Enabling increased growth with platform transformation

Challenge

With clear ambitions for domestic and international growth, a premier bed and breakfast inn recognised that its legacy technology was a barrier.

Their 40-year-old booking platform, handling over 1 billion in revenue a year, had become a critical risk—outdated and reliant on a dwindling pool of experts.Yet the company had tried this transformation before—and failed. This time, success relied on finding the right partner to deliver a seamless, large-scale transformation with minimal disruption to millions of customers.

Approach

• Cognitive Strategists was chosen as the trusted transformation partner for the project:

• Help the client to retire the 40-year-old system that was deeply embedded.

• Roll out a new, off-the-shelf system requiring a complete website rebuild for 50 hotels across India

• Manage the migration and change management of transferring all 50 hotels from the old platform to the new.

• Integrate with 60 other systems (finance, HR, security, reporting, etc.).

• Drive the Project Management Office (PMO), leading the development and delivery of training 8,000 employees on the new platform.

• Decommission the old platform, considering GDPR and data confidentiality.

• Collaborating with external partners and BB company to co-create the vision, we developed a business- and customer-centric governance and delivery approach, embedding functional SMEs at every step.

• The multi-transformation project had over 550 requirements – impacting 20 systems, 40 integrations, 15000 employees and over 100 processes.

Key Results

In just 18 months, Cognitive Strategists supported the client's continued growth and operation.

Revolutionised the ageing end-to-end technology stack. Without this, the business would no longer exist—the product was over 40 years old and written in a coding language known only to 2 remaining people in the organisation.

Improved business processes and automation with a new intuitive system. Huge commercial potential was unlocked through a modern website design allowing for a/b testing, better tracking, basket functionality and upsell opportunities.

Foundations are set for future changes and initiatives. This initiative is regarded as the single best example of a successful business transformation program.

The governance, approach and structures are now embedded in all future change programs.

Wider Impact

Client's technology transformation improved all aspects of the customer journey, from booking to post-stay, increasing direct bookings and new monetization opportunities.

Our partnership with this client supported the successful implementation of their technology stack, improving long-term scalability, resilience and flexibility of the business.