The client

The Europe/Middle East/Africa finance function of a global hotel company.

What did Hotel Solutions Partnership achieve for the client?

Value from the consulting assignment came in two ways – one was in the enhanced capabilities of the change team (many of whom went on to be leaders in their own right) and the other was in the direct value brought by the realisation of some of the gains from the merger.

Background

The client company had just acquired another leading global brand. The client’s representative, VP finance of the EMEA organisation, was charged with integrating the two finance functions – at the hotels and in corporate offices – to extract the synergy gains that had formed part of the business case for the acquisition. The processes, organisations and technologies adopted by the two companies were very different; as a result the culture of the two organisations was very different.

The project leader, VP finance of EMEA for the enlarged business, had identified a change team – eight individuals from the two companies – to assist him identify and drive the change in process, organisation and technology.

Consultants: Rosemary Jackson

Project objective

To work with and mentor the VP finance of the new enlarged company to enable him to start the process of change; to mentor the change team to better enable them address the human side of change; to mentor the VP finance to help him prioritise and with whom to plan the human side of the changes needed to be delivered; to help the small change team to work effectively and efficiently across borders and time zones and cultures in their roles as catalysts for the change processes; to contribute to the cultural issues of change being implemented from Helsinki to Cape Town and from Madeira to Dubai; to work at the business unit level (in our case, the hotel) as easily and as effectively as at the corporate level; to bring experiences from other successful merger and acquisition work.

Project scope

The hotel and corporate people and organisations associated with 400 owned, leased, managed and franchised hotels in Europe, Middle East and Africa.

Methodology

Rosemary took each member of the change team individually through a Myers Briggs evaluation, supported a 360-degree assessment of each of the team (Benchmarks), and assessed high-performance patterns. Through these inputs, an open dialogue was developed through which the leader and the team fine-tuned the way the change team worked and led the change process. Two major meetings were facilitated for the international finance team, one in Brussels and one in Dubai, to which all the finance managers from the hotels and the regional offices came to learn about the background of the two companies and what the new company hoped to achieve. Several other smaller meetings were facilitated, including one each in Luxembourg and Vienna.