Skift Take
After Dan Blanchard's hour-long HITEC presentation (half of which was a Q&A with the audience), dozens of people were lined up to talk to him. He'd learned a lot in his four years as IHG's Chief Technology Officer, and people were clearly interested in hearing about it.
Justin Dawes
IHG Hotels & Resorts was a little too aggressive in the early stages of developing the technology.
The hotel brand had plenty of ideas to test, but the infrastructure couldn’t keep up, and the company had to backtrack to iron out some issues.
That was one of the lessons IHG Chief Technology Officer Dan Blanchard shared during his presentation at HITEC on Monday and during a brief discussion with Skift, where he launched the company's newest technology efforts since joining the company four years ago.
“We've had to go through some maturity on this one. We've had a lot of failures,” Blanchard said during the presentation.
“I had a few stumbles, but a lot of it was just being a bit too aggressive. Going too fast in things.”
Blanchard explained that IHG had to rethink this issue and others in order to develop at the level it wanted.
Reducing organizational barriers
IHG's technology infrastructure and processes weren't robust enough when Blanchard took over, he said, meaning the company needed to move systems to the cloud, choose which tech vendors to fire and cut down on bureaucratic approvals for experimentation.
“When I joined IHG four years ago, one of the phrases I used as our company philosophy was, 'Leave no vendor behind.' We were spending money on too many vendors to count,” Blanchard said. “We've significantly limited that.”
Standardization is important to IHG, but it's still a work in progress. The company uses some legacy systems, but has done enough modernization to lay the foundation for progress, he says. Nearly 60 percent of the company's applications are now in the cloud, he says.
“We've found that having a set of standards is really important to move quickly,” Blanchard told Skift. “If we debate all those standards along the way, it just complicates the discussion. We've been successful when the standards are clearly defined and people are using them.”
Encourage innovation without a focus on profits
Blanchard said IHG isn't too worried about whether each individual tech or AI experiment will generate revenue.
The idea may stress those with financial concerns, but the focus must be on the bigger picture, he said. And defining criteria that includes establishing a long-term budget for technology experimentation means IHG has more freedom to try things.
“I don't know what's going on. [that team is] “While we haven't yet determined what we'll do beyond next quarter, this gives us great flexibility, which will be extremely important as we start talking about meeting the needs of the next generation of travelers,” Blanchard said.
For example, IHG launched a wishlist feature on its app in September.
“We've found that this is a big thing. People love to make wish lists of places they want to go, and it's very sticky. People make these wish lists and then they book those things later,” he said.
“and, [return on investment plan]”It was someone's idea on the team … they built it and now it's a big hit with our customers,” he said.
Assure people that they won't be fired if their experiment fails
Blanchard said IHG tries to avoid using the word “project” when talking about tests in its internal innovation programs.
That's because there's an implication that if a “project” fails, the employees working on it will be fired, he says. Such concerns can stifle innovation that includes regular failure as part of the process.
“People need to know that being involved in something that doesn't work out won't affect their career,” he told Skift.
And encouraging experimentation in the company's innovation programs will be key in a rapidly evolving technology environment, he said.
“We're not even close to what we'll see over the next few years with next-generation AI,” he said.
