Transforming a leading hospitality group’s corporate business

1 min read

Contemporary hotel lobby with modern lounge seating and indoor greenery.

One of the Nordic region’s leading hospitality groups faced growing complexity across markets, brands and legacy organizations, alongside increasing price pressure from competing booking channels. We developed a three-year commercial transformation roadmap and delivered Phase 1, unlocking SEK 25M in cost savings and 10% year-on-year growth in corporate room-night bookings within three months.

Outcome 1: Saved SEK 25M throughout the three-month project
Outcome 2: Grew corporate room-night bookings by 6% YoY
Outcome 3: Reduced contracting time by 40%

The challenge

The leading Nordics hospitality group operates more hotels than any other in the region. Following a period of rapid growth through acquisitions under its previous private equity owner, the business faced increasing complexity across markets, brands and legacy organizations.

At the same time, the broader travel industry was evolving – with corporate clients, travel management companies and online booking tools creating greater price pressure and channel competition. The availability of cheaper, more accessible booking alternatives made it urgent for the company to re-evaluate its commercial and go-to-market model.

Our client operated in a decentralized way, with fragmented processes, organizational structures, performance management and product offerings across markets. This created costly inefficiencies and prevented the business from presenting a consistent face to multinational customers.

The lack of standardized commercial processes also made it virtually impossible to progress on digitalization and automation. Individual subsidiaries lacked the capability, while the group was unwilling to support fragmented systems. This was particularly critical for engaging more efficiently with small accounts – which, despite making up 75% of the client base, were often barely profitable.

The approach

Together with the executive team and commercial leadership, we developed a three-year commercial transformation roadmap. All aspects of the commercial operating model and offering were reviewed, and we helped the client prioritize and sequence initiatives into phases – balancing immediate impact to build momentum with space for longer-term structural change.

In Phase 1, we focused on six markets: standardizing commercial operations to enable transparent, effective management; streamlining and automating processes such as sales, pricing and contracting to increase efficiency and unlock cost savings; and professionalizing the commercial approach to stay competitive in an increasingly challenging market.

The impact

Phase 1 unlocked SEK 25M in cost savings within just a few months, alongside a 40% reduction in contracting time and 10% year-on-year growth in corporate room-night bookings.

The speed and scale of impact also helped overcome the organizational inertia that had built up over years of legacy ways of working. The project became one of the most visible successes of the company’s wider strategy to operate as a single, unified business across multiple markets and legacy organizations.

Customer quote

"Their dedication, analytical depth and collaborative mindset truly stood out throughout the process. They brought structure and clarity to a highly complex topic and helped lay a strong foundation for how we approach pricing going forward. We highly appreciate their consistent delivery of high-quality work and look forward to continuing the collaboration." — Head of Strategic Pricing