INNOVATIONS FOR BUSINESS
TECH NOTES
by Mike Hunter
RLabs’ Hotel Technology Innovation RLabs is a travel technology-based innovator, created as a subsidiary to RLH Corporation. It will focus on new revenue verticals, and on developing unique technology and system offerings for the hospitality industry that includes software, robotics and artificial intelligence. The first offering from RLabs is Canvas Integrated Systems, an all-in-one, cloud-based hospitality management suite featuring a collection of seamlessly integrated tools designed to drive revenue, secure more revenue opportunities, automate channel management and reduce cost and friction for independent hotel owners. A fully customizable platform backed by best-in-class providers that allows independent hotels to choose components to get exactly what they need and avoid paying for unnecessary items, Canvas Integrated Systems harnesses powerful technology not currently accessible by most independent hotels to provide revenue management, channel management and global sales at the fraction of the price independent hotels (and many brands) are able to secure on their own. Canvas Integrated Systems also utilizes technology to provide additional desired platforms such as personalized loyalty programs and keyless entry. rlabs.com rlhco.com
Chime’s All-in-One Real Estate Solution Phoenix-based Chime Technologies is an all-in-one business development platform for the real estate industry. Its award-winning productivity suite offers a robust set of features that help real estate professionals and teams of all sizes run and grow their business. Among its features are its intelligent IDX website, customer relationship management (CRM) and the ability to optimize marketing. The customizable, easy to use content management system ensures seamless site design and is built to attract new leads while cultivating actionable insights through site activity analysis. A powerful business development platform, powered by Chime’s AI scoring system, prioritizes leads, analyzing the likelihood to close based on key indicators, and empowers agents to assess and respond to leads’ behavior in real-time. And its multichannel online advertising service identifies and tracks potential leads through intent targeting and powerful AI to optimize lead capture and help refine the advertising strategy. chime.me
NOV 2019
22
INBUSINESSPHX.COM
Rise of the Modern-Day Product Manager “We want to know what every product in the world is. We want to know who every person in the world is. And we want to have the ability to connect them together in a transaction.” — Walmart’s CEO of global e-commerce Technology is driving innovation and new product development in companies around the world. In turn, the demand for product management professionals who have a strong technical grounding is on the rise. The evidence of this is apparent: The number of engineers/developers per product manager has increased by two in the past year alone, according to the results of the 2019 Pragmatic Institute Product Management and Product Marketing Survey (www.pragmaticinstitute.com/resources/ annual-survey). The survey also found that those professionals who consider themselves to be very technical are reaping the financial benefits of their knowledge, earning an average 11 percent more than their peers who don’t consider themselves technical at all. Clearly, companies are on the hunt for product managers who have a strong technical background and are comfortable communicating with development and engineering teams efficiently and effectively — and they’re willing to pay for them. Yet, knowledge of the technical aspects of back-end development isn’t particularly new for product professionals. What is new, though, is the increasing need to understand the implications of big data. Early adopters of big-data analytics have proven the benefits of leveraging information. Companies with the most advanced analytics capabilities outperform their competitors by wide margins and are twice as likely to be in the top quartile of financial performance within their industries, according to survey results from management consulting firm Bain & Company (www.bain.com/
insights/big_data_the_organizational_challenge). They’re also five times as likely to make decisions faster than market peers and three times as likely to execute decisions as intended. Currently, 80 percent of all customer data is completely unused. But, for companies that do it right, data is a way for product professionals to learn who customers are, what they want, and what motivates them to either stick around or go to a competitor. Insights-driven companies are using this constant feedback to build better products — and it’s giving them a competitive edge. Take Target as an example. For many years, the retailer launched its swimwear collection in late spring and early summer. Then the company took a closer look the data and realized it was missing a key piece of insight: College kids plan and get ready for spring break in late winter and early spring. To position itself as a leader for this market segment, Target started selling its swimwear collection online in February — just in time for spring break. This represents just one example of companies that are leveraging users’ behavioral data as a direct line of communication to inform business decisions. And, ultimately, these decisions are resulting in better products, better customer experiences and — perhaps most important — better revenue. —Philip Alexander, CEO of Pragmatic Institute (www.pragmaticinstitute.com) — the world’s leading authority on product management, product marketing and data science, whose courses are based on a proven framework for creating market and data-driven products — has spent more than two decades on the front lines of senior-level international marketing, witnessing firsthand how some of the world’s leading companies managed their brands
While some building and business owners are considering relying on Wi-Fi as an alternative to cellular coverage, a report from iGR — a market strategy consultancy focused on the wireless and mobile communications industry — indicates building tenants actually prefer cellular coverage for various use cases. igr-inc.com