Village Hotels Supercharges CX with Sage Intacct and Percipient

Hospitality group embraces digital transformation to deliver a consistent customer experience
and empower its people to supercharge performance.

About Village Hotels

Village Hotels operates 33 hotels, mainly located on the outskirts of large towns and cities in England, Wales and Scotland. Mid-sized, they operate as lifestyle mid-market to upscale properties. Each hotel typically has between 110 and 160 rooms, a Pub & Grill, a Starbucks, and conference rooms. The Village Hotel Blackpool has an 18-hole golf course and an outdoor heated swimming pool.

The group prides itself on lifestyle destinations with modern technology, great dining, state-of-the-art gyms and pools, and meeting and event facilities.

Modernising in the Face of Change

As part of a modernisation programme, the group identified a need for new digital capabilities to instil greater automation across its business, with a specific focus on improving efficiency, consistency and collaboration.

Each of its 33 hotels is underpinned by an ethos of delivering a consistent customer experience. Village Hotels required a modern, cloud-based financial management platform which could provide business insights and empower general managers to monitor and improve business performance. Village Hotels selected Sage Intacct following a market review and, working with Sage partner Percipient, went live with the platform in January 2022.

“Percipient’s speed of reaction and resolution was second to none throughout the entire process,” comments Lee Gaskell, Group Financial Controller, Village Hotels. “The team’s experience, expertise and knowledge of our industry really helped us to get up and running with the system quickly, and get the most out of it. As well as training, regular check-ins, honesty and transparency, the range of networking events and webinars they offer amplifies the value we have experienced as a result of the deployment.”

Delivering Intelligence & Autonomy

By integrating with Village Hotels’ data lake via APIs, Sage Intacct now delivers a comprehensive, fully integrated view of the business. Crucially, the insights it produces can be understood by both non-financial and finance staff, giving them the intelligence and autonomy to manage their respective business areas.

When it comes to finance, Sage Intacct enables the team at Village Hotels to quickly access financial information, making trading patterns easier to view, compare, and react to. Month-end has been reduced from around eight days to just three, and reporting to executives is easy and flexible, with the ability to quickly tailor the information required.

“The intelligence in the system facilitates not only the numbers but an explanation of these numbers based on additional or external intelligence. This, in turn, helps forecast, as we can look at how a specific event, promotion, or dynamic has impacted performance and identify how these are likely to play out in the future. This is especially pertinent currently, as the world post-pandemic looks very different; therefore, having the visibility and agility to navigate new trends is paramount, whether it’s capex or capacity planning.

“Our group procurement controls can even build in inflationary costs to make more accurate predictions for the forthcoming 12 months, which is fundamental in planning.” As Lee explains, energy usage is a good example of how this capability delivers value across Village Hotels’ 33 destinations.

Multi-Dimensional Reporting

“Digital is, without doubt, a crucial aspect of any modern hospitality business in the world post-pandemic, and we see it as a crucial element of our strategy,” Lee concludes. “Ultimately, Sage Intacct provides a flexible digital backbone that can deliver reporting and management accounts in seconds. P&L is easy to view and understand, and costs are easier to track.

“Accounts can be tagged, and a more in-depth search or analysis can be conducted where necessary for deeper levels of understanding and insights to support business outcomes. Tailored to the roles and goals of all relevant stakeholders, from the CEO and shareholders to GMs and business unit leaders, we now have a single version of the truth, with no margin for subjectivity and a consistent view of the business from which to propel it forward.”

Sage Intacct Partner for Hospitality

If you’d like to learn more about Sage Intacct, our work with Village Hotels, or how we can help your hospitality business, please get in touch or call us on 01606 871332.