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We Have Too Many Products
in Hotels & Hospitality

Proliferation costs are real, mostly invisible, and land on the room nights that were paying for everything. For independent hotels, this shows up in a particular place. The numbers that carry the answer are £124.75 and 67.8 %, and the complication specific to this industry is that £11.4 m capex need against £2.3 m annual free cash flow with fixed costs at £41.2 m. The general version of this problem and the one you are actually in have different first moves.

The short answer

Proliferation costs are real, mostly invisible, and land on the room nights that were paying for everything. For independent hotels, this shows up in a particular place. The numbers that carry the answer are £124.75 and 67.8 %, and the complication specific to this industry is that £11.4 m capex need against £2.3 m annual free cash flow with fixed costs at £41.2 m. The general version of this problem and the one you are actually in have different first moves.

Room categories, packages and ancillary services accumulate because each addition is individually justifiable and nothing is ever removed. The cost is not in any one of them; it is in the complexity they collectively impose — housekeeping rotations, rate code management, staff knowledge, sales attention, occupancy forecasting.

That cost is borne disproportionately by the core room inventory, because that is where the fixed costs at £41.2 m are being fragmented. Which is why rationalisation often increases GOP even when the removed lines were nominally contributing.

The analysis worth doing ranks offerings by contribution against the fixed costs they consume, then asks which of the tail exists for a reason — a strategic channel or guest segment — and which exists because nobody has looked.

How to tell this is actually your problem

These three together are the signature. One on its own usually points somewhere else.

✓ A minority of packages produces the large majority of revenue
✓ Nothing has been discontinued in several years
✓ Fixed costs rising faster than occupancy

The move that usually makes it worse. Cutting the tail by revenue rank alone, which removes packages that were cheap to carry and keeps ones that quietly consume the constraint on GOP.

Who this is for — and who it is not

It is for you if you run or finance an independent hotel and a minority of lines produces the large majority of revenue. It is the situation where the numbers are available but nobody has put them in an order that produces a decision.

It is not for you if Percision is the wrong tool if you already know the answer and only need execution capacity, or if the business is pre-revenue — then the constraint is evidence about the market, not analysis of your own figures. Percision is not a lawyer, tax advisor, auditor, licensed appraiser, clinical or regulatory filer, or an AI implementation shop. It does not do HR casework, creative-only brand work, or impersonate a named consulting firm. It is a strategy analysis engine — not a template library. Also wrong if you need facilitation, politics, or someone to sit with a lender or buyer. Those are human jobs.

Percision is not a lawyer, tax advisor, auditor, licensed appraiser, clinical or regulatory filer, or an AI implementation shop. It does not do HR casework, creative-only brand work, or impersonate a named consulting firm. It is a strategy analysis engine — not a template library.

What this looks like when the analysis is actually run

Below is an excerpt from a real run of this analysis on an independent hotel. It is a sample profile rather than a customer, and it is unedited engine output — this is the format you get, on your own numbers.

The subject is Aldermere Hospitality Group, a sample company profile used for testing rather than a customer — £72.4 m total revenue from 1,980 rooms.

Excerpt from a real Percision run · Customer Value Architecture · sample company profile

The move. Leverage existing central overhead and owned-asset scale to lock in 6–9 % supplier discounts and energy-price certainty, cutting the fixed-cost ratio from 57 % to 54 % within 18 months.

What the run committed to
Investment required£180–220 k annual opex (two FTE analysts) plus £50 k one-time hedge setup and legal fees; funded from existing £2.3 m free cash flow.
Expected returnPayback within 4–6 months; 5.0–6.4× annual cash-on-cash return once fully ramped (conservative base case).
Revenue, year 1Cost reduction £0.7–0.9 m (phased implementation from Q2 2027); net GOP uplift £0.5–0.7 m after opex
Revenue, year 2Full run-rate savings £1.1–1.4 m; GOP margin 27–28 %
Revenue, year 3Margin sustained at 27–28 %; incremental £0.4–0.6 m cash available for capex or debt reduction
Exit criteriaStrategy should be reversed if, within 12 months of launch, (a) realised energy-cost inflation exceeds 10 % versus market or (b) supplier framework discounts fall below 4 % on an annualised basis, OR if cumulative programme opex exceeds £400 k without achieving at least £600 k in verified annual.

This is one move out of a full analysis. Read a complete report — every page, no email required.

What the engine does with this question

This question routes to Matrix Strategy, one of 29 engagements the platform runs. For independent hotels it works through £124.75, 67.8 %, 25.0 % and £18.1 m, then produces the sequence rather than a list of options — which move first, what it funds, and the observation that would say the sequence is wrong.

You watch the analysis get built before paying anything. Read a complete report here if you would rather see the depth first.

Questions people ask about this

How do I decide what to discontinue?

Contribution per unit of the binding constraint, then a check on strategic dependencies. Revenue rank alone gets this wrong in both directions.

Will customers leave if I discontinue products?

Some will, and the analysis should price that before the decision rather than after. Usually the revenue at risk is smaller than the complexity cost being removed, but it should be a finding rather than an assumption.

How much complexity cost is normal?

It is rarely tracked, which is why it grows. A workable proxy is the trend in operating cost per unit of volume; when that rises while volume rises, complexity is the usual explanation.

Is this different in hotels & hospitality than in other industries?

Materially, yes. £11.4 m capex need against £2.3 m annual free cash flow with fixed costs at £41.2 m — which changes both the diagnosis and the order of the fixes. The metrics that decide it here are £124.75, 67.8 %, 25.0 %, and an answer built on industry-general benchmarks will usually point at the wrong one first.

What data do I need before this analysis is worth running for an independent hotel?

Less than most people expect. Your last twelve months of revenue and cost split the way you already split it, plus whatever you hold on £124.75 and 67.8 %. The analysis is explicit about what it is assuming where your data stops, which is more useful than waiting for numbers you may never have.

When is Percision the wrong tool?

Percision is the wrong tool if you already know the answer and only need execution capacity, or if the business is pre-revenue — then the constraint is evidence about the market, not analysis of your own figures. Percision is not a lawyer, tax advisor, auditor, licensed appraiser, clinical or regulatory filer, or an AI implementation shop. It does not do HR casework, creative-only brand work, or impersonate a named consulting firm. It is a strategy analysis engine — not a template library. Also wrong if you need facilitation, politics, or someone to sit with a lender or buyer. Those are human jobs.

Does Percision replace a lawyer, tax advisor, auditor, or AI implementation team?

Percision is not a lawyer, tax advisor, auditor, licensed appraiser, clinical or regulatory filer, or an AI implementation shop. It does not do HR casework, creative-only brand work, or impersonate a named consulting firm. It is a strategy analysis engine — not a template library.

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