Hospitality Technology Consulting: It’s Time for a New Approach

25 March, 2025 1 category

Hospitality is about people helping people. Technology can enhance this through robust tools, enabling the workforce to deliver memorable guest experiences. Successful organizations must regularly evaluate their technology stack, processes, data infrastructure, and security to ensure practical support for internal operations and provide the desired guest journey to meet today’s guest expectations.

Changing technology, however, is challenging and requires significant time and effort. Many hospitality organizations lack the staff or resources to do it effectively. Optimistic schedules and budgets can lead to delays and cost overruns. Technology consultants provide expert guidance to avoid common pitfalls and surprises.

The current process typically involves:

TECHNOLOGY ASSESSMENT. This exercise identifies current technology costs, operational encumbrances, technology waste, and labor inefficiencies. Understanding stakeholders’ needs is crucial to avoid a project that doesn’t meet current needs and future requirements.

TECHNOLOGY PROCUREMENT. Aligning project goals with organizational requirements ensures the necessary attention and resources. During this phase, proposals are individually requested from identified vendors, or a formal request for proposal (RFP) is prepared and distributed to potential vendors. Submissions are evaluated, a short list of candidates is determined, and multiple presentations are made to property stakeholders. Contract award is determined, agreements are executed with the selected vendors, and the implementation is scheduled.

At this point, the engagement with the technology consultant is typically completed, and the relationship with the vendor is transitioned from sales to implementation.

TECHNOLOGY IMPLEMENTATION. The vendor’s project management team focuses solely on deploying its solution and training users, often neglecting the organization’s overall technology objectives. While property personnel are assigned to oversee deployment, they must still perform their regular job. A lack of suitable personnel causes issues and delays. Inadequate change management leads to resistance and a lack of adoption.

TECHNOLOGY SUPPORT. After the solution is deployed, the relationship is turned over to the vendor’s support organization. Many vendor support representatives do not understand individual clients’ unique multi-vendor technology stacks, business requirements, and operational challenges. Building strong client relationships in IT support goes beyond technical expertise. It’s about understanding the human side of technology and providing personalized customer service.

Our Approach

It’s time to revolutionize how hospitality technology assessment, purchase, deployment, and support are delivered. Get Hoppy Consulting achieves this by providing the vision, leadership, planning, and project management. We partner with ownership, leadership, and key stakeholders to align technology with the organization’s strategic goals while developing the processes and procedures to support business needs effectively.

Get Hoppy’s Attaché Technology Consulting Services assists clients with digital transformation, tech stack modernization, cloud migration, enterprise analytics, procurement, project management, and technology optimization. Our services include strategy and planning, solution identification and deployment, and hands-on operational management. We also ensure smooth transitions and address technology’s impact on organizations. We’ve gained insights into effective practices through global travel and hospitality engagements.

TECHNOLOGY ASSESSMENT AND STRATEGIC ADVISORY SERVICES. Get Hoppy proactively anticipates your needs and works closely with staff and management to achieve your business objectives. We assess your technology framework, infrastructure, security, sales strategy, operational controls, labor efficiencies, vendor agreements, and fees, collaborating with stakeholders to find gaps or encumbrances. We also discover new technology and infrastructure for operational effectiveness, delivering an optimal guest experience while reducing costs.

The Technology Framework and Strategy deliverable provides personalized documentation detailing IT setup, data flows, processes, architecture, priorities, deployment timelines, critical success factors, and potential investment benefits. It also includes examples of leading vendors and their systems and initial annual financial impact estimates for recommended actions.

GENERAL HOSPITALITY TECHNOLOGY CONTRACTOR SERVICES. Gartner Research shows that 75% of B2B buyers prefer sales rep-free sales experiences. This is not surprising, given the current process of evaluating and implementing new hospitality technology.

Get Hoppy works with vendors on our Client’s behalf to procure solutions and services, considering capital and operating expenses.

Get Hoppy’s RFP Management Services develops vendor evaluation criteria, researches potential partners, manages the RFP process, presents a single recommended technology solution with business case validation, schedules and coordinates in-person and virtual meetings, and participates in contract negotiations as a subject matter and pricing expert.

Get Hoppy providesCentralized Billing Services for all technology and related agreements to ensure the accuracy of vendor invoices.

Get Hoppy’s Deployment Management Services provides complete project oversight for implementing new, enhanced, or upgraded technology and infrastructure components of the selected technologies. We ensure timely coordination of system setup, training, user acceptance testing, on-site go-live support, project closeout, and the overall project timeline.

HOSPITALITY TECHNOLOGY MANAGED SUPPORT SERVICES. Given its impact on the Client’s business and intention to embrace guest-centric technologies, Get Hoppy recognizes the risk of staff adopting this mission-critical technology.

Personalized customer service is key to nurturing relationships and showing Clients genuine understanding and commitment to their success.

Our Tech Triage Support Services include a dedicated Get Hoppy client success manager who manages the property’s technology systems and provides first-line end-user support. On-site managed service provider programs for technical and application support are also available.

Get Hoppy proactively anticipates client needs and offers solutions before issues arise:

Active monitoring and problem-solving ensure seamless experiences.
Overseeing IT budgets, vendor relationships, and contracts optimizes costs and service levels.
Staying updated on technology changes, communicating with leadership, and executing roadmaps to meet client requirements.

Hospitality organizations partner with Get Hoppy as a trusted advisor and partner for significant decisions in planning and implementation. With nearly 40 years of experience, we deliver practical results and position clients to lead and succeed.

Are you interested in learning more about our approach to hospitality technology consulting? Follow Get Hoppy Consulting on LinkedIn for updates, or email me at [email protected] to discuss how we can improve your organization’s technology strategy.