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This episode features Kari Ann Fiskvik, the Vice President, Technology at Strawberry Group (formerly Nordic Choice Hotels).
Kari Anna discusses her passion for leveraging technology to improve people's lives and enhance the customer experience. She shares her experiences with crisis management, including a cyber attack and a major organizational crisis.
We discuss the importance of finding the balance between using technology to enhance the customer experience while still maintaining the human touch. Join us as we explore the challenges and opportunities of incorporating AI into business operations and the need for work-life balance. Don't miss out on this insightful conversation that delves into the future of technology and its impact on our lives.
Don't forget to Subscribe and Review!
Kari Anna discusses her passion for leveraging technology to improve people's lives and enhance the customer experience. She shares her experiences with crisis management, including a cyber attack and a major organizational crisis.
We discuss the importance of finding the balance between using technology to enhance the customer experience while still maintaining the human touch. Join us as we explore the challenges and opportunities of incorporating AI into business operations and the need for work-life balance. Don't miss out on this insightful conversation that delves into the future of technology and its impact on our lives.
Don't forget to Subscribe and Review!
Timestamps:
[00:00:00] Enabling efficient staff communication.
[00:07:04] Balancing personal and professional lives.
[00:09:52] Vacation mode is starting. [00:12:53] Trying both business and tech. [00:17:29] Adaptability in the hospitality industry. [00:19:33] Enabling staff for customer experience.
[00:22:13] Making conscious choices in technology.
[00:26:51] The rise of third-party booking systems.
[00:30:24] Largest digitalization program in hospitality.
[00:34:49] Making the digital shift.
[00:39:00] Joy and existence
[00:42:14] Getting more women into tech.
[00:44:35] True diversity and innovation.
[00:47:25] Innovation and human potential.
Connect:
Kari Anna Fiskvik: https://www.linkedin.com/in/kari-anna-fiskvik-99b1211b/
Strawberry Group: https://www.strawberrygroup.no/
Omniboost: www.omniboost.com
Rob Napoli: https://www.linkedin.com/in/robnap/
Show Produced by: Niranjan Deshpande (Nick), Broken Frames Studio, www.brokenframesstudio.com
Creators & Guests
What is Hospitable?
Hospitable is a podcast that discusses how to make hospitality MORE human through technology.
Hospitable focuses on discussing the leading challenges facing the hospitality industry and to explore the latest trends, technologies, and best practices that are shaping the industry. Each episode features interviews with hoteliers, restaurateurs, chefs, industry analysts, and other experts who share their insights and experiences on topics such as customer experience, sustainability, innovation, staffing, and more.
Hosted by Rob Napoli
OmniBoost_Ep 03_Kari Ann Fiskvik_Transcript
00:00:05:22 - 00:00:25:06
Rob Napoli
All right. We're here for an episode of Hospitable podcast, and we are actually sitting in Oslo, Norway, at the beautiful strawberry headquarters. So really excited about this episode. And Kari Anna really one first, thanks for the hospitality and to how are you doing today?
00:00:25:08 - 00:00:35:07
Kari Anna Fiskvik
Hello. I'm good, thanks. It's a beautiful day. It's been a beautiful weekend. I was at my best friend's wedding. So you are? Yeah. You can be very good.
00:00:35:07 - 00:00:37:01
Rob Napoli
Always have fun at weddings, right?
00:00:37:03 - 00:00:38:03
Kari Anna Fiskvik
Yeah, It was good fun.
00:00:38:03 - 00:00:39:12
Rob Napoli
Yeah, I was. I was a local.
00:00:39:12 - 00:00:40:17
Kari Anna Fiskvik
Ah, yes. It was local
00:00:40:23 - 00:00:54:13
Rob Napoli
Okay, awesome. I always love a good destination wedding. Sometimes my brother and I my brother, my youngest brother had a destination wedding in Cabo. That was fun. Cabo. Beautiful in January. So in the middle of winter.
00:00:54:15 - 00:00:56:01
Kari Anna Fiskvik
Right? Yeah.
00:00:56:03 - 00:01:02:02
Rob Napoli
So if you haven't guessed, my my guest today is Kari Anna Fisvik. Yes. Right. I was.
00:01:02:02 - 00:01:02:22
Kari Anna Fiskvik
It's almost right.
00:01:02:22 - 00:01:27:16
Rob Napoli
Almost right. I had enough. I was practicing that on the whole flight over here. Okay, from New York, so we're excited for today's episode. And Hospitable is a podcast focus on exploring the latest trends, technologies and best practices that are shaping the hospitality industry and the customer experience. We do this by hosting engage in conversations with tech visionaries, architects, designers, restaurateurs and industry experts.
00:01:27:18 - 00:01:43:18
Rob Napoli
Today with Kari Anna she is an accomplished technology executive with over 20 years experience and is currently the vice president of technology at Strawberry, which is formerly known as Choice Hotels, a leading hotel chain in the Nordic region of Europe. And we're staying at the hub, which is absolutely.
00:01:43:20 - 00:01:44:12
Kari Anna Fiskvik
All right.
00:01:44:14 - 00:01:44:24
Rob Napoli
So far.
00:01:45:01 - 00:01:45:15
Kari Anna Fiskvik
Yes, it's.
00:01:45:15 - 00:02:10:16
Rob Napoli
Lovely. It is. And this is my first time in Oslo. So waking up this morning, walk around city center was was quite beautiful. So we're really excited about that. So, Kari, you're passionate about leveraging technology to make a positive impact in people's lives. You bring a unique perspective to your role and you're committed to innovating effective technology solutions that enhance the customer experience, which is something that I'm really passionate about and excited to talk about today.
00:02:10:18 - 00:02:25:01
Rob Napoli
And you've been instrumental in rolling out a number of technology projects, and I really love that you had some content out about mastering. I think it was a black belt in cyber tech
00:02:25:05 - 00:02:28:10
Kari Anna Fiskvik
It's not really cyber tech. I was at crisis management.
00:02:28:12 - 00:02:35:23
Rob Napoli
That's right. Black cloud and crisis management. And where did that come from? What what big crisis was it that led to you getting it right?
