TCP085: Navigating Digital Transformation with Ken Gavranovic

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Ken Kravanovitz joins this podcast to discuss the transformative power of AI and digital tools in the hospitality industry.

He highlights how many companies struggle with digital transformation due to a lack of clarity on outcomes and insufficient leadership commitment.

Drawing from his extensive expertise with iconic brands, Ken emphasizes that technology should enhance human connections rather than replace them.

He introduces Product Genius, a tool designed to capture real time guest feedback and streamline operations, which has proven to deliver impressive ROI for hospitality businesses.

Throughout this conversation, he offers actionable insights for leaders looking to successfully navigate the complexities of AI driven transformation while fostering a culture of continuous improvement.

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Let's dive right in.

Ken Gravanovic, thank you so much for coming on the show.

And by the way, just so you know, I had to practice the pronunciation of your name multiple times before I got you on the phone, just so I made sure I got it right.

So welcome to the show and for our audience who may not know you, could you share a little bit about your journey, you know, how you became passionate about helping companies transform and really what led you to focus on growth through AI and digital tools.

Thanks Skip.

It's great to be here.

My passion for transformation really started early in my career when I saw how companies that embrace change and innovation really outperform those that don't.

You know, over the years I've had the opportunity to lead transformations at iconic brands like Disney World, Verizon, 7Eleven, Cox Automotive, maybe heard of Kelly Bu Book or Autotrader.

And in each case the challenge was the same is how do you take this new thing, whether it be the Internet, whether it be let's be a digital business, whether it be how do we embrace AI or in your case, VR, all these different things, how do you really embrace this change and involve not just the technology?

Because a lot of times people think it's the technology is the key thing, but how do you evolve the people, the processes that really unlock that new technology?

And that led me to focus on a number of different things starting early in my career and kind of the transformation to the Internet later on, digital transformation, where I did that for again companies like Verizon, Disney World, seven eleven, Cox Automotive, and then the last seven years I've really been focusing on AI and digital tools and a lot of people think AI just happened two years ago.

But you and I both know it's been around for probably the last seven years and mostly for the benefit of enterprise and medium sized companies.

But now with OpenAI and some of the new generative of AI, it's going to be a game changer.

I think it's actually going to be bigger than the Internet.

And so I'm really excited about it and bringing that to the masses because a lot of people get afraid of AI.

Just if you think about it, people are afraid of the Internet.

Think about go back to PCs, oh, when PCs happen, that's going to replace everybody.

But I'm a big believer that technology, if you look at what it's done and what it continues to do, it really augments it.

So it lets us stop doing the low value work and focus on that high value work.

And so how do you get companies to change and really embrace that so that their employees can focus on that high value work, really streamline operations, uncover hidden opportunities and ultimately deliver better experiences for customers, employees.

That's kind of where I think the real growth happens and why I'm really excited in this kind of phase of my journey to really help companies really embrace those AI and digital tools.

Because as you and I both know.

Change is hard, very hard, and not always accepted.

Absolutely.

You also have some experience, if I'm not mistaken, in the hospitality industry, correct?

Yes.

Some brands, like Marriott, for example, Extended Stay would be a few, which again, the themes are always like, how do we take this new technology and make it better?

If I could just jump into one example, like Extended Stay is a great example, is many hotel chains, for example, realized that they were giving away a lot of money to third party booking sites.

And the reason they had to give that money away to third party booking sites is because they hadn't really done a great job of building a relationship with their consumers.

So you see, a lot of technology went into how do we start to build loyalty programs, how do we start to communicate and have offers so that our customers become more loyal?

And so that means we need to focus on, for example, one of the things I did with Extended Stay and Marriott is how do we focus on that digital experience?

So that digital, digital experience is amazing and it's consistent, you know, and that's just again, one example of, you know, how, how hotel chains, you know, can embrace that.

We'll talk about a little bit bit more and then, yeah, I'd love to hit more on some of that transformation because that is a real big challenge.

Well, you brought it up before, so let's dig right into it.

In regards to digital transformation, it's been a buzzword for years and I still believe it is a technology that continues to evolve under the umbrella of the term digital transformation.

Yet so many companies struggle to finish what they start.

