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Each episode of GAIN Momentum focuses on timeless lessons to help grow and scale a business in hospitality, travel, and technology. Whether you’re a veteran industry leader looking for some inspiration to guide the next phase of growth or an aspiring executive looking to fast-track the learning process, this podcast is here with key lessons centered around four questions we ask each guest.
GAIN Momentum episode #38 - Platforms for Enabling the Next Generation of Hoteliers | with Shane O'Flaherty
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Adam Mogelonsky: Welcome to the Gain Momentum podcast, focusing on timeless lessons from senior leaders in hospitality, travel, food service and technology. We have our co host here today, Michael Cohen. How are you?
Michael Cohen: Awesome. Good afternoon really happy to be talking to Shane, a friend and someone who I respected for a long time in the industry. And also, Adam, thank you for your leadership on the podcast.
Adam Mogelonsky: Awesome. And with no introduction or multiple introductions, Shane O'Flaherty uh, he is the Global Director of Travel and Hospitality at Microsoft. Shane, how are you?
Shane O'Flaherty: I'm well. How are you? Thanks, Adam. Thanks, Michael, for having me on.
Adam Mogelonsky: Great to have you. We structure this podcast around four key questions, and then there's follow up in between. So Shane, our first question for you [00:01:00] is, when it comes to scaling a business, what is the single piece of advice you would give entrepreneurs from your perspective as a professional in hospitality technology?
Shane O'Flaherty: Well, I, think the most important thing, I mean, when we look at the space holistically, and then when I formally did a startup myself, I mean, we always focused on, you know, our kind of methodology internally was smart, goodness, and grit. So it's this idea that as you build out your business plan, be smart about it. Iterate off it as many times. Be a good person out in the marketplace. and then number three is really to really test and test and test and AB test across the board, which requires grit, associated with that. and sometimes your thought process of where things go may not work out the right direction. Start small, start with small, like, I don't know, let's say independent hotels as an example of you're putting your new tech out there. And then, Use that kind of as your platform, both from a product perspective to learn and grow. And then [00:02:00] over time, as you build out small, medium size, and then the larger scale chains, if you're selling tech into them. Microsoft, we start at the top because we're from a tech perspective, but if you're building a business, Start small, iterate, and then, continue to look for pockets where you know you can drive revenue, and then significantly kind of grow that, and then, you know, people have been in the business a long time, so there's lots of word of mouth in our industry as a whole, and if they see a good product that drives consistent, let's say, operational efficiency or innovation, um, it can catch on pretty quickly, uh, and then the larger scale enterprises that you go after, you know, be patient, take your time, they take their time, rightfully so, but you know, have optimism, have confidence that over a period of time you can scale it out. kind of across the board.
Michael Cohen: So as a follow up, you know, how much of that is applicable when you're leading a global gargantuan enterprise, a division of that? Is there an intrapreneurial cycle? [00:03:00] That you have found in your career over the years, um, that kind of mirrors some of the entrepreneurial cycle, or is it entirely different?
Shane O'Flaherty: No, I mean, inside Microsoft, it's an entrepreneurial society internally. So our big mission in life, especially with this Gen AI coming out over the last year, is really to look at, you know, the canvas as a whole and whether it's around the customer experience, the employee experience, whether it's around operations, you know, ultimately what ideas are out there in the marketplace, what ideas do we hear from our customers, how do we move quickly to a POC with them on a specific. you know, theme or, or area, and then how do we iterate? And if it doesn't work, it's kind of like this, we quote, quote, fail fast. Where we, our, our CEO is very good about calling it this as the world of learn it alls, that we're not in a world of know it alls. so it's really this concept and idea of how do you move quickly and iterate?
I mean, I've, we've, as you can see from Microsoft in the past year, you know, it's like [00:04:00] a whole new company again. And it's this constant evolution of reinventing yourself, and the, the speed and the scale that we're working at right now is, you know, unheralded in our kind of history of bringing our product, uh, Gen AI, which is kind of Azure OpenAI, and then bringing our copilot product to all our products and services that we have out there. I mean, I've been here nine years at Microsoft. I did not, I'm not an IT background in any way, shape or form. I came from the business side around customer experience, marketing, sales. I'm a sales guy at heart. And then I did a startup. Uh, I did a startup within a, a, a standard company itself, like a startup division.
