Creating best-in-class experience for franchisee owners and customers

IHG opens new hotels every day, and any improvement in the way processes are understood can save time and money. XPLANE and IHG have teamed up to effectively use visual collaboration and tools to drive transformational change through the organization.

Challenge | An international owner and operator of hotels with over 3,700 properties in 100 countries, IHG’s portfolio of brands includes well-known names like Crowne Plaza® and Holiday Inn Express®. While opening new hotels is a common practice for IHG, the company needed a program to uphold its hotel opening mission of delivering what hotel owners need, when they need it. Further, IHG needed a program that supported its strategic goal of adding up to 60,000 net hotel rooms to its global portfolio, and was flexible enough to evolve with new hotel innovation. Without an organized approach, IHG struggled with forecasting openings, which in turn, greatly impacted its ability to predict profit and revenues. In 2007, IHG developed the first phase of project management materials for the Holiday Inn Express brand. The materials consisted of a comprehensive eight-phased approach to hotel openings documented in over 140 Visio diagrams: Event sequencing, meetings and issues for resolution. However, the phases’ complex sub-processes often led to misinterpretation, causing opening inconsistencies and brand confusion among consumers. Materials were not developed for any of the other brands and IHG knew it needed to take a different approach.

Action | IHG worked with XPLANE to develop a graphic that defined the vision for the best-in-class owner experience. XPLANE created a map that depicted the journey of a new owner from selecting the IHG brand to an open and operating hotel. The teams then developed two core initiatives to enable the organization to reach the Best in Class Owner Experience: OnBoard™ and Hotel 360. OnBoard is the branded hotel opening process that IHG and XPLANE developed to increase the speed and quality of hotel openings, and Hotel 360 is a technology solution to implement common platforms that will consolidate and share data across the organization.

For OnBoard, XPLANE was asked to create visually appealing, multi-dimensional instruction documents that would remove all of the “guess work,” in turn saving hotel owners both time and money, and delivering on brand promises to consumers. XPLANE interviewed IHG franchise services team members to understand the sequencing of steps involved in the opening process. XPLANE first created an overview map to illustrate the high-level eight-phased approach. Then, by transforming over 140 Visio diagrams XPLANE created a series of visually rich and easy-to-follow drill-down maps that engaged participants and enhanced their understanding. Instructional design kits were created for new hotel owners that contain all the materials needed to launch a hotel, including posters, phase booklets, process maps, milestone descriptions and digital documents in a convenient carrying case. The kits are customized by IHG brand to reflect the appropriate imagery and any specific milestones. In total, XPLANE developed launch kits, sales presentations, training exercises and process maps to support the OnBoard program.

For Hotel 360, XPLANE developed materials to articulate the original vision for the project and juxtapose it with the Current State. The story was used to get Board approval for the overall program and then shared with the broader organization to secure buy-in and support for the implementation. XPLANE created vision maps, roadmaps, executive talking points, interface designs and facilitated regional requirement review.

Materials were developed both in print and online form, allowing for easy navigation with hyperlinks and a newly-created resource library. Success of the new materials was being based around: manager satisfaction, simplifying managers’ jobs, increased survey scores about prepared materials, ability to easily update and keep current, saved printing and packaging costs through cost-effective design and innovation, ability to function as a sales tool.

Results | In less than two years, more than 1,400 hotels are being opened using the OnBoard™ program. Revenue and bookings are both up over 50 percent on opening day. It was estimated that IHG would save $133,000 in shipping and printing costs with the new kits versus the original project management materials that were developed.

The Quick Start guide and associated phase booklets allow key decision makers to be better equipped to address the challenges and questions that arise when opening a new hotel, in turn eliminating unnecessary delays and confusion.