Assumptions can be misleading
Common perceptions about the impact of a cyberattack are typically shaped by what companies are required to report publicly—primarily theft of personally identifiable information (PII), payment data, and personal health information (PHI). Discussions often focus on costs related to customer notification, credit monitoring, and the possibility of legal judgments or regulatory penalties. But especially when PII theft isn’t an attacker’s only objective, the impacts can be even more far-reaching.
A new survey conducted by Forbes Insights on behalf of Deloitte Touche Tohmatsu Limited finds that more than three-quarters (76 percent) of board members believe their companies would respond effectively if a crisis struck tomorrow. But less than half of their companies have taken steps to be truly crisis ready.
Only 49 percent of respondents say their companies actively monitor to detect trouble ahead or have playbooks for likely crisis scenarios. Less than one-third (32 percent) report their companies engage in crisis simulations or training. And while 73 percent name reputation as a vulnerability, only 39 percent report having a plan to address it.
Deloitte’s new global survey report, A crisis of confidence, examines the gap between real and perceived crisis readiness in the eyes of board members and the large companies they direct. Respondents offer their insights and concerns about crisis risks and their companies’ level of crisis management maturity.
The report discusses:
· Board members’ confidence in their organizations’ crisis-related abilities
· Perceived vulnerabilities and companies’ efforts to address them
· The role of the board before, during, and immediately after a crisis – what to ask and do
· Practical steps to advance the journey from crisis awareness to crisis readiness
View the survey report and key findings infographic here.
]]>What is Digital?
In Hospitality Upgrade’s summer 2015 issue, R.P. Rama, VP and CTO/CIO of IHM Hotels, said, “The biggest impact arising from technology advancement that we have had to deal with can be attributed to the rise of millennials, centennials and the proliferation of digital technologies and channels. Given their deep adoption of mobile and digital technologies, millennials expect that we will interact with them in a manner of their choosing, via necessarily user-friendly applications.”
We live in an amazing world. Information is coming at us from many directions. The gives, gets and handoffs across the multiple channels are truly offering new opportunities to transform how we live and conduct business. We have an explosion of information available to us, and just need to figure out what to do with it and who needs it and when, in order to do something remarkable. Translated into hospitality speak, how do we deliver nuggets of information about guests to employees so they can continue to delight them as the guests go about their journeys? These positive interactions help increase “stickiness” and enhance brand affinity.
Technology transformation has permeated many aspects of our personal and professional lives, and has changed how we interact with one another and run our businesses. Think about it – in the last several decades we have been through several fundamental shifts in technology starting with mainframes, distributed computing and punch cards in the ‘70s, which gave way to minis, spreadsheets, word processors and floppies in the ‘80s. I still have a luggable that boots via diskettes – swap one to launch another program. Advances in computing as well as networking, and the growing popularity of the Internet and browsers made the ‘90s about collaboration and exploring connectivity opportunities – and email. The first decade of the 21st century was about online presence and engagement; as technologies became more sophisticated, websites evolved from static “here’s who we are” pages to more dynamic sales and engagement channels. This decade is about the exponential growth in digital, mobile, social, the explosion of data, and the harnessing of it via analytics. Multiple stakeholder groups within a hospitality company (e.g., IT, business, human capital and other stakeholders) can use cloud-based analytics engines to more effectively attract, acquire, engage and serve guests in a personal manner. Wearables and the Internet of Things (IoT) can help to further transform our digital engagement opportunities. Fascinating times.
Digital is Woven into Everyday Life
Technology has become an enabler for this digital era. Digital adoption is becoming widespread due to the explosion of connectivity, proliferation of data, ease of use, growth in computing power, and availability of distributed computing platforms for specific applications, as well as increased accessibility. As a result, digital is becoming ubiquitous. In so many instances, our personal lives are held together via a digital lifeline that connects our mobile phones, social interactions, banking, shopping, travel research and buying, and so much more.
In the business world, digital is causing disruption. In fact, many businesses are truly becoming transformed as they harness new capabilities and evolve and adapt to ever-changing business and operating models.
Trends and Disruptors
Digital is transforming multiple aspects of hospitality operations. It is impacting the delivery of guest experiences, transforming employee engagement and efficiency, influencing online presence in social channels, as well as influencing how guest data and Big Data are processed and applied at appropriate interaction touch points to support service delivery. The growth in mobile devices has also influenced what guests do with their phones as well as what value-added services hotel companies can provide to their guests.
In addition, disruptive innovations such as social channels are often forcing a re-think of customer engagement strategies. Companies should continually seek one-on-one interaction with their guests, as well as look for opportunities to monetize interactions and drive additional revenue growth. Businesses that learn to integrate and leverage social capabilities are typically able to better plan their sales pipeline and provide more authentic customer support. They will likely also be able to respond promptly to any spikes in conversation that focus on competitors or the industry in general.