So, I think I've seen a lot, but then inside Microsoft, I think this, it's amazing with a company this size, this scope, this breadth, how they inspire at an individual level for you to be an entrepreneur in your space. And, the beauty of it inside this large scale companies like this is I see what's happening in retail. I see what's happening in healthcare. I see what's happening in the gaming division of Microsoft since we own Xbox. what's happening in LinkedIn. So you see all of [00:05:00] these areas and you see what's happening and saying, okay, how can I take what's happening over here in the loyalty space of gaming? How do I apply that into travel loyalty and what could be the next generation of travel loyalty?
So it's, an amazing company to be part of. And learn every day. And then you turn around the corner and like, you see something, you're like, wow, that's pretty cool. I never even expected you could do that. Uh, but you can. So the tech, the tech is here in the marketplace. it's a lot around, kind of the cultural transformation inside of companies. And a lot of people, you know, we've been in the industry forever. We've lived in the industry. I lived in the industry forever and, you know, so the lens I looked through was like this after 25 years in the industry and then all of a sudden I joined Microsoft. Which is the flip turn of the industry as a whole.
So then you create a whole new lens of looking at the landscape. So it's, I think as we look as hoteliers or being in the hotel space or anywhere in the travel space that we've been for our entire careers, you know, how do we open up kind of our blinders to a certain extent, [00:06:00] because we've been doing certain things a certain way. How do you kind of open up and scale that out and try to look, try to step up and look down From a different perspective, and that drives innovation kind of across the board. Cause things that I thought worked well, and I joined Microsoft and I look inside the travel space. I'm like, wow, you could do it better. Um, it works. Don't get me wrong, but there's a way to drive more efficiency, more productivity, more innovation. you know, and I think they've made some great changes post COVID, from an innovation perspective that I think the business and IT now are driving together, where pre COVID I think they were a little bit more separate as institutions as a whole. Just my personal opinion.
Adam Mogelonsky: Well, it's interesting because you don't know what you don't know, as they say. And you talk about changing your perspectives and hotels are traditionally a very traditional industry and a lot of eyes were open for what technology could do with the pandemic and going from 90 percent to 0 percent [00:07:00] occupancy inside of two weeks and then needing to scale back up with half the staff.
What would you recommend right now in 2024 getting people to change their minds and to have that Growth mindset for looking at technology as a very important tool in, such a multi operational business as a hotel.
Shane O'Flaherty: Yeah, I think the, I mean, and I've experienced it typically when I was on the business side and then I had my CTO over here on the right hand side. him or her, I'd kind of turn to them for everything technical. And I'm like, Oh, they can handle it. They can handle it. They can handle it. So anything that was in that tech realm, I just handed it off. And, I think as a business leader, it's really, how do I dig deep and learn about the technology, not be afraid of the technology. and then how do I embrace it in my everyday life? And then how do I, be more of a learn it all around it? Because I think we typically just pass it off to the person who is smart around technology. And, I think as a business leader, just the [00:08:00] idea of, you know, Okay, if I have Microsoft Outlook as an example, and I have Copilot, I should use it in my daily life. I mean, it drafts an email for me. or if I'm in my dashboard, you know, what we're trying to do at Microsoft is democratize data as easily as possible.
So if I have a dashboard, typically if I'm in the revenue management side, I have the dashboard and I'm, you know, working through the dashboard itself. But if I'm on GM at a hotel, you know, I'd like to just say, Hey, you know, um, how are we performing this year against last year? And what drove this difference in this?
Is it spas? Is it golf? Is it this? Or is it that? And I can just speak into my computer and the data will come back up. so how do I use that tech? How do I ensure that my IT department is, is deploying that tech inside my organization? And ultimately we're trying to drive more productivity. And then if you use it in your daily life, all of a sudden it becomes a rote thing that, you know, you become more open to tech or generative AI as an example.
And think of, okay, I wonder if we can use that [00:09:00] in, uh, I think there's a gentleman named Matthew Upchurch who's phenomenal. He's the president of Virtuoso, amazing, amazing human, what he has built. Uh, and he has, he coined the phrase automate the predictable and humanize the exceptional, which is really focused on how does high tech and high touch come together in a way that You know, I keep my head up, I'm looking at my consumer, and I'm creating that emotional connection with them to drive, you know, better value, better experience for them. But the, automation on the back end, a lot of it's super predictable. And you can automate that with RPA, Robotic Process Automation. Gen AI, you can automate a lot of those things and to drive more efficiency. And you can also, your employees investing in your employees, both from a, a service training perspective, and then also from, you know, that ability to provide them products and services to make their job easier.
