS Chief Evangelist, Klaus Kohlmayr challenges strategic processes, stimulates thought-provoking conversations and reinvigorates the future of revenue management and pricing within the hospitality and travel industries.

A natural contrarian, Klaus has challenged the status quo in the hotel industry for over 20 years. With IDeaS, he previously started the company’s global consulting division and pioneered the industry’s first group price optimization and function space revenue management proof-of-concepts in a real-world environment.

An advocate of lifelong learning, he has studied business at Henley Management College in the UK, real estate investment and asset management at Cornell University’s School of Hotel Administration; and finance and strategy at the Singapore Management University.

Klaus has been an active participant in various industry advisory boards. He not only loves to challenge the status quo, but wholly welcomes being challenged in new ways of thinking.

Mike Chuma joined IDeaS in 2016 as Vice President of Product Strategy and Marketing, bringing more than 15 years of progressive experience in driving growth and strategy in enterprise SaaS technology, eCommerce platforms, brand management and marketing for companies ranging from start-ups to Fortune 500 organizations. In this role, Mike is responsible for leading product strategy, corporate marketing, product marketing, and sales enablement teams on a global basis.

In his most recent role with Digital River, Inc. as Senior Director, Global Product Management & Strategy, Mike held responsibility for global SaaS based ecommerce and subscriptions product platforms serving the software, subscriptions and online gaming markets. Prior to Digital River, Mike held strategic roles in eCommerce, multi-channel marketing and brand management for organizations such as Albertsons, Inc., SuperValu and Trinity Springs. Mike received his Bachelor of Business Administration degrees in Marketing & Finance from Boise State University.

Russ Stanziale has over 25 years of experience in the area of selling and delivering analytics and price optimization. He began his career as an analyst and industry consultant before moving into sales and sales leadership positions at companies like ACNielsen, Teradata, Hewlett Packard and most recently PROS Software, where he served as Vice President of Sales for their Strategic Accounts team. Russ brings his global experience including responsibility and direct reports in Latin America, Europe and Asia. He has a track record of building organizations, driving growth and collaborating with cross-functional teams on strategic initiatives. In this role, Russ is responsible for continuing to promote the sales teams’ ability to deliver on our value proposition with our clients.

Russ attended the University of Georgia where he received both a bachelor’s in business administration and a master’s in marketing analytics.

Joseph Martino is responsible for various areas of the organization globally which include business development, alliances, advisory services and M&A activity. A travel industry veteran, Joseph has held senior-level management positions at MICROS Systems, Inc., and Fidelio Software for the past decade. As vice president of operations and central systems business development for MICROS Systems in Naples, Florida, he was responsible for an enterprise software development organization in delivering state-of-the-art hospitality applications.

Previously, Joseph held the position of COO and senior vice president of Fidelio Software in Munich, Germany, where he maintained worldwide headquarters responsibility for all internal operations, product development, sales and service. Prior to working at MICROS Systems, Joseph spent 10 years with increasing marketing and sales responsibilities with Marriott Hotels & Resorts. He began his hospitality career at Cunard Ships, Hotels and Resorts.

Brian Douty joined IDeaS in 2013 as vice president of finance, bringing more than 20 years of experience directing, integrating and transforming financial operations in the technology and energy industries. In this capacity, Brian leads IDeaS global corporate strategy, finance, accounting and administration.

Brian has previously served in executive leadership roles at LexisNexis, Thomson Reuters and Hess Corporation, in addition to several senior finance roles throughout his career. He brings extensive experience with the SaaS business model, international operations and financial and systems integration. Brian holds a B.S. in Finance from Penn State and an MBA in Finance from Rutgers University. He is CPA, CMA and CFM certified.

With more than 20 years of experience in product development and operations, Sanjay Nagalia rejoined IDeaS in 2012 and serves as chief operating officer. Prior to joining IDeaS, Sanjay co-founded and held the position of chief operating officer for Apex Decisions, a retail revenue management company.

Previously, he co-founded IDeaS and served as vice president of products and services from 1989 to 2001. He has provided executive leadership as head of development and operations for fast growing global organizations and all aspects of product development, implementation and support. Sanjay received his B.S. in Electrical Engineering from the Indian Institute of Technology and his M.S. in Computer Science from the University of Maryland.

Dr. Ravi Mehrotra is the president, founder & chief scientist of IDeaS Revenue Solutions. Through the establishment of IDeaS in 1989, Dr. Mehrotra pioneered the “Opportunity Cost” approach that later became the industry standard for dealing with the complexities of the network or length of stay effects in revenue management.

Ravi’s research and founding involvement in IDeaS is a natural progression of his scientific background. As an assistant professor at North Carolina State University, he invented new models for parallel computing; designed and analyzed both asynchronous and randomized algorithms for distributed processing; and reviewed many proposals for key government scientific agencies. At Texas Instruments, Ravi played an integral role in the development of a real-time scheduler for a complex manufacturing company. As a scientist in the Decision and Technology Lab of Andersen Consulting, Ravi was instrumental in the development and implementation of a fleet planning, scheduling and load consolidation system for a major household goods transportation company. Additionally, Ravi co-authored and holds more than one dozen patents.