00:02:36:00 - 00:03:00:04
Kari Anna Fiskvik
There's been a few, actually. So where to start? I think was the latest one that we had was a cyber attack that happened about a year and a half ago. Quite I don't really know how to describe it as sort of the out of this world experience when somebody shuts your entire company down and you know that everything that you and your team do are sort of a make it or break it for the business.
00:03:00:06 - 00:03:22:10
Kari Anna Fiskvik
So we did that for a couple of a couple of weeks last year, actually an amazing experience after all, because what we managed to do is that we didn't close the hotels for for it, not for an hour. The hotels out that day were amazing. They just kept the door open. We tried to give them manual routines for a couple of days.
00:03:22:10 - 00:03:45:00
Kari Anna Fiskvik
So the operation departments help with that. While the tech department was looking into how we could fix the problem, and within 48 hours, we had actually converted our first computers over from the existing OS. They had to Chrome OS from Google, and then we did 2000 more computers so we can match them to the OS but in another 48 hours.
00:03:45:02 - 00:04:01:21
Kari Anna Fiskvik
So basically then they need to ask you back again and access solar systems that we had to do a lot of cleanup obviously for a couple of months more. But we did that. And also when I started my job here 1st of March 2020, that was a bit of a crisis.
00:04:01:23 - 00:04:03:18
Rob Napoli
Very much so. A bit of a crisis.
00:04:03:22 - 00:04:23:12
Kari Anna Fiskvik
I think it was within five days. So I had to stop all projects. Half of the people that we had go, people that I never met before. So that was that was a horrible experience and very hard as you didn't really know the organization yet. I didn't really know what was important, what was not important to do.
00:04:23:12 - 00:04:47:03
Kari Anna Fiskvik
But you have to sort of, just learn very quickly. So I've done some of that personal level. Also, I've dealt with some some of my closest relatives being really ill. So you learn to get through that as well. And I guess in some ways it's it's become I usually go in when I have a new job or something.
00:04:47:03 - 00:04:51:22
Kari Anna Fiskvik
I go in and I do clean ups, I fix things. That's what it.
00:04:51:24 - 00:04:53:09
Rob Napoli
Should just call you the fixer.
00:04:53:11 - 00:05:08:08
Kari Anna Fiskvik
Now, they luckily they don't. But but yeah, basically if something's not working, then I step up. So that's why I joke about having a black belt in crisis management, because there's been a lot of them.
00:05:08:10 - 00:05:33:09
Rob Napoli
I absolutely love that. And it's really cool that you share that. And I think it's really important to understand to the blend of our personal and professional lives. And, you're a top woman in tech. You've done a lot of these different things. How do you balance that blend of professional? Because I know you also are mother to two children, and I know one of them, if I'm not mistaken, is an actress.
00:05:33:11 - 00:05:33:24
Kari Anna Fiskvik
Yes. Yes.
00:05:33:24 - 00:05:41:00
Rob Napoli
She just did a big movie for her first big kind of movie. So, I mean, how do you balance your personal professional lives?
00:05:41:02 - 00:06:08:03
Kari Anna Fiskvik
Uh, first of all, and it's not that I recommended this, but I am actually divorced, so. And I'm saying that because for me, that has been part of how I balance it is that I have the kids one week or not kids anymore than 19. And then the other week I work a lot. So so I think if you're divorced or whatever you are, but you need to find somewhere where you focus on this or you focus on that.
00:06:08:05 - 00:06:30:00
Kari Anna Fiskvik
You can’t be everywhere at the same time, all the time. That’s that’s a bit of a struggle. Also, I’m quite lucky to have a very good ex-husband. So we help each other out. He’s been very supportive of me and my career as well is still my, I still discuss everything with him. And then I have a lot of energy.
00:06:30:00 - 00:06:57:05
Kari Anna Fiskvik
So I think for me, it's it's it's not really a struggle to be online a lot of the time because I get energy from it. And then I do really sort of, sometimes six weeks just go away and be unavailable. Yeah. So, so I think it's a mix of finding out where you get your energy from and then focusing on that and and I think my job is fun.
00:06:57:05 - 00:07:16:16
Kari Anna Fiskvik
I love my work, I love my colleagues, my team. Yeah. So it's then, giving it a lot is it's not that hard. And my kids are luckily quite self-sufficient. They didn't need that. One of them was really ill for a while. They haven't needed me to sit down and do homework for them for hours and hours so we could I could sit with them.
00:07:16:17 - 00:07:20:17
Kari Anna Fiskvik
They could work and I would work. Yeah. See you sort of mix that it. Yeah.
00:07:20:19 - 00:07:26:03
Rob Napoli
I think your kids aren't twins, are they? Yes, they are. Are they really know I'm a twin? I'm only.
00:07:26:03 - 00:07:26:22
Kari Anna Fiskvik
Eight. Yeah.
00:07:26:24 - 00:07:51:12
Rob Napoli
So I have a twin brother. We’re actually fraternal that looks just like me and, I as a children child of divorced parents. But I was lucky, some what you’re saying. My parents both were great friends. Better friends than a married couple, which was super helpful. Right. I know that, having that support system in place makes a big difference.
00:07:51:12 - 00:08:09:06
Rob Napoli
And I love how you talked about knowing where you get your energy from. I talk a lot in my previous life about there's two different types of people. There is people whose work is their passion and there are people who work for their passions outside of work. And I think it's really important for you to understand why that is.
00:08:09:06 - 00:08:27:17
Rob Napoli
And it's okay to be in either camp. But when you know that you are passionate about what you do, that makes a big difference in how you balance. And I love that you share that because I think everyone's balance, there's a lot of content out there about work life balance and this and that. It's what works best for you and the situation you're in and how you make it work because you're on your own journey.
00:08:27:17 - 00:08:29:05
Rob Napoli
I love that you share that now.
00:08:29:05 - 00:08:52:03
Kari Anna Fiskvik
I think it's really important and I totally support what's trending on LinkedIn now that, being burnt out is not cool. I love that we're talking about that because it really, working until you die of exhaustion is not where we want to be. Yeah, but for me, I get a lot of energy from the work.