In your experience, why is transformation so hard?

And what do leaders often overlook?

Really great question.

And I think it starts with a lot of times in boardrooms there's a meeting where let's just talk about cloud and then we'll talk about AI.

There's a meeting where someone says, hey, what's our strategy on the cloud?

Or what's our strategy on digital transformation?

Or what's our strategy on VR?

What's our strategy on AI?

And then oftentimes, if they're not careful, it becomes into, well, our strategy is we're going to go to the cloud, you know.

And this reminds me of an example I'll share with you.

I won't mention the company's name, but we'll say one of the top 10 healthcare providers had literally spent $50 million going to the cloud.

They had failed multiple times.

Multiple times, actually, they failed going to one cloud provider.

Ah, that's a problem.

Let's Go try a different cloud provider.

It must have been the cloud provider.

They failed again.

And the third time I got involved and when I went and met with the leaders team, you know a number of different things, but of course you and I both know, first of all you have to have support at the top, but you have to have clarity in what you're doing.

And I said, what's your goal?

And they said we need to move to X public cloud.

And I said is why are you doing that?

And they're like, well, what do you mean why?

Because that we're going to be a digital company.

If we do that, we're going to be cloud native.

And I said, well, why are you doing that?

They said, well, because we want to build software that is built, delivered faster to our customers and we want to have this and we want to have this benefit and this business.

I said, great.

So those are the outcomes you're trying to achieve, right?

And they're like, well, oh yes.

So they weren't clear.

First of all, they were focused on, I call it activities versus the outcomes.

And I think that's where it starts, is you have to have leadership at the very top of the company aligned and aligned, that this is not just a technology play.

This involves people, process and technology and we need to be really clear on what success is and just following through in that example.

So I said, okay, great.

So those are the outcomes and what's that going to do?

Well, that's going to shrink this department, impact this department, make this department better.

I said, great.

So who's in charge of the transformation?

And you wouldn't believe it.

Well, you probably would believe it is the company, the group that was going to be most impacted.

So in other words, they were going to have to learn new skill sets because it was going to automate a lot of their work.

That was the team that was driving the transformation.

So again, we're all humans.

If you feel threatened, are you going to move fast in that transformation or not?

So that was kind of the first thing is who's driving at the top and who's leading that initiative?

Initiative.

And then the other part is don't underestimate that people process and again that leadership commitment.

So for people, I think the employees understand why they're doing the change.

What's the benefit to them?

What's the empowerment?

How does it help them?

What's the processes?

We're not going to move to doing this new way and keep doing things the old way.

We have to change all of that.

And then again, I think that leadership, commit, commitment.

Well, once again, you just mentioned several key important things and that's really about hospitality.

And by using technology to enhance the experience for the guest, the hospitality industry thrives on human interactions, but AI is now becoming a key enabler.

How do you see AI transforming customer engagement and operational efficiencies in hospitality?

Yeah, no, I think that's a good point.

And I think, you know, the conversations I've had at the very top of hospitality, and you talk to them all the time much more than me, is, you know, it's all about the human touch.

It's all about that experience, that guest experience that they create.

And so how can we transform it?

I think you're already starting to see, you know, if you've been to many hotels, maybe you get a text message now and it says like, I'm some virtual name, you know, how are we doing?

And it checks in with you, you know, throughout the day.

You know, that's kind of the first step for AI.

But you know, I think that's where people need to think about is, you know, with the customer experience.

How can we do that?

You know, how can we empower the staff so that they can focus on high value interaction?

So I think when you think about AI, for example, what are the routine tasks that they do that are low value?

You know, like answering guest questions or, or sequencing something in operations?

You know, client says this, a guest says this, somebody else needs to be dispatched, we need to make sure that they do that.

How can we aud automate that?

You know, any kind of things that, you know, whether it be the people, that's a poor use of people, that's an inefficient process, you know, and, and again, like with all of these leadership has to be committed to and explain why we're making this change.

And it's not about replacing people, it's about enhancing and amplifying the human connections with technology.

It's funny, you talked about the hotels and the, you know, the chatbot that you get back as you check in.

I think the best use case scenario I've seen of that is a recent stay out was staying at the Cosmo in Las Vegas and their virtual concierge AI bot.