I mean, they do it really well in the hotel space and they're connecting all the dots and they're texting, they're using WhatsApp and all that. But those are data security challenges and nightmares for the [00:10:00] organization. How do you get them on platforms that they. Can communicate, collaborate with each other. You can send praise from the CEO all the way down to the bellman. you know, how do you do that and drive a more sense of kind of culture and a sense of inclusiveness? Cause you're all on one platform and you're all working towards that same vision goal around your brand to promote it to the consumer.
And once you create that emotional connection with the brand, with your consumer, you know, then you have them for a long period of time and it's not a very, it becomes less of a transactional relationship typically.
Michael Cohen: So it's interesting, Shane, what you, you know, beyond the details of what you provided, it's also interesting to discuss that the silos are no longer. The silo era is over. You just said business used to shift, oh, that's technology that goes to the, you know, the propeller heads are going to handle that because they're the, they're the right people. Yeah. it's so clear and obviously what Microsoft's doing and others, but I mean, you know, you're doing it from a macro perspective, like an ecosystem perspective in some respects as well, [00:11:00] but that this is always on everywhere, forever now, so that the reality is business is technology and technology is business. In many industries right now where it used to be siloed used to be I'm not a specialist that goes over here So, can you talk just very briefly as well about this frankly the paradigm shift over the last three or four years where? Everyone needs to be how about this the ones that are leaning in and have an open mind towards technology and innovation in their organizations or their day to day job We believe, I'm sure you do too, have a higher chance of success in whatever that means for the commercial entity, for the delivery of great services, for the expansion of their business.
Shane O'Flaherty: Yeah. Yeah. I mean, we've reached an inflection point where, you know, historically, the human had to understand the computer. now it's an inflection point where now the computer understands the human. and we then now have essentially what we would call a co pilot for life in our business world.
And theoretically you [00:12:00] could have one in your leisure world as well. That's really a superpower that allows you to do more every day. as simplistic as your. You know, you're, you have a meeting and you can't make the meeting. Historically, I had to go to the meeting. I had to listen to a recording of 30 minutes.
Now I could just say, Hey, co pilot, I missed this meeting. can you summarize it and highlight any action items for me from the hour long meeting? And it comes back just like that within three seconds. So when you look at all aspects of companies, whether you're in the customer experience area, marketing, sales, you know, B2B, all that, or you're in the operations area or you're the CEO or general managers across the board, it's like, how do I use this technology to make my life easier? and give me that extra 10 minutes, 20 minutes back in a day to walk the floor. Otherwise, I'm behind the desk. So how do I use what we're in the hospitality space really to deliver a better human experience? And that's both with our employees, because we, you know, people who are in
our [00:13:00] space are passionate about our space in a, from an employee perspective.
So how do we give them the tools, to make their life easier, more productive? And then, and you know, from a top down level, embrace technology, not just talk about it. I mean, you know, put into action. And there's lots of talk in our industry and all these other industries of what they're doing. when you, you, you know, they're not, you know, and you know, they can drive a better customer experience.
You know, they can drive a better employee experience. Uh, you know, they can drive more efficiency in operations. so how do you set force the path over the next year, two, three, four years? To achieve those goals. And each are small layers or small pieces of a puzzle, a giant piece of fabric that really fits together to make it all work.
And it's starts at the data state, the data layer, which, you know, I think Accenture or someone had like a, a, chart that said travel data, the maturity of the travel data is one on the bottom third. Um, you know, cause of all the silos of all the information, uh, then, you know, to telemetry, the operations, the hotels, smart hotels, smart [00:14:00] airlines, connected aircraft, smart airports. and Then you move it up the, up the triangle, then as the employee get that data, whatever it is to the employee as quick as possible. And then at the top of the, triangle is the customer. And historically travel companies have invested more in consumer based technology than they have an employee based technology.
So the customer now has data before the employee does, and that's not really appropriate, how do you kind of build that triangle up to the top? Because then at the top you're delivering. A great experience for the consumer, you know, and the longevity of it's consistent. It's not just a flash in the pan quick experience.
So how do you layer that all up? and really ultimately where we're trying to get to is kind of these, you know, we talk about anticipatory service in, in hospitality all the time, or at least in my former job at Forbes travel guide. You know, how do we do digital anticipatory service? How do you present me with content while I'm in journey that makes my journey a better journey.