00:08:52:03 - 00:09:11:17
Kari Anna Fiskvik
I like being around people. I like solving problems. I, I get energy from the feeling of that. You sort of, you've helped contribute to something that made a difference to something one. So for me, that is part of what I want to do in life. And that's why I'm saying I get a lot of energy from my work as well.
00:09:11:19 - 00:09:29:08
Kari Anna Fiskvik
Now, it must have meant, in me, we have a lot of days off in Norway, so the summer feeling is still, starting to kick in. I'm off on my holidays in about two weeks. So at the moment it's a bit of a struggle to keep up this because vacation mode is starting to kick in.
00:09:29:10 - 00:09:49:05
Rob Napoli
And I love that you share that because that's authentic. Right? And it's important to understand that because that you know how to balance your days and bring that energy. And so I love that. So how did you end up here at Strawberry? Strawberry, formerly known as Choice, Three years ago, you started in March and then we had obviously the global pandemic.
00:09:49:05 - 00:09:54:13
Rob Napoli
So talk to me, how did you come to here and get here? What was your journey?
00:09:54:15 - 00:10:08:20
Kari Anna Fiskvik
My journey is it's a bit of I never knew that I wanted to work in tech. That was not my passion. What I was going to do was back in arts. And you mentioned my daughter being an actress, and that's what I thought I was going to do as well. So that's what I studied. That's where all my friends were.
00:10:08:20 - 00:10:39:12
Kari Anna Fiskvik
That's was my passion. And then, I wanted to take some time out of school and just work on some money, live a little before I started even farther. And in that year, I ended up figuring out that I was good at solving problems and that I actually had a quite good technology understanding and could use that to solve problems and so instead of going into study that I was supposed to do, I was accepted into school.
00:10:39:12 - 00:11:02:15
Kari Anna Fiskvik
I was going to start there a year after I got off the job in London. And, being tiny, being offered like a cool job in London, I told the school I would never come move to London. And I just, I love that. And I haven't gone back to school since or I have actually I've studied outside of work and obviously I had to learn a lot of the tech stuff because I didn't know it by heart.
00:11:02:15 - 00:11:32:06
Kari Anna Fiskvik
But most of what I've done, this is sort of self-taught, through experience. So when I moved back to Norway, I've just worked my way through different areas. the music industry is where I started. Then I did like the book industry, then I did fashion for 12 years, and now it's hospitality. And I think all of these sort of, this is areas has in common is that they're very lively areas.
00:11:32:08 - 00:11:58:19
Kari Anna Fiskvik
They're about people, they're about feelings, emotions, experiences. So I don't think I would be very good at this job in a company that, didn't actually work with people and experience in that way. That would be more in a back office that that that sense of the project that is useful. But but not that emotional. So I think that's been important for me.
00:11:58:21 - 00:12:21:15
Kari Anna Fiskvik
I've done a lot of logistics as well, e-commerce, tech. I usually end up I've worked part of the business side on the tech side, which I think is actually really, really important to having tried both because until you've sat on the business side, you don't really know how frustrating it is sometimes when you try to talk to the tech department and they'd be like, Oh, but you can't do that and we're going to do this tomorrow and not today.
00:12:21:15 - 00:12:52:05
Kari Anna Fiskvik
Yeah. So I think it's really important to test the business side and feel that sense of urgency that they have to be able to, prioritize this correctly for the tech department as well. So I've done a lot of all of that moving around. I loved working in fashion as well. That was really fun and it was fun working in logistics because, in e-commerce and retail logistics is really the heart of what you're actually doing.
00:12:52:07 - 00:13:13:22
Kari Anna Fiskvik
Then obviously the product is important to customer experience, to shops, but if you don't get the logistics right, you don't have anything to sell. There's nothing there. And if you screw up logistics with e-commerce, I mean, no one's going to come back to your shop. So yeah, I've been very fortunate. I've been allowed to try a lot of different things.
00:13:13:24 - 00:13:40:15
Kari Anna Fiskvik
I've been welcomed into a lot of different environments so that I could figure out how to do things. I've been given a lot of trust, obviously. I've also fought very hard for it because you have to learn the politics If you want to get anywhere. You have to understand the organization, what triggers them, who makes the decisions about it, who are the people that are really important to talk to, to get things done?
00:13:40:17 - 00:14:02:11
Kari Anna Fiskvik
And this is also something I feel that is I've been fortunate about because I'm able to talk to a lot of, the board and the people up there. But I also have like great colleagues that are, programmers or they're doing all the different stuff. And to be able to move around in the organization like that, it's really it's a giving.
00:14:02:13 - 00:14:23:22
Kari Anna Fiskvik
it's like a gift because you get to know so many different people and so many different things. And as I said, I am a person that gets a lot of energy from higher and fast moving environments in people. So to me, that is, it makes sure that I don't get bored.
00:14:23:22 - 00:14:44:14
Rob Napoli
Yeah, I love that. I'm very similar. I feed off of other energy. I love energy, right? And I radiate a lot, but I also need a lot to fill up the tank as well. I love living in New York. You walk outside, you take the subway, and there's just so much palpable energy. And I think that just being in this office here today, it's a monday morning and now they probably can hear it.
00:14:44:14 - 00:15:05:09
Rob Napoli
But this office is buzzing. There's so much going on. There's activity everywhere. It's absolutely gorgeous in here. And it's hard not to feel that that pulse of energy with this with this office team and the people here, I think you need that. And that's really important to be a part of. But also, if you take that energy in an environment to be able to give that energy back to the teams.
00:15:05:11 - 00:15:30:23
Kari Anna Fiskvik
I think I mean, this is obviously a very, very special office. It used to be like, this old shipping mogul that lived here and there was the pool down in the basement. And then there's there's this beautiful garden outside that we can sit and have lunch. And most of the people that work in our company, I mean, for us being home in the pandemic, it was really, really hard because we're such people, people.
