Multi-Units Can Turn Data Into Usable Information

By Kristine McKenzie

Hotel, restaurant and retail industries can improve their bottom lines by accessing their own data, according to industry experts.

Companies already have most of the information they need on hand for meaningful reports, they just don't know what to do with it or how to package it, according to Michael Goldenberg of Statability, an Atlanta-based company that provides reporting tools delivered directly to each unit of a large company via the Internet.

By creating consolidated reporting packages that allow all levels of a company's management team to make better decisions about how to run their businesses, multi-unit businesses can turn data that may currently be filed away unread into useful information.

"There is a ton of information sitting on all of their (multi-unit companies) systems, but very little of it becomes actionable to managers at the local level," said Michael Wohl, Statability's marketing president.

"What managers really need to run the business is information and information comes to them as reports," he said, adding that a focus of the parent company should be on getting information and reporting it to local levels. But more important still is being able to package the information to make it useful to local managers.

Companies can bring the reporting function inhouse or rely on companies such as Statability as an outsourced vendor.

Statability creates reporting packages in the areas of: financial operating results, quality assurance, operating budgets, forecasts, guest/employee satisfaction and mystery shopping.

The reporting package is made for real-time delivery over the Web, which eliminates any additional hardware or software purchases for the client, he said.

Goldenberg sums up the biggest reason multi-unit companies can benefit from using a reporting package: "There's not a data shortage, there's an information shortage."