Case 1: Hospitality Acquisition
Our Integration360°© methodology coupled with our Transformation-from-Within© approach helped a top-5 hotel chain successfully integrate a lifestyle-brand acquisition while protecting its unique hotel guest culture
Situation
The boutique properties needed to integrate and scale globally—without losing the individuality and character that made them so special.
A fortune-ranked global hospitality conglomerate acquired a smaller, but very highly regarded boutique brand. With a desire to diversify their own offerings to guests, they needed the boutique properties to retain their uniqueness, while still integrating in a way that allowed them to scale, leveraging the resources and corporate infrastructure of the new parent company.
Challenge
The work required a significant—yet delicately handled—cultural shift and a new approach that could overcome any negative sentiment and bring progress and motivation back to both organizations.
The acquiring chain was significantly larger than the acquired boutique and was running at a very different cadence of acquisitions and new hotel openings. Furthermore, the boutique brand’s value was tied to the uniqueness of its properties and overall guest experience, which could be threatened by integration into a large chain enterprise. The organization originally retained a big five consulting firm to help drive the transformation, but the results were poor, and the firm created a healthy degree of scepticism within the teams.
Action
Both companies quickly determined that rectifying the situation would require an approach that was “more bespoke than formulaic”
Both companies quickly determined that rectifying the situation would require an approach that was “more bespoke than formulaic”, so Amira & Co. were selected to lead the efforts to turnaround the integration efforts. We immediately dove into the business with very hands-on operational tactics. Using our Integration360°© methodology, we created multiple workstreams and identified more than 50 internal talents across both companies to participate in and lead the workstreams. Amira played the role of independent objective mediator and quickly established trust with both parties, mitigating any negative effects created by the initial consulting firm’s engagement. This allowed us to build a bridge that enabled both parties to communicate and collaborate more effectively. It also required a delicate balance of knowing when and how to push the acquiring company’s corporate approach, when and how to protect the boutique’s unique approach, and when an entirely new path forward was required.
Result
While retaining their unique culture and the aesthetic that made them successful, the companies are now fully integrated and working in unison to execute their growth plans—on schedule, under budget and with a high rate of talent retention.
The parent company is reaping the benefits of reaching its goals: they created a valuable brand extension and the new boutique group benefited from the capabilities and infrastructure of the larger organization to accelerate their growth and expand their brand internationally.
While retaining the property culture, talent, and aesthetic that made them distinct and successful, the acquired company is now fully integrated within the acquiring corporation and are working in unison to develop and execute plans for future growth. This was achieved on schedule, under budget and with high rate of retention of desired talent.
Based on the success of our integration support, a year later, the client retained us again to help the leadership team define their five-year strategy for global expansion.