00:15:31:00 - 00:15:52:15
Kari Anna Fiskvik
But this office, I mean, our owner, he is saying, like, I love Mondays. I don't know if you've seen any of what it's doing, but it's a lot of it is Norwegian. But he's like, Monday is the best day of the week and is very energetic. And also our CA is very, there are people, people, they come from the hospitality, they come, they like people around, they like buzz.
00:15:52:17 - 00:16:26:23
Kari Anna Fiskvik
So I think that that's really, standard for a whole company. We throw we throw great parties. We we hang around with each other. We're, we like to change things. Even though they might fail. And so you walk into this office on a monday morning and get energy from your colleagues, from the environment. I feel I feel so blessed to be able to be here so it and I think a lot of what you're seeing as well is that people that leave the company, they come back very often.
00:16:27:00 - 00:16:45:18
Kari Anna Fiskvik
I mean, it is a bit chaotic. We're not like processed, processed people. But then again, running a hotel is a very agile business. I think it's one of the most agile businesses that you have because you never really know what kind of clients that are coming in, what happens. They do deal with a lot of, really dark stuff as well.
00:16:45:18 - 00:17:03:12
Kari Anna Fiskvik
And there's a lot of suicide in hotels. There's violence, there's drug and alcohol abuse. There are people renting those rooms to the sell sex. You have to deal with that At the same time, you have all these business conferences. Yeah. And you have all these different people that come in and out and some of them are there for leisure.
00:17:03:12 - 00:17:21:17
Kari Anna Fiskvik
Someone is like, really land is trying to land a big deal. So you have to rethink what you do every day and adapt to your environment. And the whole company is really built like that. Like, okay, we will adapt. Yeah. So yeah, I like the energy in this room is great.
00:17:21:17 - 00:17:38:10
Rob Napoli
Yeah, absolutely. I felt it from the minute I walked in and, and absolutely loved it. And you mentioned it. this company is a bunch of people, people and I and I, the hospitality industry is something special is why I joined omniboost and joined the hospitality industry. And you met Kees and you feel his energy.
00:17:38:10 - 00:18:00:08
Rob Napoli
It's so big right. I think that there's something to that and you talk about this customer experience, right, that depending on you know you don't know anybody is walking in. If they're a millionaire, they're, this is their big weekend away and you have to cater to that. So how does technology what role does technology play in catering to the customer experience day in and day out, across strawberry hotels?
00:18:00:10 - 00:18:27:02
Kari Anna Fiskvik
Right. It's a good question. I think there's the obvious part that everyone is talking about and everyone can see it, which is basically all the self-service things that came into town, the digitalization of of bookings online. You can check in online, you can get more and more information, do your stuff on your mobile, which is good for the customer experience, but also very efficient for us.
00:18:27:04 - 00:18:54:24
Kari Anna Fiskvik
So so there's that part of it. And but then I think what is a really big part of it that we don't talk so much about is, is actually how we enable the staff, our employees, to do their job efficiently so that they can actually, talk to the customers, be there for the guests, be out there, don't look into a screen, but look into their eyes and enhance their experience by being physically available.
00:18:55:01 - 00:19:25:10
Kari Anna Fiskvik
So I think that is that is equally important and sometimes a bit more tricky to get right because there's so many things going on today and there's so many systems to how to talk to each other connected children get that data flowing and give that data and information to our employees so they can catered for our guests. I think that's that's the tricky part and that's what gives me the most energy because it's the hardest part to get right.
00:19:25:12 - 00:19:44:24
Kari Anna Fiskvik
And this also, I think it's really important that when you have all this technology to be able to filter out what you should not use because it's so I mean, I actually I never open any LinkedIn messages because there's just, so many people that want to sell you something. And a lot of those products are really good.
00:19:45:01 - 00:20:13:09
Kari Anna Fiskvik
But if you try everything, you can't focus. Yeah. And also, like they're all saying about you can give you like your receptionist 30 or 40 data points about every guest that checks in. But, no one is going to be able to use all of that information. So with all this data flowing that you want and you want a personalized and you want to get it right, it's also the trick of taking things away so that you can really focus on what matters.
00:20:13:11 - 00:20:31:05
Kari Anna Fiskvik
And what I like about that is that's not just tech, that's business. And you have to get to get tech, right? You have to understand both parts of it. Yeah, not just a code, because then you risk that you spend a lot of time on things that is not giving business value. So I think I think that part is really important.
00:20:31:05 - 00:20:53:02
Kari Anna Fiskvik
It's really cool now to look into, everything that has to do with AI and chat GPT and everyone is talking about it, but how we can actually, reduce work for our employers and not just, write robotics answers to our guests, but also get the whole company flowing around, being more efficient, getting the data right.
00:20:53:04 - 00:21:13:03
Kari Anna Fiskvik
So I think that is really cool. And what I think is really, really cool as well is that, when Tech first came, everyone was like, Oh, now you don't print because you're killing the forests. And luckily we moved on from that to actually start talking about that. We're one of the largest consumers of commercial energy tech industry in the world.
00:21:13:05 - 00:21:47:11
Kari Anna Fiskvik
And so, we're not the great people that save the forests, but we're using a lot of energy. And producing a computer is is really not very environmentally friendly. Yeah, likewise, all the plasma screens and they're horrible for the environment. So I think to to actually make our guests aware of their CO2 footprint intact without, it's not that we want to make cut them into our towels and like you're about us because you watch TV.
00:21:47:11 - 00:22:11:22
Kari Anna Fiskvik
That's not totally not what I'm saying. But actually to be able to make good choices, use technology that is good on the planet. And then maybe we can also, make our guests more aware of how they can make good choices because, the craziness society industry has created with, shifting your devices every second months or every second year, It's insane.
00:22:11:22 - 00:22:28:22
Kari Anna Fiskvik
Yeah, we don't need that. We can have perfectly good experiences in life without getting a new device every day. That's just people, want to make money but are telling us that we need that. So I think that part of the customer experience as far as making conscious choices is really important.
00:22:28:23 - 00:22:29:19
Rob Napoli
Absolutely.
