In his 2001 bestseller, Good to Great, Jim Collins wrote why some companies made the leap to great, while many did not. Among others, Collins argued using technology as a primary enabler to accelerate growth. We have come a long way from 2001 and the opportunity for technology to enable businesses has only grown more in the last few years. Recently concluded discussions at the World Economic Forum claim we are living in the “fourth industrial revolution”—springboarding from simple digital automation (the third industrial revolution) to systems with awareness of other systems, enriched with the ability to analyze and predict. We are starting to see some of these in our homes, like the NEST thermostat that can learn and adapt from user behavior.
These advancements allow nimble players, including clubs, to innovate and adapt to today’s trends, rewarding those open to change while leaving those unwilling to do at risk of becoming less competitive. If used correctly, new technology can greatly improve the member experience as well as club operations and governance.
Within the private club industry, approaches powered by member data from various existing systems will significantly help clubs increase retention and align operations to strategic goals. Clubs can funnel disparate data (website, reservations, back office, social media, surveys, etc.) into a central reporting tool, to paint a consolidated member portrait— not just for individual members, but entire member categories. For the first time, membership-related data like spending, reservations, member type changes, usage patterns and more can combine to provide a genuinely holistic view of members and club operations—whether you have one technology vendor or half a dozen.
These views allow you to identify opportunities to improve club programming, influence retention, generate more revenue, and embark on meaningful strategic planning. Imagine how governance and projects play out when management, the board and committee members all work with the same information.
Imagine being notified of members who suddenly reduce their spending at the club, getting reports of members not taking advantage of their membership benefits, or receiving predictive information of members who might downgrade their membership due to dependents going to college. This is the kind of insight that empowers your club to mitigate many previously “unforeseen” membership- related risks.
There are also tremendous opportunities in the boardroom, where initiatives can be tied to key performance indicators (KPIs), such as the generation of outside revenue via guests and corporate outings, or the expansion of various programs or facilities based on measurable usage trends. Being able to agree upon and track KPIs provide an objective assessment of what success should look like, and allows everyone involved to have visibility into their team’s progress toward those goals on any given day.
However, the most common mistake businesses typically make with big data is looking at too much of it at once. Success lies in finding the two or three key metrics that are most important to your specific goals and ensuring everyone is measuring against them.
Board decision making in particular benefits from these kinds of historical and real-time data points. To be competitive, decision making needs to be as fast, and as accurate, as the technology behind this new industrial revolution. This can only happen when you use this same technology to simplify the myriad data it collects—but once you do, it’s completely transformative.
Kevin Kopanon is CEO of MembersFirst and Srikanth Parameswaran is Director of Data Services at MembersFirst. They can be reached at kkopanon@ membersfirst.com or [email protected].