Her name was Rose.

And the second you checked in, Rose started flirting with you.

But during that whole process, she was learning through your interactions and because of her quote unquote attitude or her demeanor, it somehow opened up the conversation for you to feel more comfortable with this person, quote unquote, person and it learned and started to make very specific recommendations during my stay, which I thought was fantastic.

And I guess that leads to, you know, from a staffing optimization or hyper personalized guest experience, AI really offers immense opportunities.

What should hospitality leaders focus on first to ensure they leverage AI effectively?

Well, if I could let me just hit on one thing first, is I do think, generally speaking, I think for hospitality leaders, they should focus on the key areas.

I think it's going to make the, the, the them be able to operate faster, smarter and more personal.

You just talked about that.

So instant engagement, so that you can really like whatever the client want, whatever the guest wants, whether they're in their room, whether they're out in your facility, they're at the spa, they're at the pool.

You want to capture and engage them and understand what they're doing, the questions they ask, what they're doing so that you can deliver audience.

You've got the ICP of your guests.

And so going back to personality, which, which AI can actually talk in a way that's relevant to them, to really, you know, meet them where they're at.

So I think instant engagement, you're going to see that with operational efficiency, you know, the fact that we have to call the front desk and say, hey, can you do the sheets?

And then they get somebody on the radio and say, hey, can you go and do this?

Like all of that's going to change and it's going to be incredibly personalized.

Now, I want to go back to your question.

I think you were saying, like, how can they actually deliver a better guest experience?

Yes.

Well, if I'll give you an example of something that I'm involved with, which is a company called Product Genius.

So we've talked about the digital concierge, but let's talk about kind of, I think, taking it to the next level.

What if you could have something like a QR code that understood every single thing in the hotel?

Where are the facilities?

What are the events?

Where can guests go nearby to enjoy things that are adjacent to the hotel?

If it understood every single piece of that, if the guests could ask questions like, hey, I need to find out where this is, I need to get feedback, I need to have the room clean and get those instant answers and share feedback, I think that's an area that you're going to see immediately.

Companies and hotels start to get advantages from.

All right, so you just opened the door on Product Genius.

When we come back after this short break, we're going to dig more into that Product Genius product.

We're also going to talk about some practical steps for leaders, some future trends, and just continue this conversation about AI and leveraging it and having leadership endorse change within an organization.

So stay where you are at.

We'll be right back.

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Ken.

Continuing where we left off, let's go back into product genius and let's talk about those who may not be familiar with it, what it is, how does it act as a 247 digital employee to really help hospitality businesses thrive?

That's great, Skip, thanks for that.

Well, if you think about it, every single day in hospitality, you have guests and employees that walk into your business.

They experience, you know, your room, your facilities.

They have questions and they have answers.

And all of that simply not captured in any way.

It's accurate.

If you think about there's NPS scores, the data's pretty clear.

Increasingly less people engage surveys.

People are getting tired of doing, you know, a Google, a Google review tells you one star tells you someone hates you, five star tells you something amazing happened.

But there's nothing that actually captures in the moment what customers are thinking, what are their questions and what is their feedback.

So what product genius is, is a tool that actually can digitally understand everything about the business.

So it can answer any question that your guest has instantly.

And it can also capture that feedback.

So you could say, for example, if they're in the room and they scan something and say the room's not clean, you could say, great, we're going to get somebody to take care of that and instantly text the room cleaning service to go deal with.

If somebody had a bad experience at the pool, maybe something's broken or the AC is broken, that feed act's automatically captured and actually routed to the various people in the facility so they can instantly address it.

And that's great.

So if you think about it from a consumer perspective, they get to share feedback.

It's fast because it actually has a conversation with you in the personality that the hotel wants.

But now you've got a bunch of unstructured data.

What's great about AI is it can actually take all that unstructured feedback.

Not just the feedback, but also the questions.

And figure out what is the clear patterns at your particular location, what's going on?

We've got repeated issues where the pool wasn't clean.

We've got repeated issues where customers really love this or hated that.

It can actually uncover the patterns.

So now you know exactly what the pattern is and actually it can suggest, here's the specific actions that you can take along with the quotes to back that up.

