How to improve brand consistency - Lodging edition

Are you equipped to meet guests’ expectations?

Today’s hotel guests have more options — and stronger preferences — than ever before.

Competition from alternative lodging services like Airbnb and Vrbo continues to grow. Travel and lodging needs are forecasted to increase. And online reviews are driving greater consumer expectations. Now is a crucial time for hotels to strengthen their brand experiences across every guest touchpoint — from linens and bath amenities to furniture and food, and everything in between.

88% of leisure travelers rated the quality of service of food and beverages at hotels as important

62% of hotel operators feel third-party food and beverage delivery is negatively impacting their foodservice business

46% of travelers expect to travel more for leisure in 2024 and 2025

85% of business travelers rated the quality of service of food and beverages at hotels as important

70% of hotel operators feel Airbnb and other rental platforms are negatively impacting their business

26% of travelers expect to travel more for business in 2024 and 2025

Source: Technomic. “Lodging: Intelligence to Drive F&B Growth in the New Environment.”

Aligning goods and food purchasing with your brand standards is now table stakes. However, establishing brand consistency isn’t always easy. What if there is another significant supply chain disruption? What if a key element of your guest experience suddenly skyrockets in price, shrinking your margins? What if labor strikes or natural disasters force you to quickly pivot your purchasing?

Fortunately, these are all challenges that a Group Purchasing Organization, or GPO, can help tackle. With the right GPO partner, you can elevate your lodging operation’s brand consistency — and guest experience.

Find a purchasing partner who upholds your brand standards

When you inevitably face purchasing and supply chain issues, it’s not enough to settle on a procurement partner who handles the bare minimum of purchasing.

A true partner will support your brand by providing your guests with the consistent experience they know and love.

That’s why it’s important to ask the following questions:

• How can I get specific products for my hotel brand more affordably?

• How do I pivot if my specific products are impacted by supply chain issues?

• How can I make sure all my locations are purchasing the correct products?

• How can I ensure my staff knows how to correctly set up and deploy those products?

• How do I evolve my hotel brand over time to keep up with customer demand?

A trustworthy GPO partner will provide answers, typically through some combination of the following solutions:

1. Custom contracting

2. Supply chain management

3. Staff training

4. Data and digital tools

5. Advisory support services

In the following pages, we’ll explore how each of those solutions can help uphold brand consistency across your locations.

Locked order guides

A locked order guide is a reduced product list of approved items that meet your brand standards.

Below is an example of a locked order guide tier list, designed for three levels of hotels within the same chain.

Standard

• Large eggs

• 200 thread count polyester sheets

• Plain silver flatware Deluxe

• Cage-free brown eggs

• 200 thread count cotton sheets

• Mirrored flatware

Luxury

• Organic free-range brown eggs

• Organic 500 thread count bamboo sheets

• Matte bronze flatware

Solution #1: Custom contracting

Get brand-supporting goods at the best price

With some procurement partners, your products and pricing are limited to what’s currently contracted. But with the right GPO, your brand standards inform your contract negotiations and pricing — not the other way around.

Find procurement experts who will work with your team to review your brand standards for food, front of house and back of house — then negotiate contracts on your behalf.

By aggregating the purchasing needs of multiple locations, a GPO can leverage economy of scale to negotiate better prices on your behalf.

Make sure to ask about locked order guides, which outline all the products your national and international locations are allowed to purchase. That way, you can ensure all your operations get the right items at the correct contracted prices.

Finally, GPOs can help you hit sustainability goals by negotiating contracts for eco-friendly products and solutions. From responsibly-sourced ingredients to smarter recycling protocols, it’s a shared win for your guests, the environment and your bottom line.

Get Entegra support

Entegra’s custom contracting allows you to reach a competitive agreement on specific products or broader categories. We make it easy to get brand-consistent products at great prices across all of your locations.

Solution #2: Supply chain management Manage your brand through uncertain times

How can you maintain brand consistency when you have inconsistent access to essential products?

Thankfully, a strategic purchasing partner can provide supply chain management solutions to help you avoid shortages and monitor your inventory more effectively.

For instance, some GPOs can help you simplify your offerings with interchangeable SKUs, swapping in highly vetted items that meet your brand standards — so you’re ready when pricing and availability change. Procurement partners can also keep smaller, local distributors at the ready, ensuring you have multiple sources for essential items.

