Knowland is a web-based software company that provides

business development Business development entails tasks and processes to develop and implement growth opportunities within and between business organizations. It is a subset of the fields of business, commerce and organizational theory. Business development is the cre ...

products and services to the

hospitality industry The hospitality industry is a broad category of fields within the service industry that includes lodging, food and beverage services, event planning, theme parks, travel agency, tourism, hotels, restaurants, nightclubs, and bars. Sector ...

History

Knowland traces its roots back to a small

software engineering Software engineering is a branch of both computer science and engineering focused on designing, developing, testing, and maintaining Application software, software applications. It involves applying engineering design process, engineering principl ...

firm. This firm spent months developing an entirely new kind of hotel readerboard service, heavily reliant on

web technology The World Wide Web (WWW or simply the Web) is an information system that enables content sharing over the Internet through user-friendly ways meant to appeal to users beyond IT specialists and hobbyists. It allows documents and other web ...

, for a client in the industry. When the client backed out, Knowland's decided to start their own hospitality

field research Field research, field studies, or fieldwork is the collection of raw data outside a laboratory, library, or workplace setting. The approaches and methods used in field research vary across disciplines. For example, biologists who conduct fi ...

service, and by the fall of 2004, an online readerboard service was launched. Knowland signed its first client, the

Holiday Inn Holiday Inn by IHG is a chain of hotels based in Atlanta, Georgia and a brand of IHG Hotels & Resorts. The chain was founded in 1952 by Kemmons Wilson (1913–2003), who opened the first location in Memphis, Tennessee. The chain was a division ...

in Arlington, Va., in September 2004."Knowland Group became one of the fastest-growing companies by taking photos of signs."
''

The Washington Post ''The Washington Post'', locally known as ''The'' ''Post'' and, informally, ''WaPo'' or ''WP'', is an American daily newspaper published in Washington, D.C., the national capital. It is the most widely circulated newspaper in the Washington m ...

''. Retrieved 2011-05-11. During 2005, the company expanded to over 20 markets, serving a diverse clientele of single and multi-property clients. By the end of 2006, Knowland had over 400 clients in 60 markets and had tracked more than 200,000 events. In 2007, Knowland introduced Insight, a tool that generates targeted

sales lead In marketing, lead generation () is the process of creating consumer interest or inquiry into the products or services of a business. A lead is the contact information and, in some cases, demographic information of a customer who is intereste ...

s with details on each prospect's event booking history. The company also activated a 7,000 square foot

call center A call centre (English in the Commonwealth of Nations, Commonwealth spelling) or call center (American English, American spelling; American and British English spelling differences#-re, -er, see spelling differences) is a managed capability th ...

. The Event Booking Center employs research and sales support professionals who specialize in

cold calling Cold calling is the solicitation of business from potential customers who have had no prior contact with the salesperson conducting the call. It is an attempt to convince potential customers to purchase the salesperson's product or service. Gene ...

and can become an extension of hotel clients' sales staff. Knowland launched Target Net, a meetings management and sales force

automation Automation describes a wide range of technologies that reduce human intervention in processes, mainly by predetermining decision criteria, subprocess relationships, and related actions, as well as embodying those predeterminations in machine ...

platform, in 2010. In addition to managing events from start to finish, Target Net also generated sales leads and opportunities. This product was discontinued in 2015. Today Knowland is a provider of intuitive business intelligence products for the hospitality industry and has more than 3,000 client

hotel A hotel is an establishment that provides paid lodging on a short-term basis. Facilities provided inside a hotel room may range from a modest-quality mattress in a small room to large suites with bigger, higher-quality beds, a dresser, a re ...

s and 50,000 users globally.

Products

Target Net, Insight, and Readers are the

cloud-based Cloud computing is "a paradigm for enabling network access to a scalable and elastic pool of shareable physical or virtual resources with self-service provisioning and administration on-demand," according to International Organization for ...

products offered by Knowland. These products accessible from a computer connected to the

Internet The Internet (or internet) is the Global network, global system of interconnected computer networks that uses the Internet protocol suite (TCP/IP) to communicate between networks and devices. It is a internetworking, network of networks ...

Target Net

Target Net is a salesforce automation and meetings management tool that allows

hoteliers A hotel manager, hotelier, or lodging manager is a person who manages the operation of a hotel, motel, resort, or other lodging-related establishment. Management of a hotel operation includes, but is not limited to: management of hotel staff, b ...

to manage their

sales funnel Sales process engineering is the systematic design of sales processes done in order to make sales more effective and efficient.. It can be applied in functions including sales, marketing, and customer service. History As early as 1900–1915, ...

. Knowland no longer sells Target Net product, but continues to offer support for clients already using it.

Insight

Insight is a

search engine A search engine is a software system that provides hyperlinks to web pages, and other relevant information on World Wide Web, the Web in response to a user's web query, query. The user enters a query in a web browser or a mobile app, and the sea ...

and sales lead-generation tool that gives hotel sales teams access to a database of groups that have held meetings at hotels and

conference center A convention center (American English; or conference centre in British English) is a large building that is designed to hold a convention, where individuals and groups gather to promote and share common interests. Convention centers typica ...

s. In 2014, Knowland released Insight's 3.0 update. Insight 3.0 included new features such as anonymous reviews of groups and their events, the ability to follow groups, properties, and people, and more detailed group profiles. After receiving many unfavorable reviews from clients regarding the changes to Insight for the 3.0 release, Knowland launched Insight 3.1 the following year (2015). Insight 3.1 was designed almost entirely around user feedback.

Readers

Readers is an online readerboard service that offers daily reporting and data on groups that hold meetings and events at hotels' competitor properties. Readers combines an online tool with Knowland's version of a traditional readerboard report, in addition to telephone-verified contact information. Each week, approximately 400 field researchers take digital photos of hotel readerboards. Those photos are uploaded each night to the Knowland database and the data made available online to clients the next morning. New groups are constantly being added to the

database In computing, a database is an organized collection of data or a type of data store based on the use of a database management system (DBMS), the software that interacts with end users, applications, and the database itself to capture and a ...

and detailed profiles are created and updated for each group. In April 2014, Knowland released a new data management process to help maintain the accuracy and freshness of the information provided.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Knowland Group Cloud applications Software companies of the United States Hospitality industry Travel technology