Webinar Recap: 5 Steps To Digital Adoption & Automation In Hotel Operations

In a recent webinar hosted by Otelier’s Hospitality Data Evangelist Jason Freed, industry leaders gathered to explore the revolutionary impact of moving your documents, data and reports into a digital environment. With insightful presentations from Rory Sampair, Solutions Engineer at Otelier, and Kyle McCaig, Director of Technology & Service Delivery at MCR Hotels, the session provided five key steps to digital adoption and automation, including ways to simplify night audit procedures, enhance operational efficiencies, digitize operations, and improve sustainability.

View a full recording of the webinar here. Below, find five steps to hotel back office digital adoption that emerged from the conversation.

1. Embrace a Digital Transformation

One of the central themes explored in the webinar was the shift from traditional paper-based processes to a digitized, efficient workflow. There are many challenges associated with manual night audit processes, including high turnover rates and the inherent risk of losing critical data. Otelier’s DigiAudit solves these problems by offering a centralized repository for storing, managing, and accessing various reports, ensuring data integrity and availability. This digital transformation is not just a shift in how documents are stored and indexed - but also in how an organization operates, remains compliant, and contributes to CSR initiatives. The shift towards automation is not about workforce reduction, but about optimizing human skill and effort in more critical areas.

2. Enhance Data Security 

McCaig of MCR shared firsthand experience with digital adoption, shedding light on the decision to revamp their night audit processes. High turnover rates in night auditor positions and a commitment to modernizing operational processes were key factors that led to the adoption of DigiAudit at MCR. By simplifying night audit tasks, providing automated reports, and ensuring data accessibility, DigiAudit proved instrumental in bringing about a positive transformation in MCR’s day-to-day operations. A primary concern in hotel groups like MCR is safeguarding sensitive data, such as guest or transactional information – DigiAudit addresses this challenge by moving data to a secure cloud environment and restricting access to outsiders.

3. Stay In Constant Compliance 

For General Managers and Accounting teams, ensuring night audit packs are stored and compiled correctly is crucial. The DigiAudit Compliance Dashboard offers an efficient solution for validating compliance status. GMs and leadership at the regional or corporate level can swiftly access the percentage of received reports and identify any missing documents. This real-time visibility allows issues to be rectified promptly, whether they stem from PMS-level problems or errors in the night audit process. DigiAudit streamlines the retrieval and verification of data, making the audit process more manageable and less prone to errors. This efficiency is particularly beneficial in an industry where financial transactions and compliance are of utmost importance.

4. Reshape Hotel Operations

Once you’ve moved your documents to the cloud, the next step is to automate the transfer of information across systems, and keep it secure and accurate along the way, which will help maintain operational efficiency. By streamlining processes, projects that used to take a day to complete can now be done in just a couple of hours; and when staff and management spend too much time on redundant back-office operational tasks, they struggle to serve guests and ultimately run an efficient hotel. Automation will continue to assist hoteliers in becoming more efficient and cost-effective, allowing them to streamline operations while improving guest experience.

5. Champion Sustainability

The digital transition directly contributes to an organization’s sustainability initiatives. By moving your night audit processes to the cloud, you are cutting back on paper, ink, toner, storage facilities, and much more. At Otelier, we see on average customers saving hundreds of trees throughout their lifetime of using DigiAudit for their night audit processes. As corporate sustainability initiatives become increasingly important to both organizations and guests, it’s critical for hoteliers to think about their environmental impact where they can, and make changes that benefit both the environment and their bottom line. 

As the hospitality industry embraces digital transformation, Otelier will pave the way driving efficiency, ensuring compliance, and revolutionizing the way hotels operate in the modern era.

Click here to discover more about DigiAudit and its potential benefits for your hotel.