IoT is also offering the opportunity to help track and deliver tailored experiences to guests by harnessing what is known and how one-size-fits-all experiences can be tailored for individuals. IoT is a good example of the intersection of technology and strategy. By embedding sensors and connectivity throughout our physical space, the IoT can create an opportunity to transform inanimate objects into a connected Web of ambient computing power – seeing, understanding and reacting to the world. It rewrites the traditional view of data collection and computing, and can give leaders an ability to deploy sensing capabilities and take actions based on real-time information that may come from well beyond their own walls.
Implications for the Hospitality Industry
Digital transformation is manifesting itself in multiple areas, but some of the important ones for hospitality include mobile, social, analytics and IoT.
Mobile: The growth of mobile is making new demands on hotel companies, especially in the case of their information technology assets. Deep adoption by millennials coupled with the growth of mobile usage in general increases the expectation that hotels will engage with their guests via this channel. Most guests also want applications that are engaging, intuitive and designed to take advantage of new mobile platform capabilities. Given the frequent updates and introduction of new mobile technologies and capabilities, hospitality companies should keep their mobile apps refreshed and continually enhanced. In terms of opportunities to leverage mobile, there are apps that offer mobile bookings, room service ordering and the fulfillment of guest requests. In the future, we are likely to see enhancements that take advantage of guest data and geolocation capabilities to help deliver targeted marketing and offers aimed at adding more revenue to the bottom line. However, this should not be an one-size-fits-all approach. Rather, the offers should be tailored, relevant and take the theoretical net worth of the guest into account prior to delivery.
Social: The growth of social media channels that are assisting the proliferation of user-generated content is pushing many hotel companies to rethink how to engage with their customers, many of whom use social media as a preferred medium to engage with customer service. Looking across multiple industries, not only those in travel, a 2013 study conducted by the MIT Sloan Management Review and Deloitte Consulting LLP found that 58 percent of companies surveyed have appointed an individual to oversee their organizations’ social business initiatives. Customer service is a given, and hotel companies typically need strategies for dealing with their guests who choose to interact via social media. Companies may have an opportunity to truly use social media to drive business. Social media typically falls within the realm of a marketing lead – and can be used for PR – but, it can span so much more and digital tools can drive branding, e-commerce, CRM, media and public relations.
Analytics: The hospitality industry is blessed in that it has access to a large amount of guest data. Many hotels know about their guests even before they have arrived on property. It is important to be able to take these insights and convert them into meaningful results. Analytics can be used to harness the awareness of customers. The application of Big Data helps hotels to create precisely targeted marketing campaigns, deliver them, measure success and learn from the outcomes. Next-best-course-of-action engines can analyze guests’ clickstream, location, social interaction platform, customer profile, transactions and voice-of-the-customer data to enhance and optimize their journeys and interactions at various touch points. “Where was I” reporting is often giving way to forward-looking, predictive “Where will I be” analytics and scenario-driven what-if analyses. These collectively enable hospitality companies to empower employees with insights they can use to deliver compelling experiences across touch points using customer profiles and preferences, social listening, location and contextual awareness and predictive analytics. Further, interactions across digital channels are able to be transformed as a result of these insights.
IoT: IoT is becoming a reality with the advent of connected devices, embedded intelligence and the ability to help deliver meaningful information to the embedded sensors that can be used to transform interactions. As hospitality companies consider how to employ IoT, it may behoove them to consider that the most compelling use cases will very likely require cross-organizational collaboration. Also, the desire to play with the next shiny object will likely be strong – therefore it is important to avoid distractions from exciting new technologies by starting with concrete business outcomes in mind. Usability is another important consideration, even if the solution is automated. Given the need to connect sensors, it is important to bear the bandwidth demands in mind. Lastly, standards for IoT will continue to evolve, but it is important to not wait – rather, hospitality companies should help shape standards.
What Does this Mean for the Hospitality Industry?
Digital capabilities are giving many hospitality companies the abilities to transform their business models, guest engagement and employee enablement and create opportunities to deliver rich and compelling experiences. Taking advantage of these typically requires investments not only in security and privacy to help maintain sanctity of sensitive personal information and personally identifiable information, but also to factor in the additional bandwidth needs. A judicious weighing of potential business benefits against investment requirements should occur prior to taking advantage of capabilities.
Amitava “Chats” Chatterjee is a director with Deloitte Digital, Deloitte Consulting LLP, based in McLean, Virginia.This article contains general information only and is based on the experiences and research of Deloitte practitioners. Deloitte is not, by means of this publication, rendering business, financial, investment, or other professional advice or services. As used in this article, “Deloitte” means Deloitte Consulting LLP, a subsidiary of Deloitte LLP. Please see www.deloitte.com/us/ for more information View the original article on Hospitality Upgrade here.
]]>As enterprises and government agencies increasingly adopt cloud, mobile, and social computing, information technology (IT) environments are becoming more difficult to defend. Increasingly, organizations need to accept that security breaches are inevitable. Security strategies need to go beyond defense to include detection, response, and recovery. All this gives rise to a need for new skills and approaches and specialized tools and services, including continuous monitoring and threat forensics powered by analytics.