00:22:29:21 - 00:22:38:14
Kari Anna Fiskvik
And then there's some fun stuff. you can do gaming, you can do a lot of stuff with technology that is super, super cool. Yeah.
00:22:38:16 - 00:22:56:24
Rob Napoli
But I think that's also the beauty of technology is that there's a lot of option and a lot of cool things that you can do. But it also how do you leverage I think I want to go back to this point you made about how do we remove certain data or, I always joke about tech over overflow.
00:22:56:24 - 00:23:18:09
Rob Napoli
All right. Overwhelming of tech. Too many tools, too many processes, too many things. And it was great. And there's tech for everything. What is you actually need to drive the business or the process or the product that you want? And I think that's really important to be able to have that understanding of spacing that out and pulling back.
00:23:18:09 - 00:23:34:08
Rob Napoli
And it's really easy to just want to jump and everything and, to the point last night, I'll give you an example, and I want to commend I thought that the person who did that work on the front desk at The Hub last night was amazing. So we got in. It was midnight, just after midnight. Right. And so we're checking in.
00:23:34:08 - 00:23:36:01
Kari Anna Fiskvik
Have you slept at all?
00:23:36:03 - 00:23:37:08
Rob Napoli
Only about 3 hours.
00:23:37:08 - 00:23:38:06
Kari Anna Fiskvik
All right. So I got an.
00:23:38:06 - 00:23:52:00
Rob Napoli
Hour and a half on the overnights to take the overnight flight Saturday night. And in Brussels I met the guys and got up here last night. And it was probably 3:00 forward that, sun comes up really early here. I didn't realize that. Yeah, it.
00:23:52:00 - 00:23:53:05
Kari Anna Fiskvik
Doesn't really go down.
00:23:53:07 - 00:24:01:07
Rob Napoli
I know That's what I was surprised at. And so I actually like what I do when I travel, especially Europe. I leave the windows open so that I get my body on its natural circadian rhythm with the sun.
00:24:01:09 - 00:24:01:15
Kari Anna Fiskvik
Hmm.
00:24:01:18 - 00:24:16:03
Rob Napoli
I didn't realize the sun comes up at 4am here, so that was a fun, fun thing getting up. But I mean, I feed off this energy of travel, right? But we get in last night and, we party, we walk through everybody. But there is.
00:24:16:05 - 00:24:19:20
Kari Anna Fiskvik
But that's not allowed
00:24:19:20 - 00:24:28:10
Rob Napoli
Kees, don't kill me if you came out of that. And so we check in and there's only four of the rooms. There's five of us.
00:24:28:12 - 00:24:30:24
Kari Anna Fiskvik
And hey.
00:24:31:01 - 00:24:40:20
Rob Napoli
we were all kind of like, what's going on? And the reason why I couldn't find it was because somebody had accidentally checked the room in earlier in the day.
00:24:40:22 - 00:24:42:05
Kari Anna Fiskvik
Some of you.
00:24:42:07 - 00:24:42:22
Rob Napoli
Know, somebody.
00:24:43:00 - 00:24:43:14
Kari Anna Fiskvik
Somebody else?
00:24:43:14 - 00:25:06:15
Rob Napoli
Yeah, somebody. Okay, that's a great job. And, we're like, we need to get a manager. It's like now we are enabled. We are our own managers. And he's like, Give me a second. Let me figure this out, that we're fully booked. Let me look. And he did a great job of kind of, managing our anxiety of coming after midnight and not having a room to taking a step back, solving the problem.
00:25:06:21 - 00:25:26:12
Rob Napoli
And then they went and checked to make sure no one is in the rooms that we didn't walk in, anybody sleeping. And it was just, yeah, somebody could accidentally check the room in earlier. Whatever reason happened to happen, made it right really quickly. And having that human element to the digital experience I think made a great touch.
00:25:26:12 - 00:26:00:10
Rob Napoli
And I think really to me was just part of that being hospitable. Right. And everyone could have got angry. It could have been tired or whatever. But everyone was just this we're humans and we're interacting. I think that so that that I saw at work the front desk last night, he did a great job of just really handling that I thought was really cool and it's such a great example of that balance you were talking about, right, of enabling frontline workers to own their process.
00:26:00:12 - 00:26:00:24
Kari Anna Fiskvik
Yeah.
00:26:00:24 - 00:26:27:19
Rob Napoli
So my next question, as you know, the third party booking is how has the rise of third party booking systems and the rise of private residences like Airbnb and verbose, How has that really kind of affected the hospitality industry? Does it affect what you all do and the technology that you deploy to the to what, 200 plus locations?
00:26:27:21 - 00:26:50:00
Kari Anna Fiskvik
Oh, yeah, it definitely does. But I think I'm going to answer your question. But I think also, to be fair, all kinds of technology use in any company affects what we do because it what it does is it changes the mindset of people and what they're used to. So, I mean, even like they're actually being really good at digitalizing how we do our taxes in a way.
00:26:50:02 - 00:27:14:01
Kari Anna Fiskvik
And that also rises my expectations to what will meet me in a booking site. Another place, because you think, well, they can do it, why can't you? Yeah. So I think at third party bookings, it was definitely a shock for the industry when they came because it hasn't really thought about like themselves across the large, massive hotels of the world.
00:27:14:03 - 00:27:45:02
Kari Anna Fiskvik
But I think they're great. we're partners. We're definitely also competitors, but we're partners and they make sure that you're on your toes because you have to keep up. So it's affected the booking experience a lot. How we did it. So booking, yeah, obviously. And how we use data, pictures, content. So a lot of that things that we didn't really work with like 20 years ago, that is now one of the core business areas for Airbnb.
00:27:45:02 - 00:28:06:17
Kari Anna Fiskvik
I don't think it's affected us that much. I mean it's, it's, I think they've, they've done a really good job. It's really fun to watch them and they're sort of booking experience and content is really good as well. But to book an apartment or to live in Italy, it's kind of two different things.
00:28:06:19 - 00:28:22:20
Kari Anna Fiskvik
We also do apartments, so we're not that big. We have a lot more hotels than apartments. So it's a complementary thing, I think. But it hasn't affected us in the same way as the third party bookings and partners have.
