In the hospitality IT sector, the right innovations play a critical role in attracting and retaining guests. For many of us, these core innovations are the foundation by which we drive all business decisions and measure business growth.
However, the human element of using intuition can augment the success of any innovation.
No where is this more clear than with Big Data – one of the biggest buzz words in the technology industry in 2012 – which has been touted as “the next big chapter of business history” and that it can “change the way we think about the world.”
While it’s true that Big Data can help predict guest behavior, intuition should be equally considered when it comes to implementing and managing technology.
Per this recent New York Times article on using intuition to augment Big Data efforts, in order to use Big Data as a powerful tool to help us make better decisions, a project manager needs to ask the right questions:
- How do you define the problem?
- What data do you need?
- Where does it come from?
- What are the assumptions behind the model that the data is fed into?
- How is the model different from reality?
Asking the right questions takes experience and intuition, something that goes beyond the capabilities of any innovation.
This article underscores that experience, the ability to be creative, and see the big picture are the foundation for developing a keen intuition. By combining the right innovations with this human element, hoteliers can see further business growth and development, which is always critical in this competitive sector.