The best partners will also advise you of the best times to stock up. Look for a proactive GPO who can forecast when prices and availability will fluctuate, and when to prepare for busier seasons. By working closely with a trusted partner who knows your inventory, you can ensure guests enjoy a flawless, consistent experience — even while navigating a volatile supply chain.

Get

Entegra support

Backed by Sodexo Supply Management’s rigorous supplier evaluation process, Entegra’s experts can help improve your supply chain consistency with the market insights and distributor connections to get the products your locations need.

Solution #3: Training

Standardize procedures for consistent guest interaction

Your employees reflect your brand and are a crucial part of the guest experience.

From nutritional know-how to food safety, hygiene and sanitation, savvy lodging operators know staff training is essential to achieving their brand standard goals.

The right GPO can provide quick, easy and cost-effective training programs that ensure consistent service and brand-essential skills. Check for foodservice professional training such as support from the Academy of Nutrition, the National Restaurant Association ServSafe program and other food safety modules.

For staffing support, be sure to ask about workforce assistance. With access to labor solutions through your GPO, you can onboard and train skilled workers to help showcase seamless guest service.

Get Entegra support

The Entegra Performance Kitchen can help create bespoke culinary training videos to ensure a consistent learning experience across all of your locations.

Solution #4: Data and digital tools

Monitor purchases across locations

Managing products for multiple locations is a complex process — whether they’re run independently by franchises, or at the corporate level. That’s why it’s essential to have a bird’s-eye view of your purchasing with the help of digital purchasing tools.

The right digital tools allow hotel operators to monitor purchases across all locations, ensuring they fall within your product tiers, come from the right distributors and suppliers, and are aligned with contracted prices.

If you use the locked order guides mentioned on page 4, these features are especially handy for monitoring purchases by product and location. Look for advanced features that also allow you to optimize your procurement spend, audit invoices and streamline your procurement process.

Since you’ll be interacting with your GPO’s digital tools often, make sure they are user-friendly. Seek out procurement partners whose digital tools provide easy-toread data visualizations with simple navigating, sorting and drilling down to the SKU level.

Get Entegra support

Built for hospitality-driven businesses, Entegra PurchasingIQ provides full visibility into procurement — with instant drill-downs into purchasing data — to provide timely, actionable insights for ensuring a consistent brand experience.

Solution #5: Advisory support services

Keep your brand current

Guest preferences can evolve quickly — so it’s important to be ready to evolve your brand as well.

This can happen through proper GPO support for menuing, design, development and product training.

With the right support services, you can update your brand standards consistently across locations, keeping your guest satisfaction levels high over time.

For instance, look for a GPO partner who can provide ideas for keeping your menus fresh, on trend and on budget. Beyond your menu, GPOs can help with access to qualified facility design, project management and installation as well as critical FF&E (Furniture, Fixtures and Equipment).

If your brand standards are not yet fully developed, or are undergoing a major update, a brand-centric GPO can help. The right partner can provide insights to ensure a top-notch guest experience that keeps your bottom line in mind.

Get Entegra support

The Entegra Performance Kitchen (EPK) is here to help support food and beverage brand consistency. From developing agency-level culinary brand standards to your own branded video training programs, the EPK can help your business stand out and earn guest satisfaction.

Unsure where to start? Discover Entegra.

As the world’s largest food GPO, Entegra leverages $36 billion in purchasing power to help you build brand consistency across all your locations.

In addition to our lodging and procurement experts providing forwardlooking guidance, we offer flexible contracts, training and staffing support and our all-new Entegra PurchasingIQ digital platform.

With Entegra, you also gain access to our National Savings programs with broadline distributors, plus Entegra Local and Direct Savings Programs with a wide range of lodging products for ensuring brand consistency.

A sampling of Entegra solutions for lodging:

Back of house

• Kitchen equipment and supplies

• Cleaning supplies and sanitation

• Maintenance, repair and operational goods

• Staff training by Entegra Performance Kitchen experts

Food

• Proteins, produce, grains, oils and more

• Coffee, tea and beverages

• Smallwares

• Menu ideation and guidance

Front of house – for rooms and lobby

• Furniture, fixtures and equipment

• Linens, sheets and bedding

• Guestroom accessories

• Bathroom amenities

• Uniforms

• Paint, floor coverings and wall coverings