As we enjoy the thrill of the 2010 World Cup Football (or WM in Deutschland) the diversity of nations fascinates me together with the diversity in relationships that are forged between players, spectators and sponsors continuously in sport. However sport equals business, my old rugby coach used to say as we limped off the park. “Hard day at the office lads”, this wasn’t sarcastic it was actually his recognition of our achievements and it was through his innate leadership that not only were we a successful team but we looked forward to his compliments. The one thing I could never understand at age 23 was how he knew every single opposition coach, every single referee, over half of every spectator crowd and they all treated him with a high degree of admiration, almost ‘Godfather’ like.

I did some research on both sides of the Atlantic and came up with two true Football leaders:

Vince Lombardi: Lombardi, was capable of motivating ordinary men to do extraordinary things. He didn't have great players in Green Bay, he MADE them great players.

Jock Stein: "Jock, you're immortal", Shankly told his great friend in the dressing room after the 1967 European Cup triumph which marked a first for a British team. What's more, he did it with a bunch of Glaswegians.

However, my thoughts were still on the linkage between sport and business. After more reading I found some research on Stephen I. Sadove, chief executive of Saks (that fabulous store that Carrie and the girls made even more famous) and I found my answer to my old rugby coaches respect: Leadership and Relationships equal Positive Culture. Here are two responses from Sadove’s recent NY Times interview:

Q: What were your biggest leadership lessons?
A: I used opportunities to get involved and develop relationships with a diverse set of people, as opposed to the narrow group of people I was dealing with day-to-day, and that made a huge difference. It shaped my philosophy in terms of the importance of relationship-building. It really underlies my entire philosophy of how to run a business.

Q: How do you hire?
A: Well, clearly you want somebody who has the intellectual capacity, strategic thinking and the skill sets. But I’m looking for a cultural fit with me. How collaborative are they? How inclusive are they? How willing are they to listen to lots of different points of view? Do they have diverse interests?</P> <P>I now know why my old rugby coach was not only patient with me, but always interested in me as a person.

Thank you Sir!

Instead of boring you with more Iceland ash jokes and airport tales of woe I am thinking positively about airports and hotels. Whilst waiting for news and fielding calls from my staff that they finally reached their destination, I realised why I love this job after 20 years in the hotel industry. I love the camaraderie. It doesn’t matter who you work for; hotelier, cleaner, supplier, consultant, it is times like these when the industry shows its strength under stress against all adversity.

Acentic staff members that were stranded in airports and hotels have told me their stories of outstanding service, especially in relation to turnaround times and “feeding the masses”. As for these hotel services, our quick thinking German operations are also part of the team. When this crisis broke, our NOC deployed additional overtime coverage to monitor the systems, especially our 40K rooms with High Speed Internet Access, which we knew would take a hammering these past weeks. I am exceptionally proud of my staff’s well-played part (while working quietly in the background 24/7) to produce a 99.3% digital services uptime!

Speaking of airports I was recently reading an article about world’s “best” airport (Votes were calculated before the whole air transport crash due to the volcano) http://ehotelier.com/hospitality-news/item.php?id=D18363_0_11_0_M, and it made me recall the hours I spent in each of them, using their unique facilities. Indeed Acentic has its systems installed in Hotels at all of the European hotels in the  top 10 of this list!

Understanding the customers’ needs in order to optimise products and services is what this industry is all about and what adds value to our business! Working with our hotel customers is certainly the best job in the world, keep it up team!

Travel safely.

In the early 2000’s after and before our numerous economic cycles we “need to have” I attended a business luncheon where the guest speaker was, heaven forbid, an Australian by the name of Roger Campbell Corbett (note the Scottish influence). Being a guest of another organisation I approached the event rather nonchalant, after all they say Australians are a simpler version of the British. 

I relay to you my epiphany – this CEO of a consumer centric ca. USD$ 50 billion company talked about his up to 6 days a week in the retail stores with staff and even consumers together with the suppliers to the business; whilst his executive assistance faxed or emailed him the daily KPI’s that drove the business. I recall reflecting on how I would spend even more time in the field with customers, staff and suppliers.

With the current “Great Recession” that the bankers tell us we “had to have” I am making sure I spend even greater time with customers, staff and suppliers rather than sweating over micro P&L’s that is not to say that they are not critical however I am lucky as I have great people who know the KPI’s and deliver.

Happy shopping with your customers, staff and suppliers!

Want to read about a now global business icon (coincidentally in Forbes magazine) click here http://people.forbes.com/profile/roger-c-corbett/85296

As I read an article on “wired” families I am fascinated about our seemingly never ending thirst for more technology and bandwidth, did you know that the average bandwidth cost per American household in just under USD 1,000 per annum on TV, Internet and Gaming (then plus another USD 1,000 for mobiles) that’s across every single household; and Cornell University is quoted as saying “... it is what is expected for people to be functional in society.” (NYTimes 10/02/10) http://nyti.ms/bOZesQ

I reflect on two recent very different Hotel front desk experiences. Both fabulous 5 star hotels.

Hotel A: Traditional including lengthy queue (15 minutes each way) for friendly check-in and check-out and analogue TV services.
Hotel B: Check-in in normal friendly manner with offer of check-out at the desk or by kiosk (less than 5 minutes each way) with a friendly staff to assist concurrent users and High Definition TV services in the room.

So one hotel “wired” and one hotel “un-wired” both different and assumed both successful.

Need help getting “wired” ? Drop us a line 24/7.

