Agility is at the heart of transformation at AccorHotels, says CDO Maud Bailly
The hotel giant is revamping its IT systems as it acquires multiple new brands
Maud Bailly says of her role, "I succeed if I disappear"
A certain amount of culture change is an unavoidable result of any business transformation, especially if that means moving from legacy waterfall style to a more modern agile format.
Maud Bailly, CDO of AccorHotels, has run into this as she has pioneered the group's transformation to a connected, personalised business.
Since joining the company last year, Bailly has been working on a new digital strategy called Impact, which she describes as "a revamp of our IT architecture to create an extra layer allowing us to be more agile in the integration of all our new acquisitions."
Accor is building Impact on three pillars: "hotel and guest", "conquering new markets" and "data and IT." At a time when the firm is making so many acquisitions - recently expanding from 12 to 26 brands - being able to bring many disparate IT systems together under one roof is vital.
A monolithic architecture is clearly unsuitable for applications like this, so Accor is transforming its IT systems in an effort to be more responsive.
"What I've been doing to support Impact is: one, reducing the layers of my organisation; two, creating feature teams, where instead of having eight experts working one after another on a product, you put them all together and they work on the delivery of the product together; and three, I created a product department…[that] is educated to the fluidity and simplicity of all our front office interface."
New staff and a new culture go hand-in-hand with a change of this magnitude, and Bailly acknowledges that the process has had its rough patches:
"It's hard; sometimes people are not used to this new way of working, and it's painful to change; people are usually averse to change… A third will be completely enthusiastic; another third will be sceptical but following you, and you just have to convince them. The last third will be reluctant - they don't want to change."
Accor is focusing on educating its staff about the value that it will unlock through the process, and proving to them that it is right to change. Bailly acknowledges that the entire transformation of breaking down silos and setting up new governance will take "many years", but is committed to seeing it through.
"If my strategy stays at a headquarter level, in a top-down dynamic in France, it's useless. I succeed if I disappear - or I succeed if I'm fully appropriated by operational leaders understanding that I'm at the service of the business."
"I succeed if I disappear" is a bit snappier, of course.
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