So now you've kind of got real time I think about as almost like customer observability, where you're observing all of your guests, understanding what they're doing and being able to act on a regular basis.

And that's the essence of product genius.

And we're seeing people use this data to say when we see a customer have a bad experience, let's notify the front desk and immediately resolve it.

Or if a customer really loves it, let's route them to our Google review so that they can capture that or maybe want to capture additional information like their, their name, their email for a special promotion.

Now we've got a lot of data about what that guest likes.

Speaking of data, you've shared some pretty impressive success stories prior to this podcast.

Here today, as you and I were speaking about, really, clients are seeing massive ROI by using this product.

Can you walk us through a hospitality specific example where product genius drove measurable improvements?

Absolutely.

Imagine a hotel that implemented product genius and placed those smart QR codes in the rooms, the gyms, the pool area, check in guests use that to report issues, ask questions, share feedback.

What I was able to do is actually notice the pattern.

So one of the things was in one particular area there was repeated issues related to the heating and cooling.

So before it was intermittent and they couldn't actually see that they have an issue in this particular area of the hotel.

So instantly they knew that versus that kind of simmering.

And maybe they discover that four or six weeks now they were able to determine that in one week.

And that particular example, with the investment of product genius, just that one thing was over a 4,000% ROI.

So obviously this show is not about product endorsements, but I think it's important to set the standard that, you know, you have a product that leverages this technology to really help the organization just leverage, you know, the technology out there in order to be able to provide a better customer experience, create more efficiencies, et cetera.

This goes back to the leadership and about technology implementing within an organization.

Transformation is a cultural shift, not just A technological upgrade.

What's your Advice for Hospitality CEOs on aligning people, processes and technology to make AI driven transformation successful?

I think that's a great question.

I think with AI, I think the first part is to think about what are the key use cases and outcomes that we can use with AI.

So we think about.

AI is all about optimizing and automating the different interactions that we have.

So I think think about the outcomes where it's going to apply in that business.

And you think about, you know, of course, customer service, you think about operations management, you think about operations automation, capturing feedback, you think about customer loyalty.

Those are clear areas that AI can absolutely impact.

And if you want to take a little bit broader thing, I think you can look at anything that you do in your hotel that is a repeated process, steps, 1, 2, 3, 4.

If this happens and do that, we often have manuals that tell people to do it.

Those are prime examples where AI can do a tremendous and take that, automate those things so again the employees can focus on higher value things.

So what I would do is kind of look at those things, kind of define outcomes for each of those, then articulate these are the outcomes.

We want to go find the right people who are ready to drive transformation, get clarity on the outcomes and then think about what processes need to change, who are the right people.

Again, explain it and then measure that.

Process of transformation, a piece of that.

We both sat in advisory roles obviously in the past.

A lot of times I'll find that there are broken processes and those really need to be fixed first before implementing new tools.

How can hospitality leaders identify and address outdated workflows before layering on technology?

Yeah, I think that that's a great question.

I would start with the customer.

I think there's clear data.

They probably already have surveys, they've probably done some nps, they've got some level of feedback.

Here's areas that we repeatedly get negative feedback.

I think looking at those areas first is a great place to say, okay, great, how can we automate that?

How can we, we make it so that these scenarios simply don't happen again?

Then take that technology.

When I say that those are kind of the low hanging, you know, opportunities and focus on doing one thing.

Because a lot of times people say we're going to embrace AI across everywhere.

Let's focus on some easy wins.

And then the other part is once you pick a couple of easy wins and show the value to the team, everybody's going to get on board the transformation train.

You've been in the technology side of things for quite some time, like you said, going back to the very first web company out there.

What was it called?

Web.

Web.com.

what year was that?

Just curious.

That was 97.

We went from zero to 300 million in like two years.

You know, 97 is the year I coded the first HTML for my website.

I thought I was.

Yeah.

And I.

Everybody's looking at me like, why are you wasting.

What are you doing?

It was, it was a crazy time.

And there's also a tool, a website out there where you can go back in time and look at URL over that period.

And I went back the other day and I found my original website, which I thought I had lost forever.