00:28:22:22 - 00:28:44:16
Rob Napoli
Yeah, and that's interesting. And I get asked that question because I think as we continue to develop more technology and everything and I think this leads to the next question, I think like innovation, right? I think that we use that word a lot. But really everything is layering on top of it. And it's one step process, one process faster, one thing better.
00:28:44:16 - 00:29:09:19
Rob Napoli
And there's not a lot of true innovation in tech. Sometimes I think there's a lot of derivative 1% better, 1% better, 1% better. And you talk about how you're very passionate about building technology that makes a difference. What does that mean to you and what is strawberry doing to really build technology to make a difference across your 200 plus hotels and customer experience and also the internal experience here right.
00:29:10:00 - 00:29:28:16
Kari Anna Fiskvik
Firstly, we're actually, we win a lot of innovation prizes and I'm really proud of that. And I think that's really because the company dares to do new stuff. Having said that, I also totally agree with you that, a lot of what we call innovation today is not really innovation. It's just naturally building on processes that are there.
00:29:28:18 - 00:29:49:07
Kari Anna Fiskvik
And what I totally hate for companies that, that isolate one part of their company and say, you guys do innovation. Because true innovation, I think, comes from not sitting in a room thinking about new cool stuff. It comes from recognizing that there's a need for something and then you solve that problem hopefully in a new and creative way.
00:29:49:09 - 00:30:12:06
Kari Anna Fiskvik
And that would be innovation. And then sometimes you innovate like crazy. Most of the time we don't, but it's still improvement and it's good. So I think what we do basically is at this moment we're doing one of the, I think, largest digitalization programs in in hospitality in Europe at least, is we're doing around 14 different projects in parallel.
00:30:12:06 - 00:30:38:09
Kari Anna Fiskvik
So we're changing the entire system, stuck out of the hotels, everything that they're doing, from their booking systems to their conference systems, the restaurant systems, small systems, data warehouse systems, counting systems, payments solutions. The web is being upgraded, the app is being changed, everything is being changed at same time. So it's super, super, super hot because you don't really have a base.
00:30:38:11 - 00:31:09:10
Kari Anna Fiskvik
You have to figure out how will everything be connected when everything is different? And this is obviously where omnniboost is helping us with integration. Some data points between the systems say one routine up at least the way I like to work is like, you got to go in and figure out what is the really important stuff, what will make the most impact instead of, taking that call from that seller that has a little app over there that is really cool that people are like, Oh, that's new, it's cool, is playing it safe.
00:31:09:10 - 00:31:39:11
Kari Anna Fiskvik
Fancy. We definitely try new stuff as well. And we have a department that are only working with me, noticing new stuff. But for the most of us, I think it's about figuring out what our business needs and when we build our 2030 strategy that we actually did during the pandemic is we wanted to make sure that we didn't just come out of the pandemic coming out of the pandemic, but that we actually thought we're thinking about where will we be in ten years.
00:31:39:13 - 00:31:59:22
Kari Anna Fiskvik
I think what we said for the tech thing is that everything is so uncertain. We don't really know what technology will be available in ten years or what the company will want to do. So what we need to focus on is just, build flexibility, stability, so that we're open to new stuff. So that when they happen we can move fast.
00:31:59:24 - 00:32:30:07
Kari Anna Fiskvik
And so that's sort of been the main thing that we've been working on now to getting all the various systems up to a standard where we can be very fast and innovate on top of that and use new technology on top of that. So we really can, do a lot of the AI stuff that is actually going to get us more efficient or enhance the customer experience by by understanding them better and automating things that are, I like to say that we should automate everything that is boring.
00:32:30:07 - 00:32:48:01
Kari Anna Fiskvik
Yeah, but we shouldn't automate what is what is fun. Like you're talking about the fact that if you came in last night and there was just, a computer and a robot and you didn't find that dream and there's this chatbot, okay, press here. What is the problem? I will take you through this. You would.
00:32:48:03 - 00:33:10:08
Kari Anna Fiskvik
You don't want to automate what people are to each other. You want to automate the boring stuff that the manual stuff, the repetitive stuff. So that's really what we're trying to achieve now. And, a lot of the times, people come in and talk to me from their can, from start ups or pure, digital native companies and it's hard to compare.
00:33:10:08 - 00:33:33:17
Kari Anna Fiskvik
And then they're saying that you but we can do this and that like, well great for you. But the fact is that we are we're not an old company. I mean, we haven't even been around like 35 years, but you still have all that legacy. You have all those. And it's not only in the systems, it's very much in the process is a mindset how you think so.
00:33:33:19 - 00:34:02:17
Kari Anna Fiskvik
So the tricky part about, leveraging new technology isn't really that the technology isn't there because it is. And even getting a budget, for shifting that technology we can do that. But the real shift lies in, finding space and the right set of technology that people can move along with. Yeah. And that, you don't want to drown them in new technology and you've what you said like, technology overflow.
00:34:02:20 - 00:34:28:06
Kari Anna Fiskvik
It's just it's frustrating. There's too much you don't know what to do. And we have 18,000 employees at the moment and we're thinking that we're going to have another 200 hotels by 2030. So making the digital shift and making use of technology in a way that don't that doesn't drown your people in new processes and change every day, I think that is the hard part.
00:34:28:08 - 00:34:46:05
Kari Anna Fiskvik
And again, we're lucky in this company because we like change and service minded and everyone saying yes to everything all the time and you tell them to try something new. But it's still I mean, it's that train, that shift that is the tricky part to get right. Not to test blockchain. Yeah.
00:34:46:07 - 00:35:07:10
Rob Napoli
I mean, I think that's the fine line, right, is you got to test and fail a little bit, right? And you got to find things that don't work for you. What technologies do. And I think that's a really tricky thing because I think in today's day and age with a lot of digital native companies, as you mentioned, there is an inherent need to be perfect, I think.
00:35:07:11 - 00:35:08:08
Kari Anna Fiskvik
Yeah, definitely.
