Difference between digitalize and digitize

Nowadays all companies worldwide are using the term digitalization, but what it really means?  And what about digitize?

Let`s see first the meaning: digitalize refers to convert procedures in technological processes through digital tools, whereas digitize means to encode offline documents in digital form. Sometimes the two words can be mistaken. In addition, it sounds cool to say: I digitalized my property. But in a concrete manner, does the property really need to digitalize processes or to digitize offline material?

Aimed to understand better, we would like to refer to three different properties as example:

Hotel 1: small familiar property with 20 rooms, 3 stars, located in the city centre.
The owner Mr. Smith wants to make changes and try to avoid wastes. He can digitize the internal documents but is not possible to do the same with the promotional material at the front desk, as the senior guest`s segmentation is quite high.

Hotel 2: medium property with 55 rooms, 3 stars, located on a mountain and working during winter season only.
The owner Mr. White decides to introduce a communication tool, which can optimize the procedures. In fact, information between all departments should be immediate. As in winter season there is a lot to do, this tool can be very helpful for most of the daily duties. Effectively, the departments are very busy at the phone and the tool avoid useless holding time.

Hotel 3: Big international property with 190 rooms, 4 stars superior, located outside the city centre and next to the airport
The owner Mr. Johnson wants to avoid the queue at the reception desk. Hence, the self-check-in and self-check-out are a suitable solution. Furthermore, there are a lot of business guests who prefer to check in and out fast. Another important point for Mr. Johnson is the sustainability and decided to digitize all registration cards by using a digital signature.

The examples mentioned above are instances only. Any properties have a certain situation and the decision to start a change must be carefully studied by the internal team or by experts. Digital transformations are aimed to improve revenue, services and sustainability, to decrease problems and to enhance procedures. In this way the guest`s journey and the employees’ daily job will be qualitative better. Nevertheless, the hotels need to understand if changing it`s worth for the own business and if the transformation can be adequate for all persons involved (staff, guests, third part business).

Digitalization

Digitalized procedures are for example:

– connection of different system, for example PMS, CRM and revenue tool
– Self-check-in and self-check-out
– Robotized room and restaurant service
– Establishment of an App for different processes
– Integration of a communication tool
– Use of cloud or server based IT systems
(If you are a very small familiar Hotel and you don`t have an IT System cloud or server based yet, you can check cheap cloud solutions online and constantly update data manually).

Digitization

And what can you digitize? – Registration cards (in some countries is necessary to ask a permission for the digital signature)
– Internal documents by using the digital signature
– Contracts with partners
– Confirmations of groups, reservations, meetings
– Menu (bar, restaurant, room service)
– Standard operation procedures and internal office communications
– Payroll and invoices
(Never forget to keep few hard copies and to know analogue options in case the system goes down).