Today, Dr. Mehrotra remains an active and hands-on chief scientist at IDeaS. He continues to research increasingly sophisticated methods for dynamic pricing that optimize expected profits over longer time horizons, and is a widely-recognized leader in the field of predictive analytics, forecasting and dynamic price optimization.

Through multiple internal programs, IDeaS is committed to providing well deserved recognition
to our employees who go above and beyond. Enjoy work life activities such as:

• Quarterly birthday & anniversary celebrations
• Open office layout, designed to maximize team interactions
• Social media awareness for our team members allows a platform for us to explore
• Fitness and nutrition services

^{Depending on region, benefits may vary}

IDeaS provides a plethora of volunteer opportunities to assist in the contribution to the welfare
of society. Some of these great initiatives include:

• Habitat for Humanity
• Tree Plantation Drive
• Blood Drives
• Visit Children’s Shelters

We aspire to increase our teams’ and communities’ quality of life with initiatives such as Adopt-a-family, Feed My Starving Children, Campus Connect and so much more.

^{Depending on region, benefits may vary}

IDeaS appreciates and recognizes the added value of having a diverse and dynamic work environment.

• Complimentary snacks and beverages throughout the day
• Paid vacation time and holidays
• Paid leave for maternity, paternity and adoption
• Comprehensive coverage of all types of leaves
• Flexible work schedules
• Discounted tickets for local events

^{Depending on region, benefits may vary}

IDeaS values their employees’ well-being by including the following:

• Athletic club membership reimbursement
• Great medical benefits for you and your immediate family
• Continuous volunteer opportunities
• Competitive pay
• Child Care reimbursement

^{Depending on region, benefits may vary}

Due to the high-growth nature and global reach of IDeaS, opportunities constantly arise for our employees to take their careers to new and exciting directions. Many of these opportunities transcend traditional geographical and functional boundaries.

• Higher education assistance
• Development classes
• Promotion/transfer opportunities
• International exposure/learning

Talent Development

• Comprehensive roster of both behavioral and technical interventions to create a talent pipeline as well as invest in the upskilling of our existing talent.

^{Depending on region, benefits may vary}

IDeaS is a pioneer in the tech industry, but don’t be fooled, IDeaS is continuing to innovate every day!

The ShipIT program started with a primary objective to enhance the quality of work at an IDeaS and individual level. It takes place every quarter with input from employees across all the global locations. The focus of ShipIT is to:

• Create a platform to promote and showcase innovation at IDeaS
• Foster creativity
• Create a spotlight for new ideas and radical approaches

Revenue Managers’ Forum was created with the intention to enable interaction between IDeaS and clients from the hospitality industry. This provides our employees an opportunity to internally design and implement changes in our work cycle keeping the clients’ needs at the core. The discussions with our clients help us sustain our focus on help our clients maintain and improve on revenue streams.

All of this while having a lot of fun!

^{Depending on region, benefits may vary}

IDeaS contributes to continuing education for their employees’ development with tools such as:

• Knowledge Quest acts as a internal learning platform for company and product information. Each mission contains a group of courses designed to enhance your knowledge of IDeaS.
• Tech Jam is a non-profit initiative to build a community of techies, who are interested in learning and exploring new technologies.
• Eve’s Circle is our in-house diversity initiative. The objective of this initiative is to invest and nurture the talent of women employees at IDeaS so as to build a stronger and more diverse leadership pool within the organization. It was conceptualized with a definition of a personalized vision for each of the members. As part of the initiative, monthly activities and trainings are conducted for professional skills enhancement.
• Unlimited access to Lynda.com – our own knowledge management repository.
• Coding Katta – An event that takes place once a month to generate and share new ideas to assist coding and developing challenges by employees.
• Social Katta is an initiative to create awareness of social media amongst IDeaS employees.

^{Depending on region, benefits may vary}

SAS® Advanced Analytics Go Beyond the Others

SAS, the world’s leading analytics company, solves business challenges that others ignore with unparalleled experience and depth across multiple major industries. For hospitality, IDeaS solutions benefit from hundreds of proven SAS advanced analytic models, always ready to solve specific business challenges facing hotels today. Beneath the sleek user interface, the analytics, along with machine learning, are working on your behalf, 24/7, while you enjoy the results.

IDeaS revenue management solutions analytically assess guest price sensitivity while accounting for season, day-of-week, days-to-arrival, length of stay, and more, in addition to managing rate availability, optimizing stay patterns and strategic overbooking to drive the most revenue overall.

Harnessing this power, IDeaS’ solutions organize your data in a way that’s best for optimization, and this is where ordinary revenue management systems 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.