00:35:08:08 - 00:35:27:22
Rob Napoli
I think that's something new. When you look at millennials and Gen Z and because there's so much data at our fingertips, because all the tools that we have and be able to pick up our mobile and Google anything, YouTube, anything and solve a problem, if we don't get it right on the first try. that’s scary for us if we fail.
00:35:27:24 - 00:35:46:08
Rob Napoli
And I think that in order to experience joy, you have to go through loss. In order to experience success, you have to fail. And I think those are things that sometimes we forget, especially in this is world of technology and digitalization that's really important for us to remember. And I love that. Sounds like Strawberry is not afraid to fail.
00:35:46:08 - 00:35:52:18
Rob Napoli
Like that's kind of your, blackmail and crisis management. It's okay if we grow.
00:35:52:20 - 00:36:15:07
Kari Anna Fiskvik
We definitely do, though it's not always a given. But I think this company is better at this than a lot of other companies. Yeah, there's more room for it. And I totally agree with you. the fact that it's like the new stupid is not being able to to understand and utilize the data not as that as your hand.
00:36:15:09 - 00:36:35:14
Kari Anna Fiskvik
And while the fact is that it's almost impossible for people to do this. This is why we have computers to, analyze all this data because it's hard. There's too much information we can't handle. And the fact is also most of it, you don't really need you don't need all that data to be happy. Yeah.
00:36:35:16 - 00:37:01:21
Kari Anna Fiskvik
So I love the trying to figure out where do we hold the line and when do we just become, you robots analyzing data instead of people that have fun, have joy and hang out with each other, which I think that is really obviously my company, like every other company. Even so, we have like, yeah, our our business people planet profits.
00:37:01:23 - 00:37:28:04
Kari Anna Fiskvik
We do want to make money. I mean, we're here to make money as well. We wouldn't survive if we didn't make money, but we shouldn't strive so hard to be perfect and to get everything right and be better at everything all the time. I think what we should strive for is find the right level of, like we talked about earlier, work life balance, technology, non technology balance, what do we need to live a good lives?
00:37:28:06 - 00:37:43:12
Kari Anna Fiskvik
That should be the end goal to make a positive difference in other people's lives, not to be perfect and know everything because that's not what makes you happy. And and he wants to be perfect if you're not happy. Yeah, it doesn't make any sense.
00:37:43:12 - 00:37:44:05
Rob Napoli
Now, that's.
00:37:44:09 - 00:37:46:02
Kari Anna Fiskvik
Just the wrong angles to be.
00:37:46:02 - 00:38:08:05
Rob Napoli
Perfect. It is. And I love that. And I think it's really important to experience joy. And I look at joy. I had an amazing person on a podcast that I used to run who told me that joy isn't necessarily happiness, it's joyous. Anything that brings you passion, right? Yeah. And makes sense. Yeah. And I really love that. And I think that's really important for us to remember that at times.
00:38:08:05 - 00:38:16:12
Rob Napoli
And we have to experience, Joy in life. Yeah. What is what is life without joy? What is life without purpose and passion? So.
00:38:16:14 - 00:38:36:22
Kari Anna Fiskvik
yesterday I spent all of the day, obviously I was a bit tired after my best friend's wedding, but I have a little Jacuzzi in my garden and like, , it's it's 25 degrees. It's a lovely day. So we, me and the kids. We got up in the morning, we actually ordered breakfast because we were so lazy that day. Doesn't happen a lot, but it did.
00:38:36:24 - 00:38:59:08
Kari Anna Fiskvik
And then my, I can’t really call her my daughter in law, she's only just 19, but she's been dating my son for three years, so I know him very well. So we just looked at each other and said, We agree that we're not doing anything today. So we got, floating toys and we put them in the Jacuzzi and we just put ourselves in there and we lay there for 6 hours doing absolutely nothing.
00:38:59:10 - 00:39:20:11
Kari Anna Fiskvik
And it was quite fun because at one point we just looked at each other. In that same time we said, This is one of the best days of my life. And obviously you can't lay in a pool every day. But that was joy. That was we didn't achieve anything. We didn't do anything. We just existed. We talked, we laughed, we had fun.
00:39:20:13 - 00:39:31:22
Kari Anna Fiskvik
And those days are so important as well, not just, what we can do with technology, but those days that you just exist with your friends and your life. And that's enough.
00:39:32:00 - 00:39:52:02
Rob Napoli
I love that. And as I tie and sing La Dolce fa niente, the sweetness of doing nothing. Yeah. Which is exactly. I love that. And I think that it's important for us to slow down and take those moments, because those moments are long as we need to recharge and and prepare. And just before I do that, we need that that recharge moment.
00:39:52:04 - 00:40:10:20
Rob Napoli
So as we kind of I know we're getting close to time and we have a lot going on today. So I don't want I don't know, we could probably talk for hours, but I know that diversity, inclusion and women in tech is very important for you. And, having been awarded the woman, women in Tech award, how do we move forward?
00:40:10:20 - 00:40:23:10
Rob Napoli
How do we foster innovation and bring them into the tech and doing that from a company level? And how are you and your team here really, taking that mission on? You talk about people, planet profit, right? How has that people aspect going?
00:40:23:10 - 00:40:53:22
Kari Anna Fiskvik
Well, the whole company has a diversity policy. So that's not just us in tech. I mean, we really strive hard to to have a mix of people working from different nationalities, genders, everything. And we do have a lot of female leaders out of the hotels from different nationalities as well. So they work very hard. But as a company in the tech department specifically, it is a bit tricky because there are more men than women out there.
00:40:53:22 - 00:40:58:08
Kari Anna Fiskvik
So, if if we are going to be 5050, were stealing them from someone else.
00:40:58:09 - 00:40:58:22
Rob Napoli
Yeah.
00:40:58:24 - 00:41:21:07
Kari Anna Fiskvik
But we still try really hard I think. And we also try very hard in my department we have a mix of engineers and non technicians that work with tech. So that's one of the things that we do is one that I think that actually creates a lot of not, not innovation but new ideas because they come from people with mixed backgrounds, they see things differently.
