How Does Oliver Companies Maintain a Healthy Bottom Line? Daily Property Business Intelligence Reports Help Managers, Corporate Financial Team Focus on Profitability
May 8, 2014 – Oliver Companies operates 13 properties under multiple flags from Florida to Wisconsin. While its hotels include Hilton, Carlson, and IHG brands, plus independents, its management focus is on two, often competing goals, customer satisfaction and bottom line profitability. “Our hotel staff’s primary goal is to create the best possible customer experience, whereas everything I do is based on dollars and cents. We are all about merging these two crucial aspects of our business into one common mission. Aptech allows us a greater ability to accomplish this,” said Oliver Companies controller Christopher Hedblom.
Aptech Profitvue, Webvue automatically collect data across widely scattered properties
Oliver Companies’ properties are widely scattered across the US and each is a separate entity. Gathering property performance data and providing GMs with input on daily financial analysis is a top priority. “When we were smaller, our properties sent their daily audit packs by email. There was a long delay between data creation and our analysis flowing back to the properties, which they use to better manage,” Hedblom said. “As we added hotels, the manual processes became increasingly difficult. We automated with Aptech’s Profitvue enterprise back office accounting and Webvue data gathering solutions. This streamlined our processes and put audit information in our GMs’ hands in a far more timely fashion.”
‘We have multiple flags, but we compare them apples to apples’
Oliver Companies expanded its financial management platform in 2014. “Our recent business intelligence system implementation gives our GMs more information to manage with,” Hedblom said. “We use the Execuvue® BI system to gather property performance numbers, analyze the data, and run blanket reports with comparisons based on anything we want. We have multiple flags, but we can compare them apples to apples. We can even check the price of linen at our Embassy Suites compared to a Country Inn and Suites. This kind of analysis is exciting to me as a controller. If we save a few cents per room every night over a year, it is big money. We do this with Execuvue.”
Regional managers stay in tune with GMs and what they need
Business intelligence reports give Oliver Companies’ property managers daily operating metrics for better decisions. “We are already seeing benefits from our Execuvue system,” Hedblom said. “The BI reports help our GMs manage with a more ‘timely pencil’ because we get their data to them quickly. If it takes a month to get their performance metrics to them, we lose a month’s smarter management decisions that could make money or save it. Execuvue provides us with customer service and cost/revenue comparisons quickly so our managers can act on them faster. Our regional managers send specific reports to our GMs. Regional can stay in tune with GMs and what they need.”
Oliver GMs share what works in real time
‘Idea sharing’ between general managers is one of Oliver Companies’ successful processes. “Execuvue identifies when one hotel is doing something really well,” Hedblom said. “Then our managers can get together to ‘idea share’ what is working financially. We used do lots of face-to-face idea sharing on customer service improvements. Now we are able to do this with finances, and we are just getting started.”
Oliver Companies’ automated processes are yielding benefits on many levels. “Our GMs love the timeliness of the reporting,” said Hedblom. “They understand and embrace the reporting because they realize time is of the essence when it comes to implementing the information that informs decisions that affect everyone related to the hotel. On the front end, the speed, accuracy, and efficiency of data collection are big advantages of our business intelligence platform. On the back end, the flexibility of data analysis is great. With the system gathering each property’s data, we do not have to collect, enter, and store it. This is a huge help.”