And today, you know, you go into a hotel, you got your mobile key. [00:15:00] You can chat, uh, you can go down to the concierge. so all works fine, but I would prefer if someone based on why I'm there, presented me with content to say, Hey, based on why you're here with your, your five kids, you know, here are three things that you should be doing and anticipate that through content. And we're a very transactional oriented industry, and how do you shift to more of a content, community, then transaction, I think that will provide a monumental shift in the customer experience in a very positive way. So, all the signs are beautiful of what's ahead. It's how quickly can you get there? How do you revamp some of your older systems that are, 10 20 30 40 years old, in some cases 50 years old, in the airline space. so how do you modernize? Uh, and how do you develop a roadmap for that, to do the things that you really want to do? And many times I get from, from a lot of senior leaders like, love to do that, that's a great idea, that's a great idea, that's a great idea, but we still, are working on the foundational layer, that we need to fix first before we can do the things that we want to do.
So, so the future is [00:16:00] exciting ahead, you know, and how do we embrace it? And then business leaders, how do we push our, teams to drive change and not be afraid to change from a cultural perspective with the technology kind of adoption associated with. And instead of a three year thing or five year roadmap, it could be an 18 month roadmap.
It doesn't need to be three years. You know, it may have been three years, years ago, but the technology is changing so quickly.
you know, it can happen. Yeah. A marketing campaign that took two or 300 hours to do, you can do it now probably in 30 minutes, you know? So it's
the amount of time that you're saving with what's happening is, tremendous. You know, and then how, so everyone has to use AI, I would say in one form or another. if you're a doctor and you're not using AI, you probably should use AI. If you're a lawyer and not using AI, you probably should use AI. you know, so that, that, and that's the idea because if you're not using it, you're not actually providing, the most intuitive, quickest, most efficient experience for your customer.
Michael Cohen: Yeah, one quick addition, Adam, then we can move on. in a [00:17:00] lot of our, keynotes and masterclasses and interacting with various brands, On our, sorry, AI for Hospitality Practice, etc. We get to the whole meat of it of, if you implement AI correctly, you can do more with the same. not all about, you know, eliminating this, it's not about, but it's doing more with the same, so that you can focus your resources, if it's front of the house, back of the house, executive resources, on the high margin, High impact, engagement and growth oriented tasks, and the historical drudgery of 300 to 200 hours on a marketing plan or marketing execution is now that that's somewhat, optimized, as you just said, Shane.
But what are you going to do with that resource and that bandwidth on other focused, high priority, high margin business? Now it's possible. So, you know, and to you, to your point, people are saying, Ooh, uh, you know, AI is going to eliminate my job. No, what's going to happen is people who are comfortable, embrace, and have some [00:18:00] skills in AI are going to do better in their careers.
They're going to be promoted quicker, they're going to be effecting more change for their organization and their, for their careers because they embrace and have an open mind and are willing to invest intellectually and otherwise. into AI.
Shane O'Flaherty: Correct. Absolutely, totally agree with you, Michael. There,
Michael Cohen: Whew, that was good. That was close.
Okay.
Adam Mogelonsky: dive into our second question here.
Shane. Yeah, that was, that was our first one. We're only on, we're only on number two out of four. Shane. What are some of the common pitfalls or failures you have witnessed that business owners should look to avoid when scaling their business?
Shane O'Flaherty: Well, a a lot is, uh, it's always a great discussion on this topic. It's build versus buy. It's a huge discussion. And I would say, and this is from a tech perspective, should I build that or should I buy it? Um, you know, and, and so that's, or should I co build with someone? So it's, and from a tech, it's always that [00:19:00] discussion. Because sometimes I think I can build it better myself. I have a team, internally with my organization that can build. So I've seen, so that's the biggest challenge and trying to make a decision on that because tech changes so quickly. and it's changing even more quickly, you know, is it, is it worth just buying it off the platform?
If there's a, I don't know, a food and beverage platform for your mobile app, you know, you could either build it internally or buy it off the shelf from, let's say, one of our partners called Iris, uh, who is the partner for, let's say, Marriott. or whoever. So it's like, this is a, always an internal discussion of build versus buy, and historically, I guess over the years inside Microsoft, you know, it's, it's typically, you're probably better off buying, than building it internally just because the, the amount of, if it's foundational to your business and core of your business is a little different, but, a lot of the periphery stuff, it changes so quickly, you know, and in, in some instances I've been, you know, Experience at Microsoft where someone comes to me and like a business leader says, Hey, I want to get this off the shelf product.
I want to bring it into, our [00:20:00] platform. And then, then they call back and say, well, IT wants to build it themselves. Okay, fine. And then fast forward a year and a half later. Hey, remember that company you told me to Bring in, you know, can you bring them in? Cause I'm, it's taken them way too long.