We are happy to announce that we have entered into a strategic partnership with WAYS TECH S.r.l., the Italian IT infrastructure provider for some of Italy’s best hotels and financial institutions. This partnership will allow us to increase the level of service to your guests and staff to better serve our hotels as a single source for digital TV and high speed internet access (HSIA) for the hotel guest room. The Milan-based WAYS TECH Hospitality Solutions will combine strategic direction, with the hands-on service that WAYS TECH provides, together with the former Acentic Italy staff and most importantly the team of over 20 site engineers and account managers carefully located throughout Italy.

Our new venture with WAYS TECH will combine our technology with the Italian best in class service standards of WAYS TECH.

With all the growth in 2010 for Acentic, we are pleased to announce the strengthened relationship with WAYS TECH. This investment allows us to continue to extend our digital TV and HSIA services to offer a broader product portfolio to our existing Europe customers as well as expand to Asia and the Middle East.

I was in the city today with one of those finance types... seriously though a very knowledgeable, hard working and successful lady who travels a lot and expects a level of service and is prepared to pay for service. Her question was simple:” Why do my favourite hotels have the most luxurious beds with soft snugly linen sheets, a mountain of pillows to chose from and bathroom amenities that would please any man or woman and yet I have to pay to watch a film on a Sunday night on an old TV screen?”.

Sadly she saw it as “my” [sic] Acentic's fault... In Europe last year only 7% of 4/5 star hotels upgraded their TV screens and content systems. Our industry sector remains plagued by the legacy of “free TV screens for charging for adult content” clearly this is archaic which I have never supported as a sustainable guest service.

I implore any hotelier reading this to ensure that they forward budget for full HD screens and quality HD content management end to end in order that the guest TV experience is equal to the luxurious linen and amenities experience that we all enjoy!

“Innovation is the name of the game,” is a phrase that stuck out when I recently read a piece on Global Tech Trends in Hotels in HotelNewsNow.com (http://www.hotelnewsnow.com/Articles.aspx?ArticleId=1632), in which thought leaders in the hospitality industry and hoteliers were asked what the most important innovation in guest rooms will look like in the next 18 months.

The article got me thinking and I asked some of my colleagues what they thought would be important hotel innovations and trends that will emerge by the end of 2010. One of the most intriguing answers was catering technology to business travells that are female.

Female business travellers are a growing segment of the hotel business. According to Harvard Business School (http://hbswk.hbs.edu/archive/4611.html), 40% of business travellers are women. Despite their numbers as a growing force in the marketplace, women business travelers still represent a valuable untapped market. Not only are female business travellers a significant part of the industry, but they also make the majority of decisions for their families' personal trips (Source: HBS). Therefore, they tend to demand better technology, amenities and in-room entertainment than their male counterpart.
Hoteliers have started to notice the wants and needs of women business travellers and have started to cater to that segment. Our belief is that in the next year hotels are going to target designing special rooms that will attract female travellers.

Along the same lines, Acentic also believes that the younger demographic of business travellers both female and male is going to be a huge market and Hoteliers are going to need to recognise that they want technical service and agility. Guest rooms and hotel lobby innovations will soon allow these guests to lie on the bed to work via wireless connectivity or sit in the hotel lobby with WiFi. By this, I mean serious ubiquitous WiFi bandwidth at realistic costs.

If you would like to know more about our ‘WiFi to the max 2010’ send us your questions to john.waters@acentic.com

If I was ever to have the opportunity to meet Ms. Carol Bartz, The CEO of Yahoo!, I would be incredibly honoured. We believe that Ms. Bartz epitomises Acentic’s values:

Acentic rule 7: Never over promise

In a difficult industry, the media, during a difficult time, the recession, Ms. Bartz took the helm of Yahoo! and she never over promised. As per my earlier blog this year http://blog.acentic.com/2009/08/05/SportArtMoney.aspx we at Acentic are proud to have forecast the decline in the economy and in many cases work with distressed hotels to ensure continuity of service. In this instance, both Yahoo! and Acentic have exceeded shareholder expectations.

Acentic rule 8: Sell only by solving problems and creating profitable opportunities

I had a good laugh reading Carol Bartz’ story about the snake, which can be found in this interview:

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/10/18/business/18corner.html

I talk with our sales people constantly about problem solving for success, including killing that negative snake! Above all, our goal at Acentic is to have some fun at work every day, in everything we do. Not an hour goes by without a positive laugh. That is not to say we are “lazing”, it is just that the best results come from happy employees.

I am willing to bet that this is probably the first blog in the world to have this heading... However the Prince said in a YouTube video during his Design Council Awards what we all know; that is that the average TV remote is too smart for its own good.  See the video here: http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20091010/wl_uk_afp/britainroyalstelevisionoffbeat

I recently attended a major global ICT (Information Communications Technology) trade fair where I came across a TV manufacturer’s stand with a whole display of their remote controls from past years. It was fascinating for a moment.

At Acentic we say that we have less than two minutes for the hotel guest to navigate the remote and the GUI (Graphical User Interface). That is why we do not use the standard TV remote.  Don’t get me wrong we respect our TV suppliers enormously, however the remotes are made for consumers who have time to lie on the living room floor to read instructions. Acentic is currently challenging its already KISS remote for the next version. If you have longer than two minutes watch this insightful video on design, if not don’t worry because our R&D have already watched it for you: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0W8lESZ2XNg

P.S. An easy to use TV remote is one less guest issue. Happy button pressing!

Tonight ME 0100 hours Thursday (10/09/09) as I sit in my wonderful Hyatt Hotel room reviewing the Acentic teams temperament I see that this afternoon and even now we have staff from Madrid in Lisbon; staff from Paris in Amsterdam; staff from Cologne in Warsaw and Moscow; staff from London just back from Hong Kong; and indeed a Scotsman in the Middle East. This is a testament to our peoples' commitment to despatch the right people for the unique requirements of each hotel, not just sell you a box. My board and indeed our customers are indebted to the contemporary Acentic team. Thank you!