“The Digital Changemaker ”

With a flourishing track record of transforming organisations seeking growth through digital innovation, Tess Mattisson, Senior Director, Sales & Marketing EMEA of Choice Hotels International is the celebrated force leading the company’s metamorphosis.

Leading by the motto: work smarter, not harder, when Tess joined Choice Hotels in January 2016, one of her first moves would be to reshape the languishing European division with this philosophy. Her main objective was to implement an insight-driven, guest-centric, outcome-focused commercial strategy that would turn the business into a digital company.

"Digital transformation is not about becoming “digital” but about transforming people through great leadership. Technology is the facilitator of a great strategy, but you need great people to execute on both. "

The key to success doesn’t lie in being digital alone; “digital is the enabler of a marketing strategy, not the strategy itself”, says Mattison. Today’s generation of customers are tech-savvy, digital-natives who live their lives online. “I don’t do digital marketing, I just do marketing, and nowadays marketing has become digital”, she explains. As purchase consideration and completion begins and ends in this sphere, the digital footprints of these interactions can help businesses better understand customer psyche, and act as a bridge connecting brands to customers. “Our focus should be on driving value through data-driven initiatives that resonate with the end customer”, she adds.

While brands are good at mapping out the customer journey and identifying the touchpoints and key micro moments to engage with customers, there is a tendency to have tunnel vision rather than view from the customer’s perspective. She advises to look holistically at the whole ecosystem. Customers do not care about the competition. They care about the value delivered to them.

Furthermore, “the companies that will really succeed in the future are the ones that are bold enough to try things outside of their comfort zone for the benefit of their customers”.

However, she warns that the consideration here is not to jump onto the bandwagon of each and every new trend that emerges, just to be the first. “The key is to find a balance and to rely on analysis to determine which strategies work and also importantly, which do not. We are fortunate that we can afford to find the balance, try the latest projects and gather insight to adapt, become more agile and more valuable”. That is her secret recipe for innovation in a digital age.

I think that it’s harder for bigger brands. We have 7,000 hotels worldwide, and we need to make informed decisions about our approach across our franchises but brands like us can move the needle for the entire industry. We need to be bold and let the consumer drive our development and our direction, not the other way around.

Four years until her helm and Choice Hotels continues to grow, delighting consumers with its range of products and high-quality customer experience where digital plays an ever-increasing role in bringing the consumer’s needs to the forefront through design-engineered marketing that nurtures travellers from dreaming through to experiencing. IE