Implications for IT and business – Are you ready?
As many in the casino industry have attested, casino gaming revenues throughout the country are under continued and growing pressure, creating the necessity to diversify with non-gaming amenities to materially increase visitation, resulting in the growth of gaming and non-gaming revenue. New casinos, millennials, Internet gaming and integrated resorts are sources of improvement for overall revenue.
Broadly accepted and anticipated changes in the coming years
- Millennials will become the dominant demographic.
- Multi-channel entertainment is part of everyday life for most consumers.
- Internet gaming will likely grow in acceptance.
- Experience-based retail and Omni-channel retail are going to be the future.
Implications for Native American casinos and resorts
- Demographics are changing, and millennials are the largest consumers – it’s all about experience for the millennials. The story is to understand the complexity of those changes to increase engagement, frequency and spend by using analytics.
- Guest journey and guest service must be at the forefront of design and innovation.
- IT infrastructure and applications related to commerce, marketing, loyalty and guest experience management are closely intertwined and must be examined thoroughly as part of business process analysis.
- It will be critical for the enterprises to offer new entertainment environments that will have a mix of leisure, retail, food courts, etc., that would appeal for the current target guests.
- Creating a sense of place for the guest in addition to the core gaming product.
Implications for a CIO and the relationship with the GM and all functional leaders in
Native American casinos and Resorts
Being ahead of the curve with the dynamics and advancements in the gaming and resort industry presents many challenges for CIOs and Information Technology departments. Leisure and group guests are expecting and demanding same or better level of amenities and guest experiences offered by brand name and luxury resorts. Gaming has grown far beyond the days when gamblers slipped a few coins into a slot machine and pulled the handle. The gaming industry has often been slow to take on new and emerging technologies. One reason is that gaming companies often stick with the technologies investments tied to the gaming systems.
Technology is a key factor in every part of an organization. It drives innovation. It can give you a competitive edge. It is a core component of improving guest experience and creating efficiency. Technology can save money and, more importantly, increase revenue and productivity. IT solutions can also help the business meet its professional and financial goals. This ranges from software applications to the analytics of data concerning both consumer and the products provided.
Here is a list of questions that CIOs face today to enable business with IT solutions for the ever-changing business models.
- How do you establish lasting connections with your guests? Creating an immersive entertainment experience that occurs when the guest arrives on-property is the new standard for all operators.
- How do you manage properties for superior service and maximize guest spending?
- How do you gain critical business insight from guest interactions with team members and through analytics and business intelligence?
- How do you extract guest insights from commerce transactions and marketing campaigns, and enrich guest profiles to increase revenue and loyalty?
- How do you use predictive analytics to understand the changing demographics to increase participation, frequency and spend?
- How do you empower team members by using mobile technologies that increase team productivity?
- How do you embrace cloud computing for the multiple services inside the modern gaming industry?
- How do you increase the adoption of leveraging infrastructure to cut costs and provide richer applications?
- How do you provide seamless integration of processes across multiple business applications (Retail, POS, PMS, traditional slot machine play, table game activities, and back office applications)?
- How do you ensure protection of personal data information for both guests and company team members? The key element to being successful is the integration of security in every aspect of the information technology.
- How do you migrate to the cloud with a phased approach?
These questions are the basis for encouraging dialogue and collaboration between the CIO, the GM, and the leaders in Gaming, Food and Beverage, Operations and Marketing and Sales. The answers and the actions taken will help with solutions to the challenges identified earlier in this article.
