"Infrastructure."
What immediately comes to your mind after it's said?
You might envision a series of people, departments, technology, and all the moving parts of your operation.
We're not sure what you will see.
But, we know 'infrastructure' must resonate.
Why?
It's an essential part of your operation.
As the second pillar of Proactive Operations, its primary purpose is bringing your operational personnel, teams, or departments together on the same plane.
But, we suspect that when you thought about it, your perspective might be different than ours.
It'll probably be different from any other professional reading this article.
That's cause for concern.
There could be deficiencies in what you believe to be a capable infrastructure.
Agree?
Is your 'infrastructure' missing something?
Several aspects of your operation are humming, but other areas of it could be leading you to manage reactive processes.
We've got to see where the shortfall is today.
How does that sound?
We've had the privilege of working with hundreds of the world's greatest operations to understand what the result of the right foundation is.
Keep reading; we're going to share what we know.
NONEXISTENT INFRASTRUCTURE LEADS TO CONFUSION
Would you say that you have a reliable infrastructure in place?
Are you confident in your answer?
If not, don't fret; we'll help you make the right changes.
But first, we've got to understand why not having one is dangerous.
Can you think of any reasons?
You might have a good team in place, some acceptable processes documented and implemented, and even remarkable software deployed.
But, the one problem here is you don't have a centralized means to control your operation.
Everything is "just happening" without order or an operational structure whereby to monitor consistency and performance.
That's where your infrastructure comes in.
You currently don't have a way to ensure all personnel (or departments) that communicate critical information in real time are doing it efficiently and effectively.
Do you?
You don't have control – that's because you don't have an infrastructure.
Everything is moving but in different directions.
Your team is communicating, but some information is shared more than once or not at all.
This ambiguity leads to inconsistencies.
Inconsistencies confuse.
Confusion forces a reaction from your team, and your operation suffers – ultimately affecting the experience of your customers.
You can't afford that, right?
Let's alter your path to ensure future success.
3 BENEFITS OF YOUR NEW INFRASTRUCTURE
You've got your operation down to a science now.
Agree?
Bringing all of the moving parts and critical areas together will help take your performance to the highest level.
Your infrastructure helps create order throughout your organization, especially when you're using world-leading technology.
It'll be created around your operational needs.
But you must have one!
Include representatives from any functional area where issues or incidents could affect performance and customer experience.
Then, by focusing on the design and development of your infrastructure, you afford your organization the ability to have:
- Agile Operations
- Organized Personnel
- Streamlined Information Flow
Now we're talking!
1. Agile Operations
Your organization might consist of one property in one location or many properties spread around the globe.
That doesn't matter.
Today's infrastructure is designed for agile operations where personnel can manage multiple properties from anywhere in the world.
Operations management software helps guarantee physical location never affects performance.
2. Organized Personnel
With operations management software, the size of your operation doesn't matter.
Have full control of the data communicated throughout your organization, whether you employ 24 employees or over 7,000. (See what we did there?)
Permit your personnel to receive the information you want and how.
Sustain an organized environment for being effective, efficient, and expeditious.
3. Streamlined Information Flow
Stuff happens fast in today's environment.
You can't afford to have redundant or the wrong information broadcasted across your organization.
Poor data integrity leads to bad business decisions.
Your infrastructure defines how information flows among personnel, and operations management software helps it flow efficiently.
OVER TO YOU
You know that Proactive Operations requires each pillar to be in place. But, many operations still only have one, two, or even none of the components active.
It's a mission-critical deficiency and hinders your success. You've got to strengthen your operation. Support it with a reliable infrastructure.
Take control of your operation and achieve the level of performance you deserve – it's your duty!
Editor's note: This post was originally published in April 2018 and has been updated for comprehensiveness and freshness.