But as I say that AI and digital tools are evolving rapidly at a pace that we've never seen before.

What emerging technologies do you think will have the most significant impact on hospitality in the next, let's say, three to five years?

You know, I think you're going to see AI.

You know, I think extended reality and predictive analytics are probably going to be the key three areas that I think are going to have the biggest impact.

I think AI plus XR extended reality is the future.

You combine those two together, you have got a powerful machine.

We're talking a lot about future and you know what to, what to adopt next within your organization.

For leaders who are hesitant or overwhelmed by that digital transformation, what's one practical first step they can take to get started?

Well, I think it's really focused on solving one real problem.

You know, I think guest feedback's probably one thing that is an easy one.

Right.

Do you really, you understand often you've got, again, you've got NPS scores, you've got surveys.

But a simple thing with AI is, well, what's the actual thing that our customers, what's the real pattern like?

I know we have a problem, but what's the data that tells me what the actual problem is versus this general thing or problem?

So I think improving guest feedback or streamlining, you know, kind of reporting, you know, is one way to kind of start small, measure success and scale from there.

And what's great, if you, for example, captured guest feedback, that's going to really open up a lot of other opportunities.

So now you've got at least visibility on other areas to improve.

Looking ahead, what excites you the most about the intersection of AI and the hospitality industry?

Basically, how do you see the role of human connection evolving alongside smarter tools?

You know what I get the most excited about.

And I think this is again, a lot of people are afraid of AI.

We've all been like checked in a hotel where someone's using an outdated check in System and spending 20 minutes trying to work through whatever that guest issue and we're standing in line waiting.

I think AI is going to really empower teams to focus on creating meaningful guest experience while the technology handles the routine.

And you're already starting to see in some hotels where they have parts of, where the technology part of check in is there.

And so that way the employees can, the staff can really focus on how do we create an amazing experience for you.

So I think that's really the future.

It's all about enhancing that human touch, not replacing and really making sure that hospitality remains personal, efficient and then ultimately unforgettable.

In closing, Ken, you've shared so much actionable advice today.

If there's one key takeaway for hospitality CEOs listening right now, what would it be?

I would say start small, solve a clear problem.

So that way you've got an immediate roi.

And I would say, and remember, AI is here to amplify your people, not replace them.

Love it.

Finally, where can our listeners connect with you, learn more about you and stay up to date on your latest work?

Great.

So you can go to ProductGenius Guru to learn more about Product Genius or if you go to LinkedIn, just go to LinkedIn and do LinkedIn.com K G-A-V R A N O V I C.

And I'll put a link in the show notes to all of those so people don't have to memorize that.

You can just go and, and click on the link either in the LinkedIn post or on the, on the podcast post as well.

Ken, thank you so much for joining us.

You know, this is a really nice twist based upon, you know, who our guests have been in the past.

I like the leadership aspect of things.

I like the quote unquote transformative growth concept and leadership for high impact hospitality executives.

I think you had a lot of good advice here today.

This is one you might want to go back and listen to some key points, especially around the leadership area.

So, so thank you for sharing your thoughts, your ideas and I look forward to continue to watch you online.

Skip, thanks so much.

And again, if there's anything I do for any of your audience, like just, you know, brainstorm or just transformation has nothing to do with AI, anything I can do to help, just feel free to reach out.

I hope you enjoyed that conversation.

And if you have any thoughts about the show that you would like to share with us, you can leave a message on LinkedIn.

You can always reach out to me via everything Social, Skip Kimple or everything magicgatetech.

This includes X, Facebook, Instagram and of course LinkedIn.

You can always go to the website@SkipKimple.com for all of the archived shows and all of the show notes are there as well.

And you can also hear all of these new episodes on the Magic 8 website at magic8.com and of course you can email me at skipagic8.com next week on the Tech Chef, we are going to be talking about IoT with Fabio Zanaboni, CEO of Bubblynet.

Fabio digs deep into the benefits and cost savings that can be achieved by putting the right IoT devices in place.

If you have not yet implemented this technology, listen to the show as it could save you a fortune and help to improve your guest experience.

Baby, it's cold outside so whatever you do, stay warm, stay safe, stay healthy and stay hungry.

My friends.