Broadening the Definition of Integration

By Mark Heymann

Let me start by stating this is not a commentary on diversity in the workplace, albeit a very worthwhile topic to discuss. It is instead, a perspective on information integration. As our industry has become more and more technology dependent, we continue to increase our focus on communication between various software systems. Do your systems communicate with all of my systems? Do you have an interface for version 4.6 of my accounting package? How many more hours will I have to spend to get information from my PMS into the new CRM package? And on, and on, and on.

As a software/services company we are constantly confronted with these questions. And our frequent answer is, “if we can’t integrate with your systems, then we’ll develop an interface that will.” Seems simple enough, but as we all know thousands of dollars are expended each year to accomplish this integration. In fact, we now have an entire organization comprised of various companies who have gotten together to ensure “seamless information flow” between a variety of software systems. Undoubtedly, progress is being made and will continue to be made. This is clearly an important endeavor as we strive to improve productivity, “touch” our customers, and simply figure out how to maintain the status quo of the last few years of profit growth. However, the problem as I see it, is that the industry is not fully focusing on all the right issues regarding system integration. Making one software program communicate with another is getting easier and easier. Moving data from one company’s program to another is much simpler due to more consistent and widely used databases, coupled with programming approaches. What the industry is not fully acknowledging is the importance of integrating the various measures of performance to get a better pulse on how business is doing. The challenge is in analyzing the relationship between the various data points, and then, equipped with this information improving performance.

For over a decade now, the merits of a balanced scorecard have been widely cited and utilized in many organizations. As a matter of fact, the findings of several professors at Harvard suggest that successful organizations balance four aspects of their business: customer satisfaction, employee satisfaction, operational performance and organizational learning. Sounds like a very basic and a solid approach for value growth. In fact, topics such as customer and employee satisfaction were moved up on the radar screen of many organizations simply based upon these findings. And success began to develop faster.

But is it enough? I don’t think so. In today’s complex environment, we need more cause and effect measures that enable an organization to better project the impact of investment on the various procedures or actions that result in increased asset value. We need to integrate our metrics, not just our systems.

Let Me be More Specific

We know implicitly that “happier” employees lead to more satisfied guests. A few years ago, in conjunction with one of our partners, we did a study where we correlated employee attitude not only to retention, but to a guest’s intent to recommend. We discovered that room service had a measurable impact and that the room service staff had training issues that negatively impacted their commitment to the organization. The consequences were so dire, that monies earmarked for advertising were redirected to training in this specific service area, and the improvement in attitude and resultant guest intent to recommend, was easily measured.

We’ve looked at improving productivity not just by developing more accurate staffing guidelines, but also by focusing on the relationship between job certification and better training, thereby improving employee satisfaction. The result: increased productivity not just in the labor arena...but in the overall use of resources.

Staffing levels in relation to employee attitudes is another interesting connection to evaluate. I could go on, but I’m sure you get the gist of my perspective.

While it is certainly important to integrate our various systems, it is at least as important to integrate our measures of satisfaction so we better understand what we can expect the results to be if we increase, for example, our training budget. Will it stem turnover or are there other issues such as job quality, task flexibility and even pay for skill that also need to be addressed? It reminds me a little of a Rube Goldberg maze. When we tip the scale, what else is put in motion?

In summary, system integration needs to have a broader definition that not only includes systems “talking” to each other, but also begins to help us better understand the cause and effect of our key business performance metrics on investments that are made.

Keep the wind in your sails,







Mark Heymann, ISHC
UniFocus Chairman & CEO