The client’s perspective
Hotel Valuation Services (HVS) is a family business that has grown tremendously since its beginnings in the 1960s. Since launching the business primarily as a valuation firm, it has evolved into a global full-service consulting firm providing a range of services to the hospitality industry and related value-chain players.
The HVS CEO and key members of the management team saw significant opportunities to transform operations and set out eight new strategic objectives to guide the organization’s future. They also saw an opportunity to transform HVS’ current decentralized global operating model into a cohesive organizational structure that would help achieve its ambitious goals. Management wanted to channel HVS’s entrepreneurial, self-starter mentality into a new operating model that would enhance collaboration, transparency, consistency, and growth across all its global service lines while still reflecting their regional business cultures.
A new view
Eagle Hill hit the ground running, working with the President and his key direct reports for a detailed understanding of the organization’s current state. Over six weeks, our team researched best practices and interviewed 24 global partners on every aspect of the business. We learned and documented inner workings, organizational DNA, pain points, and aspirations.
This helped us create and present detailed organizational structures, operating policies, definitions, and implementation considerations for three potential organizational design models: Client-Centric, Service-Centric, and Geography-Centric.
HVS selected the Client-Centric design, which grouped clients in the same industry together independently of geography. HVS recognized this model would involve the most organizational change, but also felt it would deliver improved customer experiences, longer-term customer relationships and more opportunities to cross-sell services.
The next phase of our work included identifying gaps, further detailing and testing the design, and developing an implementation plan. We led working-groups to identify operational scenarios that might impact a successful transition—for example, what might happen under the new model if a consultant did not have expertise in a service that he or she was trying to sell? Through close collaboration with the client, we built out specific processes at a more granular level—and built conviction within HVS that the new model would work.
Unconventional consulting—and breakthrough results
To truly understand HVS’s needs and perspectives within each unique business unit, we worked closely with HVS stakeholders across four continents, building rapport and trust by always recognizing that they know their business best. Because of this, the design process was a true collaboration and led to a strategic roadmap for implementing the new global organizational design.
