Duetto’s Michael Schaeffner, Vice President of Sales for EMEA, participated in the 7th episode of The Revenuemanager, on Creative Revenue Management, last week.

Organized by Hospitality Net and Funnel TV, ‘The Revenuemanager – Creative Revenue Management’ looked at new ways of selling.

Michael presented at the online LinkedIn Live event, tackling the big topics of flexible segmentation and strategy before forecast.

Here’s a quick recap of his talk. View the entire LinkedIn Live event here.

Flexible Segmentation

Flexible Segmentation – what does it mean? We simply have to be more agile and dynamic. We live in a world where everything is very fast-moving. We have to adapt quickly. When we look at our technology, what we have, we are coming from a very static PMS world, using static segmentation, but we need to come into a world where we can adapt. Before the pandemic hotels used to have a lot of overseas business, but all of a sudden, we find ourselves in an environment where we are depending on the domestic market. We need to be flexible, moving forward, because the old patterns of business are no more.

Strategy Before Forecast

We still live in a world where a lot of commercial decisions are based on a forecast. The hotel industry has gone through pure madness in the past 18 months – and we are still in it – and as such, we can’t afford to rely on obsolete forecasts when taking strategic decisions.

We need to make sure that our strategy (using flexible segmentation) is very fluid, very dynamic, and flexible enough to enable us to optimize on demand and generate incremental revenue.

In this event, we’ve talked about hotels gaining new revenue streams, such as co-working space and take away food revenue; that’s all strategy, that’s not in the forecast.

At Duetto, we want to challenge the industry and ourselves to put the strategy in the middle of any decision and forecast is a byproduct of that. It is good for measuring performance, but it should not be the key foundation to build your pricing strategy and pricing recommendations.

Controlled Automation

The pandemic has shown us that we need to work hand in hand: human and machine.

We work in an industry based on technology from the 1960s. We would all do better if we embraced newer technology. We, as humans, are still needed for the strategy, but ideally, the machine is doing all the tactical things. The machine is the better system to tell me if I should be charging €349, €369, or €385 on Sunday. But the strategy to tell me who is coming and why the technology cannot do that yet.

It has been scientifically proven that man + machine is the best combination to hit the highest profits. But this means that the profile of the revenue manager needs to adapt. They need to think more analytically, embrace technology and ensure it is fully integrated in real-time with all the relevant systems. Especially for distribution. It will become even more important for prices to be automatically distributed in real-time across all relevant systems.

In summary:

  • Be agile – the wind may turn at any time
  • Focus (on) and challenge your strategy – the strategy will make you money – not your forecast.
  • Human + machine = success

Stay curious, always challenge the status quo.

Missed Michael’s presentation? Watch the whole Revenue Manager LinkedIn Live event:

About THEREVENUEMANAGER

Based on the success of FunnelTV’s Marketplace, Hospitality Net and FunnelTV teamed up in 2021 to launch a bi-weekly series of live streaming events exclusively covering revenue management and digital marketing in hospitality. The Revenuemanager events serve as a platform for smart insights and transformative debate as we navigate a brand-new, re-invention environment for the global hotel industry. Visit https://www.hospitalitynet.org/trm​​.

About Duetto

At Duetto, we create cloud-based software to unlock revenue and profit potential for hoteliers, leveraging our years of hospitality and technology experience. Built with an Open Pricing methodology, we bring all your data together so you can capture dynamic demand, make optimal inventory decisions, and increase efficiency in real-time. Globally trusted, more than 6,300 properties in 60+ countries are using our products. These include GameChanger for yielding and distribution, ScoreBoard for reporting and forecasting, BlockBuster for group business, Advance for 24x7 revenue management, and OpenSpace for function space optimization. Named the world's #1 revenue management system in 2022, 2023, and 2024 in the HotelTechAwards, we're dedicated to becoming the revenue and profit operating system for the hotel industry. Duetto — greater in every way. For more information, please visit duettocloud.com.

Sarah McCay Tams
Director of Marketing Communications

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