The Computer Fairs last fall were attended by too few ski area people. Most of those who took advantage of the eye-opening demonstrations were data processing or computing managers and directors from large areas who were already committed to taking advantage of the computer age. Missing were the GM’s and administrators from small and medium-size ski resorts — resorts that usually lack the sophistication and depth of talent of larger areas, but could have gained much by initiating or expanding their application of computers.
A typical ski area that was not in attendance draws almost 200,000 skiers, operates a nursery, has three food and beverage outlets, routinely sees long rental lines, busses a high percentage of its skiers, experiences an above average occurrence of serious injuries, has its own retail outlet and offers a full variety of ski school programs, but has no computers. The administrative manager (trained in computers) and her secretarial assistant are using outdated typewriters for correspondence and columnar pads and desk calculators to assemble budgets. They struggle to collect meaningful demographic information without the benefit of a computer data base. Lift tickets are still being individually hand stamped.
This area’s experience (or lack of it) is a sharp contrast to Swain Ski Center, N.Y., where Robin Smith’s extensive, intelligent and money-saving applications of computers have been chronicled in this magazine. His accounts and the area described above indicate that computer use and acceptance at smaller areas varies all the way from inventive application to total disregard. It’s apparent that what really counts in the business use of personal computers and their software applications is not whether one uses IBM or Macintosh computers, not the degree of sophistication or numbers of bells and whistles of the software, not whether the operating system is Windows or DOS. What counts is the intelligent application of computers to the needs of business.
In a Wall Street Journal article, Peter Drucker wrote that, ultimately, it’s what you do with the data and information churned out by your computers that can have an impact on the success of your resort. To this end, Drucker stated the necessity of management, at all levels, is to become truly information literate, knowing not only how computers and software work, but also (most important) what to do with what the computers produce. “What information do we need? When do we need it? In what form? And where do we get it?” Drucker asks. “Computer people still are concerned with greater speed and bigger memories. But the challenges increasingly will be not technical, but to convert data into usable information that is actually being used.”
Ask yourself are you producing the right data? Are you using it correctly and beneficially? Do you develop a budget and then put it aside for use only when “actuals” become available? Or do you play “what if” games with that data to analyze the possible results of a sub-par snow year or of an unexpected record breaker? The effects of an earthquake or other natural disaster? The impact of a major lift incident?
Does your guest-survey data produce a glossy report based on its raw contents? Or, does it assure accuracy by using control data to uncover possible misinformation? Have you done anything to determine who the people are who don’t ski your area (or those who don’t ski at all) and why they don’t? According to one management guru, “What a business needs most for its decisions are data about what goes on outside the business where there are results, opportunities and threats. Few businesses have tried to get information about their non-customers who almost always outnumber customers.”
Does your accounting data deal (as it should) with operations, providing all departments with timely expense and income data needed to optimize their performance? Or, does it concentrate on classic financial accounting aimed at producing an impressive balance sheet and earnings report to send to the owners and stockholders at year’s end?
Have you explored the many wonders of computing available to you and your staff? Project management? Equipment maintenance? Brainstorming? On-line services? Computer assisted design? Employee evaluation? Personal organization? Scheduling? And on and on.
For data to become useful information, it must be organized in such a way as to be directed toward specific tasks or toward formulating business decisions. Data users must decide what data to convert to useful information and how to apply that information constructively.
Most important is the intelligence with which management and staff apply computer output to their business needs. Wouldn’t it be great if all of us could point with pride to computer assisted accomplishments such as those heralded by Robin Smith?