00:41:21:07 - 00:41:42:18
Kari Anna Fiskvik
And a lot of the best ideas sometimes don't come from the technicians, though they might find out how to solve them. It's the non technicians that are, brave enough to think of something that they didn't know that it wasn't possible. So they just suggested it. So I think it is, working with diversity and having different personalities in your department is not just something that we're saying.
00:41:42:18 - 00:42:04:03
Kari Anna Fiskvik
We think it actually creates a lot of value. It makes us better. As for the female part, I think what we need to do in general to get more women into tech is to, stop talking about tech as something very techie, And a lot of the men, they come from the gaming industry.
00:42:04:03 - 00:42:23:02
Kari Anna Fiskvik
And though there's women in gaming as well. I know, but it's very nerdy and techie how we talk about it still. But I feel a lot of the females that I know in it, the reason they started working with it wasn't because they thought technician tech was so cool. It was because they wanted to solve a problem.
00:42:23:04 - 00:42:57:23
Kari Anna Fiskvik
So if you talk about, what kind of competence do we need to solve water problems in the world or huge problems and like big, big, important questions for the world or for companies, then you get, you focus on what you want to achieve and then you use technology to solve the. So I think that is maybe one of the ways that you can actually open up the industry more to women is by talking about the end goal instead of just talking about the technology in itself and that there's obviously different personalities and people like different things.
00:42:58:00 - 00:43:18:01
Kari Anna Fiskvik
Apart from that, obviously the whole company works very well with the feeling of being included, welcomes that. It's not a threatening environment and that is important as well because we know a lot of tech companies and I have vendors even that I work with and they're great people, but I would never want to work there because everyone else is a man, .
00:43:18:03 - 00:43:38:06
Kari Anna Fiskvik
And it's just the culture, the feeling. And what do you talk about over lunch is I don't feel like item I would be bored. I mean I wouldn't want to work there because I would feel like a kid, but I don't fit in. Yeah, and not that it bothers me that I don't fit in. I don't feel like I'm less or anything.
00:43:38:08 - 00:43:53:20
Kari Anna Fiskvik
It's just boring. It doesn't interest me if we can't have a better environment. And I think, yeah, you're losing a lot of good hands if you build a culture that is not open for different things, but it narrows it down to just one area. Yeah. Yeah.
00:43:54:01 - 00:44:24:11
Rob Napoli
I worked and I worked in hiring and as a recruiter for ten years. I started actually my career and saw her development recruiting. Oh, that's how I actually can speak any sort of tech language, having been a recruiter and work with so many companies over the years, everyone talks about it, but very few do. And I love how you talk about the the impact that has when you bring true diversity into a team, because that's where the creative this happens, right?
00:44:24:13 - 00:44:43:00
Rob Napoli
If everyone's the same or everything's the same and everyone gets along and goes along with things, there's no one to challenge and you need to challenge in a good way. Thoughts, ideas, processes. That's where innovation comes from. We talked about innovation for a long time, and innovation comes at a challenge, right? And I really love that. And it's really cool to see.
00:44:43:00 - 00:44:57:18
Rob Napoli
And just by being here in this office and seeing it and feeling it, it's a really cool thing. And, I commend you for continue to put put that as a forefront and the way you step up and lead and talk about it as cool things as I was reading some of the prep material going into today.
00:44:57:18 - 00:45:20:20
Rob Napoli
So, I really appreciate the hospitality. You know, this podcast is hospitable. It's all about and we created this podcast with the idea of highlighting all things about it from every angle, and we're really excited and I couldn't ask for a more hospitable environment. So I really just want to thank you for, for hosting us, for being here, for taking all this time.
00:45:20:22 - 00:45:30:00
Rob Napoli
Where can the listeners find you? How can they get in touch, follow your journey and continue to see what Strawberry is doing and the cool innovation and growth that Strawberry has planned?
00:45:30:02 - 00:46:01:03
Kari Anna Fiskvik
Oh, right. Yeah. I definitely LinkedIn and our websites, Strawberry.aio those sites you can see a lot of what we're doing the content, the hotels, which is basically to me it's it's that that is the product I don't really, I don't blog a lot myself. I can't find time for that because I want to I'm busy trying to solve problems for those who are good at blogging, but LinkedIn is a good place and our Web sites is nice.
00:46:01:09 - 00:46:26:01
Kari Anna Fiskvik
Actually, I wanted to add one more thing about, bringing more women into tech. And I think what is really important is that you have to hire female leaders and let them be female because, I mean, that's how you say the others, that this is possible, that there's something to aspire to. And if you only male leaders, it's not all the time you're going to think it's it's not for me, it's not possible for me to get there.
00:46:26:01 - 00:46:39:05
Kari Anna Fiskvik
And then you won't try to. But that was on the site. Now you can follow us on LinkedIn. You can follow us on our Web sites. Come stay in our hotels. I think that's the best. Then you get the real experience, a lot of great hotels.
00:46:39:05 - 00:46:57:22
Rob Napoli
That is true. So what I'll do is I'll go ahead and put your LinkedIn and the company website in the show notes so you can easily find Kari Anna. You can find Strawberry. Check out their list of hotels. Come check it out. And I really love what you said at the end. the need to put women and leaders, women in leadership and let them be female.
00:46:57:24 - 00:47:14:19
Rob Napoli
I think that's really strong and really powerful. And, impossible is nothing. Right? So I think there's such a world of possibilities and hopefully we can see continued growth and just innovation out of not only the technology side of the world, but us as humans. I think right now we need that more than ever, bringing that human element and growing as humans.
00:47:14:19 - 00:47:25:16
Rob Napoli
So I just appreciate you for being here. Thank you so much for having us. And I cannot wait to have you in New York and host you. Oh, yeah. A future episode of the podcast.
00:47:25:18 - 00:47:32:10
Kari Anna Fiskvik
I don't want to come in January. I only ever go in January and it's always so cold. So I want to do all today.
00:47:32:12 - 00:47:38:19
Rob Napoli
We'll get you out of this spring or fall. that is when the city is most beautiful. So we'll do that for sure, right? Awesome. Kari Anne, thank you so much.