Holiday Inn 2015 Annual Report Download - page 19

Our Winning Ways
The set of behaviours that define how we
interact with our guests and colleagues
Work better
together
Celebrate
difference
Show
we care
Aim
higher
Do the
right thing
D
D
D
is
c
c
ipli
n
n
ed
E
E
x
x
ec
u
u
tio
n
n
n
We recognise that successful delivery of our strategy
for high-quality growth requires Disciplined Execution.
We prioritise investment in our technology platforms and
our people, as well as delivering operational efficiencies.
Scale and efficiency of operations
Driving efficient operational processes
and managing our costs allows us to
contribute to hotel performance through
efficient working practices, tools and
systems. It also helps us strengthen our
revenue delivery systems – for example,
our reservations website and offices – which
means an increase in System contribution
to hotel revenue, supporting our owner
proposition and maximising our investment
in building preferred brands. Careful cost
management, leveraging our scale and
focusing on productivity improvements also
allow us to drive continued improvement
in our margin.
To maximise the scale and efficiency of our
operations, we:
• focus investment on initiatives which
support strategic priorities – for example,
in 2015 we launched Procure to Pay,
a comprehensive and fully automated
online procurement system, allowing
us to monitor and control spend, and use
our scale to deliver buying advantage;
• have made further improvements to our
‘Hotel Ready’ processes, to ensure that
General Managers and other colleagues
in our hotels are focused on embedding
the most critical initiatives, such as our
‘IHG Frontline’ training platform and
enhancements to IHG Rewards Club,
in our 5,032 hotels; and
• use analytics and data to help enhance
our human resources processes – for
example, in 2015 we launched an analytics
dashboard for all line managers, providing
greater insight into people data, helping
our people make faster and smarter
decisions in relation to recruitment,
diversity, career progression and
performance management.
Investment in developing strong
technology platforms
Technology is playing an increasingly
important role in shaping the travel industry
and underpins everything that we do for
guests, owners and colleagues around
the world. We believe that keeping abreast
of trends as they evolve and investing in
technology systems will assist us in building
brand preference, strengthening our loyalty
programme and delivering compelling and
engaging digital content across the ‘Guest
Journey’, enabling us to build lifetime
relationships with our guests.
To deliver the highest-quality digital
content for our guests, we are ensuring that
we have the right technology foundations
and infrastructure in place. In 2015, we:
• announced in April the second phase
of our strategic relationship with Amadeus
to develop a next-generation Guest
Reservation System;
• deployed an enhanced customer
relationship management system in hotels;
• continued to standardise on property
hardware for all IHG hotels in the US,
providing a consistent platform that allows
us to develop solutions such as mobile
check-in and check-out; and
• piloted new connectivity infrastructure,
such as IHG Connect, an enhanced Wi-Fi
solution for our hotels.
Improving our technology infrastructure
gives us the foundation to transform the
guest experience and make it more
interactive through digital content.
In 2015, we:
• introduced compelling digital content
across the ‘Guest Journey’, allowing
users to explore destinations and create
personalised travel guides for more than
50 locations;
• made numerous improvements to our
award-winning mobile app, with downloads
of the app growing by 27 per cent, thereby
increasing mobile bookings by 40 per cent
to over $1.2 billion;
• launched an Apple Watch version
of our highly-rated IHG Translator app;
• rolled out single-login guest Wi-Fi for IHG
Rewards Club members, allowing guests
to seamlessly access hotel internet with
their IHG Rewards Club profile; and
• piloted the ‘Guest Request’ tool in the US,
giving our guests the ability to make
in-hotel requests through the IHG mobile
app, which has driven a five percentage
point increase in guest satisfaction.
Investment in developing great talent
Our people are fundamental to achieving
our ambition – they bring our brands to life
on a daily basis, delivering on each individual
brand promise to enhance the guest
experience. They are also, therefore,
a critical part of our success. Accordingly,
we recognise the importance of attracting,
retaining and developing the very best talent
in the industry. To achieve this, our people
strategy focuses on a number of key areas.
1. Attracting and retaining the best talent
Building a strong employer brand assists us
in attracting the best possible talent to meet
our strategic objectives. We ask our people
to live our Winning Ways (set out below) and
act in a responsible way (see page 24 for how
acting responsibly is part of our culture). In
turn, we offer our people our ‘Room to be
yourself’ commitment, which is brought
to life by four promises.
Room to have a great start
We know how important it is to make sure
that all our colleagues have a great start
to their career with IHG. We ensure that all
colleagues have access to the tools and
information they need to hit the ground
running, and be productive and integrated
into their role as quickly as possible.
17
IHG Annual Report and Form 20-F 2015
STRATEGIC REPORT GOVERNANCE GROUP FINANCIAL STATEMENTS ADDITIONAL INFORMATIONPARENT COMPANY FINANCIAL STATEMENTS