Travel and hospitality companies have access to a massive amount of data about their customers. There are interaction points at every single step of the journey: during the booking process; in the run up to departure; during their stay; post stay feedback. 

But is this data being collected? And are businesses really sweating that data to better understand their customer?  

Business Intelligence (BI) is a broad term involving strategies and technologies that cover the processes and methods of collecting, storing and analysing data from business operations to optimise performance. 

Collecting and converting the data into actionable intelligence and knowledge, or insight, will help you make better decisions.  

We have a had a lot of conversations recently with businesses about their Business Intelligence strategies and how best to attract the top skills in this space. We share our top 5 tips below:  

  • Don’t hide your BI team in IT.  

Business intelligence should be an organisation wide initiative, impacting every department for the better.  

  • Make sure your team are connected to the boardroom.  

Business intelligence is a huge competitive differentiator. Succeeding at BI wins market share and increased profits.  

  • Be very clear with what the strategic goals of the business are.  

Without visibility of these, how can they provide the data and analytics to execute what’s needed to achieve the strategic goals 

  • Give them space to identify new opportunities.  

BI isn't just about customer data. Analysts can spot market trends to boost revenue and increase sales. Analysts can leverage BI to provide performance and competitor benchmarks and make the organisation more efficient. Used effectively, data can help with anything from recruitment to compliance.  

  • Don’t get hung up on the software.  

There are many BI platforms and tools out there SAS, Cognos, Tableau, Qlik which people can be trained up in. Finding highly skilled technical talent that understand the data and also know how to fully understand the business is a winning combination.  


If you are looking at your approach to Business Intelligence, get in touch with our technology senior advisor to learn more about some of the senior specialists we are representing Hello@gailkennyrecruitment.com