I, I'm just so frustrated. so anyway, so how do you do that? Uh, and how do you make those right decisions internally? And that's probably the biggest one I've seen, uh, is a little bit more around the bill versus buy, equation internally, specifically around kind of the IT department and the business department.
Again, we're going back to, do you trust Do it and the business have a great relationship so you can kind of talk through all that, uh, and make the collective decision together. historically I think that, you know, pre covid, I think they were a little bit more, you know, bifurcated. Um, so they trusted, you know, trusted on, and maybe sometimes it worked out fine, but sometimes it doesn't.
so how really it's, it's bringing it and I think orgs have adjusted that to bring them closer together. I think it's, beautiful for the business long term. if you can make that [00:21:00] happen, but build versus buy is probably the biggest one.
Michael Cohen: Yeah, so, so as a follow up to that, so Builders is by, I mean, I think that's applicable, believe it or not, well, not believe it or not, you know this, in regards to start ups, scale up, mid size company, regional company, or obviously a global company, because there's iterations of that, there's flavors of what you just said, appropriate for each type of size, scale, and entity. But to that point, again, it's about focus, And it's about bandwidth and it's also about mitigating risk because what you're talking about Shane is mitigating some risk if we buy it we're mitigating some risks in one sense because we're not having to reinvent the wheel and having all these cycles and I mean delays and maybe our plans don't align with what the actual market actually needs but if we buy some company that potentially is You wouldn't buy it or some company wouldn't buy that if it wasn't successful.
They wouldn't have real execution, real IP. It mitigates some risk. But as you said, there's also an opportunity cost that you have to balance it against.
Shane O'Flaherty: Yeah, and, and, and in some [00:22:00] cases, I mean, we have a, some of the great, I mean, we're more of a platform company, so we're not necessarily going to build something specific for, a specific vertical. but what we do now is our, our platforms are so extensible. Like, we have a platform called Teams, which typically we're on, uh, for our meetings. We have a Teams frontline worker platform. Um, and we have some great use cases with American Airlines, where, you know, we're the platform, communication, collaboration platform, which is what we're really good at. And then, uh, but, you know, there's Pilot Scheduling app. Um, there's a Flight Attendant Scheduler.
We have a scheduler, but it doesn't, it's You know, with the
union rules, it's impossible. RER is very basic. So now we allow them to just embed it inside our application. Embed this inside our application. So we take a platform and embed some of the proprietary applications. They built themselves that work wonderfully. And, you know, and as we enhance all our communications collaboration platform and use AI, we're doing all that in the back end. And, um, they're bringing some of our proprietary applications in there. Same with the hotel space. If you could have a Teams frontline worker platform and you embed, um, you know, opera [00:23:00] into the system as an example, or you embed a hot sauce into the system. then the worker walks into work, one pane of glass and HR is, you know, a DP, payroll's embedded in the system. And I could just say, Hey, how much vacation time did I have left? And the AI agent will answer you, but everything I have is one pane of glass walking in and. All these systems are extensible back and forth with each other and you're building APIs.
That's the beauty of what's happening today. Maybe 10 years ago, it's silo, silo, silo. And you know, if you think of behind a hotel, it's like a spaghetti mess of systems. Um, you know, so, but the new tech, the new startups are very, you know, and we build our kind of tech as just a platform company to enable, empower people to do more with whatever they have and embedded in some of our platforms. as well. So that's the exciting part also around the tech is that that ability to integrate to your points, you know, we have products now that, you know, regardless of what cloud you're on, it can go into all these databases and grab your data at rest and reason over that data that wasn't available a couple of years ago or two
years ago.
So all of this technology is changing, but it's becoming more [00:24:00] extensible, adaptable, and more flexible, uh, in a way that helps drive, innovation in the industry as a whole.
Michael Cohen: So Adam, before we go to our last question, because I think it's going to be a last question. I have one quick follow up is from using a more general principle. what I heard And I agree, is about creating stickiness and embedding yourself into the flow of your business, meaning of your client business, right?
Create, embedding yourself, creating stickiness, you know, like example of, of let's say the generic teams, but you have allowed them to embed this, this specialized pilot scheduling technology, now that it's integrated and it works, guess what? You're embedded and suddenly you're part of the core. And from an entrepreneur or scale up perspective, everyone's fantasy is to be part of the core. It's very difficult to do. You have to have some incredibly special sauce, but you know, midsize 50 million, 100 million company, same, same same goals. They should have the same goal. Embed, create stickiness. [00:25:00] You know, make it difficult for people to give up that SaaS, uh, subscription because you're so critical in some way, some permutation to the streamlined growth of their business.