Cyber security is increasingly becoming a concern among corporate leadership, including boards of directors. A biennial study of enterprise security governance practices by the Carnegie Mellon University CyLab found a sharp rise in board-level attention to the topic. Among companies surveyed in 2012, 48 percent have a board-level risk committee responsible for privacy and security, up from just 8 percent in 2008.3
]]>To turn your customers into enthusiastic, even passionate brand devotees, you need to understand the patterns in how different travelers view and use rewards. And you have to use that insight to craft a program that stands above the ordinary and the expected.
In 2013, A Restoration in Hotel Loyalty: Developing a Blueprint for Reinventing Loyalty Programs gave us deep insights into hotel guests’ travel behaviors, attitudes, and engagement preferences.
In 2014, we take an even deeper look at how high-frequency business and leisure travelers feel about loyalty programs and how their behaviors and attitudes towards brands, hotel groups and loyalty programs affect their hotel spend and selection process.
Explore Winning the race for guest loyalty and view the infographic to learn more.
]]>In 2013, Deloitte conducted further analysis of board level risk oversight disclosures in proxy statements issued by S&P 200 companies. Similar to our efforts in 2010 and 2011, our analysis of risk-related disclosures in proxy statements was to provide a glimpse into risk oversight and management practices — at least to the extent to which these practices are being disclosed. We also sought to provide insight on how such practices are changing over time.
Our 2013 analysis provides evidence of a steady upward trend in risk-related disclosures. For example, 91% of companies disclosed that the full board is responsible for risk. Furthermore, risk-related disclosures at the management level increased, with high percentages of companies disclosing the establishment of a management-level risk committee.
Organizations strive to achieve and maintain excellence in risk governance and fully tell the story, are taking steps to protect and enhance shareholder value.
Download the full report to learn more about the findings of the 2013 proxy disclosure analysis and to view trends in risk oversight-related disclosures.
]]>Deloitte’s Travel, Hospitality, and Leisure practice is pleased to announce our new report, Rising above the Clouds: Charting a course for renewed airline consumer loyalty. In this report, we explore the state of loyalty in the airline sector.
Our findings suggest that an undifferentiated one-size-fits-all approach to loyalty improvement will seldom be fully successful because no two travel cohorts—and no two individual travelers—are identical in what matters to them in the air travel experience, airline loyalty programs, and the manner in which they prefer to engage and be engaged. Yet, despite this outlook of concern—or perhaps because of it—airlines have a unique opportunity to distinguish their brands in an effort to build a truly loyal consumer base.
Charting a course for renewed airline consumer loyalty
Specifically our research uncovered a number of findings that should give airlines pause:
Airline loyalty programs fail to engage
Loyalty program members are far from loyal and airline loyalty programs fall short in achieving their objectives—particularly among high-margin business and high-frequency travelers.
Loyalty programs matter more to some travelers than to others
Overall respondents ranked loyalty programs as only the 19th most important airline experience attribute (out of 26 attributes). However, high frequency business travelers ranked loyalty programs second, even higher than safety.
Passengers plan and book in different ways
Our research reveals significant differences in travelers’ booking/planning behaviors and engagement preferences. These differences underscore the need for differentiated, targeted approaches to building loyalty and customer engagement.
Airlines need champions
Put simply, the flying passenger has the potential to serve as an airline’s most effective marketing tool. Yet, our research shows that only 38 percent of survey respondents responded positively when asked whether they would serve as a brand ambassador.
Download the report and survey charts from the top of this page to learn more.
About the research study
Our research is based on an overall survey of over 2,500 respondents who took at least one flight over a twelve month period and two focus groups with business and leisure travelers. This research has given us deep insights into air travelers’ behaviors, attitudes, and engagement preferences.
]]>The results aren’t what you might think – and keeping abreast of ever-changing consumer preferences is key to success in the fast-paced mobile ecosystem.
The 2013 edition of Deloitte’s Global Mobile Consumer Survey offers valuable insight into U.S. consumer behavior, purchasing habits and preferences. The survey, fielded by an independent research firm in July of 2013, takes the pulse of consumer sentiment across a broad range of mobile services, technologies and devices. In addition to providing U.S. information, the survey can help organizations better understand global consumer trends: the survey was fielded in 20 countries and encompasses the responses of nearly 38,000 consumers around the world.
Trends highlighted in the U.S. survey include:
| Consumers are addicted to speed | The tablet effect |
| Wi-Fi is growing … fast | BYOD: win/win |
| Price matters … for some | Is bigger better? |
| App saturation? | Subsidy surprise? |
| 4G drives it all | The future of NFC? |
Download the executive summaries:
The big picture in mobile
Overview of broad-based survey findings that impact the core network and services used by mobile consumers.
The deep dive in mobile
A focus on the specific devices and/or services in the mobile community, based on Global Mobile Consumer Survey data.
For additional information about the 2013 Global Mobile Consumer Survey, please contact us at GMCS@deloitte.com. We also invite you to follow the conversation via social media channels via @DeloitteTMT and #GMCS2013.
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