As an example, most revenue management systems would combine and forecast certain corporate business into one group, for ease of reporting on that market segment. IDeaS’ revenue management solutions use a sophisticated analytical segmentation process to break-down the traditional PMS business coding (e.g. market codes) and organize the data based on different behavioral elements. This unique separation is how we optimize the business differently to drive better revenue performance. This approach analytically separates corporate business that can be priced and yielded (e.g. discounted, non-last room available (LRA) corporate rates) from fixed priced business that can only be managed by availability (e.g. fixed price, non-LRA corporate rates.) Separating out these rates supports more robust forecasting and more importantly: the best basis for business optimization.

The analytics engine found in IDeaS’ solutions 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.

Be More Strategic in Less Time

The IDeaS “manage by exception” philosophy allows basic tactical activities to be automated, with users made aware immediately of significant changes or conditions that require their expertise. This approach prioritizes critical actions and monitoring, freeing up more time to spend on strategic activities.

Users can easily review and monitor all changes the system makes, including –changes that may require action or have the most revenue impact. Decision-based IDeaS solutions intuitively guide users to the tasks they should perform, without having to review system changes via multiple reports or long lists of alerts from recommendation-based systems.

IDeaS solutions also support exception-based reporting customizable by job role. These can include summary overviews for owners, executives and general managers, along with deeper dives for revenue managers and data analysts. Informative dashboards also help a variety of hotel team members gain actionable insights relevant to their business needs.

Guided workflows and just-in-time learning are so intuitive that even users who access IDeaS on a limited basis will be able to perform necessary tasks with ease.

Powerful Controls

Price alone cannot manage your peak night occupancy while also increasing shoulder night performance, because it’s only one part of the picture. Instead, hotels need to optimize both price and inventory together to capture the most profitable mix of demand and optimize length-of-stay patterns.

Unlike ordinary revenue management systems that focus on managing publicly available rates, IDeaS understands that these rates are just one of many business types your revenue strategy must take into account. All of this business impacts one another: publicly available rates, groups, corporate, wholesale, air crews, loyalty, promotions, packages, meetings and events, etc. Pricing only the publicly available rates—without considering the relationships between segments and what rates should be available when—will not deliver ideal revenue performance. Understanding these impacts leads to better pricing and inventory control decisions that maximize revenue performance.

Research has shown that hotels that optimize both pricing and availability will outperform hotels that restrict themselves to managing pricing alone. The IDeaS approach employs powerful user controls that align yielding with business needs to maximize overall revenue.

Last Room Value – Accept the most valuable business across all guest stay patterns

Overbooking – Avoid lost revenues due to cancellations and no-shows

Pricing – Apply the most advanced and flexible pricing toward your transient, group and meetings and events business

Decision Systems

All hotels face the common challenges of how to:

• Forecast occupancy
• Set associated pricing strategies
• Determine overbooking levels
• Distribute pricing across various channels
• Report on the results

Regardless of these challenges, hotel businesses should not have to sacrifice time reviewing and implementing system recommendations rather than executing a revenue strategy.

Underneath the surface and behind its sleek user interface, IDeaS cloud-based solutions continually produce powerful decisions that enable hotels to achieve optimal revenue performance through automated controls that manage pricing, rate availability and overbooking. These decisions are based on a sophisticated analytical understanding of how a hotel’s business behaves.

Automated decisions do not mean you simply “set it and forget it.” Users still directly interact with system inputs, sharing business insights such as sudden changes in the marketplace. The goal is to ensure the solution uses the best information available to produce the most beneficial mix of automated decisions that drive profitable business performance. These time-sensitive controls are distributed to your booking channels in a prompt and routine manner. The system also automatically learns from the impacts of these decisions in the market, enabling it to continually adapt, improve and produce highly accurate forecasts.

Ideal Pricing & Evaluation for Group Business

As the most robust group pricing tool in the industry, IDeaS Group Pricing functionality provides the exclusive ability to not only provide immediate pricing results for group business inquiries, but also forecast group materialization and group wash by market segment and room type. An evaluation tool determines a group’s entire value and the value of any potential business being displaced, allowing users to develop comprehensive evaluations of group opportunities and model various scenarios to identify which group inquiry will return the greatest profit to the hotel.

• Deliver immediate and accurate pricing recommendations to prospective groups and key stakeholders
• Factor all group-related costs and associated revenue into your decisions to determine true profitability, including concessions, comps and commissions, banquet, audio/visual and ancillary spend
• Offer alternative date recommendations for groups that have flexibility, allowing you to choose dates hat generate the highest profitability for your hotel
• Perform evaluations at the room type or hotel level to support specific group requirements and maximize inventory
• Evaluate group requests across multiple properties, so that you can place business at any location that will maximize enterprise profitability
• Configure group rates by date range, season, group size, market segment and arrival date to support hotel-specific revenue strategies