Shane O'Flaherty: Yeah. I mean, I'm a hundred percent Michael Grievey on the stickiness and that ability to be sticky. And then, and also is your sticky, continue to innovate on that stickiness. Um, you know, don't just turn off the faucet and move on to the next client. You know, it's, it's essentially continue that evolution of innovation within your own company. but stickiness is, is key cause you don't ultimately, you don't want them to pull and replace because someone else. is going to come along, and they pull and replace just because something, yeah, so that's, the key area and all your products and services or anything you're building, ensure it has stickiness at the, well, in important areas as well of the company, you know, whether it's driving revenue growth or driving operational efficiency across the board, but always innovate on your product and don't leave it stale for two or three years, you know, because that's when you ultimately lose because you keep your eye off the ball.
Adam Mogelonsky: Shane, we will move into our final [00:26:00] question here, which deals with stickiness and what's going to be sticky going forward. So, Shane, what do you see as the key opportunities and challenges for hospitality technology companies in 2024 and beyond?
Shane O'Flaherty: Well, I think, for hospitality technology companies is, is. You know, keep abreast of the pace of the innovation, because, you know, historically innovation was from here to here. Now it's just going every three months or every six months. It's exponentially enhancing. So always keeping and looking at new products and services that the cloud companies like Microsoft are continually building. you know, we, we're coming up with a product called AI Assistance now. which is awesome and that could be helpful in the booking process. So it's, you use dynamic chaining. So, super interesting stuff. It's in, I think it's in private view. That's going to come out in public. So as you're looking at all this new, as you have your companies and you're building your own platforms, Look at what's coming next inside, you know, from an AI, generative AI perspective, what's [00:27:00] in preview, what's in public domain, and, uh, see then how that potentially would apply to your business, or how it could help innovate your business as a whole. Bearing in mind that, you know, that what you built three or six or nine months ago can be enhanced based on the pace of technology. I mean, if you look at Microsoft, last year we invested, I think it's public knowledge, we invested, I think, 50 billion dollars, you know, from an R& D perspective, uh, you know, which is four times more than we've ever invested on an annualized basis.
So we're, we're all in. Two feet on the gas, or three feet or four feet on the gas. you know, because this is, an amazing, amazing time around technology kind of innovation. and so it's keeping abreast of the technology and the pace associated with it, and then iterate on your product and iterate on, Who you're going after. If it's not working over in this area, move to a different area and be relatively quick about it. because you're, you know, from a funding perspective, uh, it's all about the metrics and you have to ensure that you're hitting your [00:28:00] metrics across the board, for your investors or future investors because you're, you know, it's your, you're building a business and you're raising money at the exact same time. and it's super challenging for entrepreneurs to do that, but ensure that, you know, You can create foundation and then kind of iterate up your product and services and move as quickly as you can into the marketplace. start small and then continue to grow and scale out. Um, you know, we, at Forbes Travel Guide, we started a consulting business, or I started a consulting business, I don't know what it is, almost 20 years ago.
And we started with one hotel. And then, uh, one hotel called me and said, Hey, I got your mystery shopping report. Can you come out and train? I'm like, we don't have any trainers. And so now, fortunately, I was open to listening, and I'm like, Huh, maybe we could train. How much should we charge? And he said, Oh, I pay X amount a day.
I'm like, Wow, you pay that much? And he goes, Yeah, you got a great brand. And so I turned around, and I had people behind me, and I said, Hey, who wants to train this hotel? In Beverly Hills and someone raised their hand and all of a sudden, [00:29:00] you know, Forbes, uh, consulting services, the, you know, top consulting company in the world for luxury products and services, you know, fast forward 15 years later and it was created by, you know, being, having a product and then iterating on that product.
But then as a entrepreneur is listening to people that come in and say, huh, that's a great idea. I never even thought of that. And then, you know, and then
building and scaling a business from there, but you start small with one, two, three, four, five properties, and then you continue to scale out small, medium, and then large size, chains as well.
Michael Cohen: So first of all, obviously, you know, you know, we're going to head shake on that because you know, what we're doing again, and the advisory organization and so on. And I think it's fairly clear why we have done what we're doing and why it's growing so quickly. But what's interesting is on, so you were talking, and just in general, primarily on the supplier side, let's call the vendor supplier side, but on the buyer side, Same thirst for knowledge, same make it part of your daily [00:30:00] routine, you know, encourage your, mentor your staff, be, be curious, it's not, you know, actually I should be having you say this, not me, but what are your thoughts on that, on the, on this, on the buyer side?
Shane O'Flaherty: Yeah, I mean, it's like, I mean, sometimes you have systems in your hotel or whatever you're doing, because you've done it for years, and it works, and there's no question it works. What can it be better? you know, we do in the, in the airline around IROP situation where there's problems, you know, with weather or whatever, you know, typically they, you know, the person who's in the network operation center has been doing that job for years. And so when something happens, a disruption happens, they say, huh, I know what to do. Boom, boom, boom. And now what we're saying, and that's a very subjective decision based on, but the knowledge base is there. And now what we're saying is, hey, we're going to give you seven simulations of what you could do. and then the Summer Network Operations Center is like, Huh, I never even thought of that one. so we're presenting them with, so that's all around, kind of, I would say, digital decisions, you know, connected with subjective decisions. So if [00:31:00] I'm a hotelier or I'm in the hotel space, it's looking at what you do, your processes, your, and we have something called process mining, where It takes exactly your process and then the AI agent says, Hey, get rid of these three steps. you know, and it saves you 18 minutes, uh, which saves you X amount of time a year. So it, it's like always constantly looking at your space on how to elevate it. Don't be satisfied with existing systems or how do you push your vendors to do more? and scale more, but something that works, uh, you know, Can it be better?
Can it work better? So it's always having that, I think Adam said earlier, the growth mindset, around the customer experience. You know, I'm a monster fan of the employee experience from a tech perspective, just from a training perspective that, you know, that's my area because I think if you, if you'd get that right, you get everything else right.
And then just providing them the underneath structure of, you know, the systems that help, help operate on a daily basis. But you have to constantly have that growth mindset, Be alert at all and not be afraid to turn over into kind of this tech world, [00:32:00] uh, because it's kind of all blending. you know, this hybrid kind of tech world to make that happen.
Michael Cohen: So just to wrap up, and Adam, I, I Shane's opinion on this because it's important to, I think, for the listeners, viewers, et cetera, to understand, You know, there's a massive, usually a massive amount of historical business data, experiential, empirical, historical. In all types of media formats. So Shane, can you just, I think it's a helpful roundup to this conversation. It could be from the supplier side or the vendor side, but in the industry in general, this is a long standing industry. This is not a brand new industry. There's a ton of, data that, how do I bring data into the new era of AI, Shane?
Shane O'Flaherty: Well, and it's a great point, Michael. I mean, I think there's a McKenzie study that says travel is the number one industry that can be influenced by AI just due to the sheer amount of data we have across the entire ecosystem of travel in general. So I think it's looking at your systems, breaking down the data silos, [00:33:00] creating essentially what we would call a data lake. You have your operations data, you have your customer data, but it's all surrounding into one kind of large scale lake. And that ability to say, you know, then to reason over that data, in a way that, you know, you could ask questions to the data that you've never heard before. Even asked before, um, that you typed in before, but now you're asking questions and you're iterating on it.
But then you're also asking the AI agent to, you know, they're asking, you're asking them their opinion, of the data, you know, and say, you know, Why do you think this? Or why do you think that? Here's what I think. so it's this constant evolution of reasoning with your AI agent and yourself at the same time. And opening up kind of horizons. I do it. I use chat GPT sometimes when I give a speech, I have it written out and then I use chat GPT and I said, here's the audience, here's the location and here is. My theme and then it gives me four paragraphs and I already have my speech written and I'm like, huh? I never even thought of that and then I take grab something from there and just put it into my speech So it's like [00:34:00] taking kernels out of different areas from the AI perspective that can Further superpower you or enhance you as part of your kind of growth mindset that Adam brought up first, which is you know Critical that we all must have and we've been in the industry a long time You know, we know how it works, but you know, we also can continually devolve and reinvent our business.
you know, and reinvent ourselves for that matter. I mean,
I was that guy and then I joined Microsoft and I'm like, Huh, this is an interesting space. Uh, but I never in my wildest dreams thought I'd be, at Microsoft. you know, so it's this idea of how do you constantly reinvent yourself in your career.
And the way to do that is kind of expand your scope and dip into areas that may be uncomfortable from time to time and learn about it and continue to kind of iterate and grow. My dad opened a pub, an Irish pub, when he was 70 years old.
Michael Cohen: No, really? An
O'Flaherty opens an Irish pub? Okay.
Shane O'Flaherty: I'm like, why you open a pub? He goes, I've always thought of opening a pub. And I said, where'd you get the money? He goes, a couple of my friends that I [00:35:00] go drinking with. and they opened up a pub. So he started a next career in his life, at 70 and now 20 odd years later, it's still rolling. Uh, unfortunately my dad passed away, but his, his spirit lives on. And, uh, His legacy lives on in a physical world, which I think is fascinating as we continue to grow. Uh, so when you walk in that place, there's a statue of him on the side and it's kind of like, you know, the college kids walk in and they, it's like a Buddha statue. they
they rub it like, Oh, that's weird. But anyway, I think it's this constant idea of reinventing yourself. At whatever age you're at, and how do you bring tech into that reinvention of yourself with that growth mindset? I think we're all, you know, we're, that's why we're on the planet for, is to, to continue to grow and continue to learn and continue to prosper, which then at the end of the day, it helps our consumer have an amazing experience as, and that's why we're in the hospitality space for our careers.
Michael Cohen: Yeah, you know what, Adam? There's a reason why, and this sounds totally self serving, there's a reason why I've always liked Shane. That's the attitude.
That's a positive, [00:36:00] proactive attitude about complex and sometimes
challenging topics.
Shane O'Flaherty: complex. Yes, Michael. Yes. Super complex. Sometimes very challenging in our industry. Um, And that's the challenge set forth for us and for our industry as a whole is to, it's complex, very complex, and how do we, uh, unwind that complexity to a certain extent, and use tech to help do that.
Adam Mogelonsky: Yeah, we're not just making widgets, as they say.
Shane O'Flaherty: Yes, yes.
Adam Mogelonsky: But, um, just to add one more point here is AI enabling hotels with this whole idea of growth mindset and expanding horizons and prospering. What I really like, and you haven't expressly said this, we've sort of danced around it, is allowing us to second guess our human biases and assumptions.
And, for instance, the speech example you've said, you have your speech and then the AI comes back with something else and, oh yeah, I can work that [00:37:00] in there. And that's such a unique way for us to move forward with a co pilot to really help us realize that we do have assumptions and biases in the first place, and then to make us more well rounded and versatile going forward.
Shane O'Flaherty: Yeah, and I think even, I always think of it from an employee perspective, if English is not my first language, I can speak into the, Teams platform in Spanish and it can come out in English.
And that, to the other third, the other person I'm talking to, so just that idea of creating more of a, a level of inclusiveness for everyone in the space.
the tech is there to do that and, you know, so why not take advantage of that? and that drives more efficiency across the board. As well, but it's, it's in each of these areas, uh, Gen AI is kind of a, an umbrella, but, you know, translation, or whatever the product is, computer vision, whatever it is, how do you use that type of stuff to enhance?
And then also, I think, you know, AI for accessibility is a huge area at [00:38:00] Microsoft that we're very focused on, and every innovation we do in that area can transcend back into a lot of other areas, as well in the industry across the board.
Michael Cohen: Yeah, and just really, really quick, travel and hospitality. So, all the biometrics initiatives at the airports, you, you've seen, Shane, that, you know, some of us do a lot of traveling in the recent past, and, uh, amazing how streamlined the experience is now versus pre COVID in many of these, You know, points of, normally there would be a traffic jam.
Uh, and I was quite amazed personally. And it's just a personal anecdote is, you know, four or five different airports that I've been going to over many, many years, this cycle of the four months of travel I just completed, I couldn't believe how streamlined the experience was versus what it was pre COVID. And I was in and out of some of these, some of these cycles in 10 minutes, you know, cross border, immigration, biometrics, the whole thing. AI is obviously a big part of this, you know, different types of connectivity, 5G, we know there's a, there's a [00:39:00] recipe of innovation that's happened and that's been actualized, that is enabling these platforms, it's like platforms of technology that enable platforms of engagement or platforms of growth, you know. So, uh, really good conversation today Shane,
Shane O'Flaherty: Yeah, and then, and look to other industries for innovation. Don't always look into who's the most innovative in the hospitality space. Look into different verticals and wondering what are they doing over there? What are they doing over there in that vertical? and then how do I apply that into my vertical to make this better?
Adam Mogelonsky: Well, Shane, it's been a fantastic conversation. Can't thank you enough for coming on, just incredible lessons for everyone, both startup scale up and all industries and all hoteliers moving forward. Thank you.
Shane O'Flaherty: And thank you. Thanks Michael. Appreciate your time.
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