CONFESSIONS OF A GLOBAL GYPSY

Dr. Chandana (Chandi) Jayawardena DPhil

President – Chandi J. Associates Inc. Consulting, Canada
Founder & Administrator – Global Hospitality Forum
chandij@sympatico.ca

During my three years as the Director of Food & Beverage at the 500-room five-star hotel – Le Galadari Meridien in Colombo, I boldly tried out some “unorthodox” business tactics. I was learning, experimenting and fine-tuning a few concepts which helped me mid-career, especially after a couple of years when I became an international hotel General Manager. A few of these “unorthodox” methods failed or were rejected as unethical, but most worked well in improving our revenues, profits and team spirit. Here are a few examples:

BANQUET SPY

In late 1980s, seven, international branded hotels in Colombo (Le Meridien, Hilton, InterContinential, Ramada Renaissance, Holiday Inn, Oberoi and Taj) and three other properties with large banqueting facilities (Galle Face Hotel, Mount Lavinia Hotel and BMICH), competed for wedding business. They also competed for social, entertainment and corporate event business. On a normal day these ten properties hosted over 70 events and weddings.

With the opening of the Colombo Hilton in 1988, Le Galadari Meridien’s position as the leader in banquet business in Colombo was challenged. The culture in Colombo was to try the latest five-star hotel for up-market events. A key member of my management team – the Banquet Manager led the operational aspects of that department and sales related to the wedding business. A colleague of mine of the seven-member executive committee of the hotel, the Director of Sales led the hotels’ sales team to increase corporate banquet sales. We worked closely to ensure success, for the mutual benefit of our two divisions.

For success in the wedding business, the key was having the ‘personal touch’ with each wedding irrespective of the size of the reception. To handle four weddings a day was normal for our banquet staff, but it was often the most important day of the life of every bride, as well as for the groom and their families. We had to spend time with them, nurture relationships and look after details with empathy. We were able to achieve that to a great extent.

When it came to corporate events, we increased our attention to detail, public relations and customer service, but that was not enough. I told the key members of the banquet team and the sales team, that we needed to ‘think outside the box’ to continue our success in corporate banquet business. I was looking for new opportunities to do that.

Like all other major competitors in banquet business, Le Galadari Meridien had a large pool of casual banquet waiters, who were scheduled to work on a weekly basis, depending on the bookings. Having worked as a casual banquet waiter in top five five-star hotels in London just four years prior to that time, I appreciated that the training of all casual banquet waiters was essential. The Director of Human Resources, Training Manager, Banquet Manager and I attended the final selection interviews of all casual banquet waiters. After the selection, we trained them well and eventually hired the better ones to the permanent cadre.

One day, at an interview, I was impressed with an applicant for a casual banquet waiter position. This young man had only one-year part-time banqueting experience in a smaller five-star hotel. He was well groomed, spoke good English and did well at the interview. He also told the interview panel that as he was the proud owner of a second-hand motor cycle (which was a luxury for a young Lankan of 20 at then). Therefore, he would be able to come to work quickly from his home even during the hectic rush hour traffic. After hiring him, I noticed that this young man had a photographic memory. I asked him to meet me for a one-on-one meeting in my office.

I always believed in competitive intelligence. I was fascinated when reading a couple of books on how Japanese firms had forward-looking practices and produced knowledge about the competitive environment in order to improve organizational performance. It involves the systematic collection and analysis of information from multiple sources. In competition in any business, war or sport, it is essential to be engaged in competitive intelligence.

As done at Le Meridien, it was the normal practice at that time, for our nine competitors in the banquet business in Colombo, to display a prominent sign board listing details of each banquet event held on that day, in the lobby. The purpose of this sign board was to direct customers to different ballrooms and meeting rooms. That sign board was changed every night with details such as the host, the type of event, venue and time of each banquet booking for the next day.

When the newly recruited, part-time banquet waiter came to my office for our one-on-one meeting, he was nervous. I slowly explained my shrewd plan to him and he understood why I wanted him to visit each of the nine competitors every morning to gather information of all corporate and social events held that day. I arranged his overtime payment for four hours a day for that task, and also reimbursed the cost of gas for his motor cycle. When he returned, he worked serving at banquets for four hours a day. No one else knew about my private deal with him. It was a top-secret mission and he was my “spy”!

He dressed well for this work and spent maximum fifteen at each stop. He followed the same routine per competitor every morning – starting with a quick glance at the banquet sign board. Then he would lock himself in a public toilet in the lobby and record all of the details of each banquet on a small note pad. I cannot mention his name, as today he is a leading hotelier in Sri Lanka.

Around 12 noon every weekday, I would analyse the data collected by him. Through this initiative I had a very good understanding of the previous corporate banquet clients of our hotel now using competitor facilities, as well as new businesses and opportunities. I used this information to suggest to the sales team, whom to target in their sales calls and what to offer to increase our business. It worked well.

INTERNAL SALES

We mastered our external sales well for room and restaurant business, food festivals and stage shows that my team produced. Our promotional mix included regular sales calls, creative media advertisements, direct mail, innovative public relations and special sales promotions. In addition, I commenced focusing on our internal sales promotions by using lobby and elevator posters, food and wine displays as well as different gimmicks.

One day, I decided to introduce a competition to all service staff working in the ten food and beverage outlets at the hotel. The competition was aimed at increasing food sales as well as beverage sales. When I brain stormed with the Maître d’hôtel (restaurant managers), the team members managing the more expensive outlets with higher average checks were happy. A a few others felt that it would not be a fair competition, if I decided on the winners based on total sales volume.

At that point, I explained the criteria for the competition – teams were competing and not individual employees. Also, that the winners would be based on the greatest percentage improvement of average checks over the previous year, and not the total volume of revenue made. All agreed, and the competitive spirit we created exceeded all my targets and expectations.

I arranged for the Food and Beverage Analyst and the Food & Beverage Controller to provide a weekly leader analysis of the competition, during each weekly food and beverage team meetings. With the training department, I arranged special training on ‘up-selling’ food and beverage products. This initiative enhanced not only the revenue and profits, but also the team spirit. That year we increased average checks by 15%!

COMMUNICATION FLOW

Often in large units/hotels with 600/700 or more employees in several divisions and departments, the communication flow tends to slow down and at times, gets ‘lost in translation’. I always felt that once decisions were made by the executive committee and they identified who should be informed, the communication flow must be lightning fast and effective. The divisional heads should develop practical processes to ensure that condensed and interesting versions of the key messaging, flow seamlessly. Everything depended on the accuracy and the speed of information flow.

At Le Meridien the seven members of the executive committee (General Manager, Director of Rooms Division, Director of Food & Beverage, Financial Controller, Director of Human Resources, Director of Sales and Director of Engineering) had their weekly meeting every Tuesday at 4:00 pm. I did not want to send long memos to managers in my team without explaining key decisions made at the executive committee meeting. I wanted to do that face to face and as quickly as possible.

Therefore, I arranged for the weekly Food & Beverage Management meeting to be held every Wednesday morning. I would share all relevant information and decisions from the executive committee meeting, with my management team, promptly. I ensured that the meeting was short and the minutes were distributed, within an hour. By 3:00 pm each Wednesday, all 10 department heads in my division had a short, stand-up briefing with their operational teams. As a result, all 230 staff in my division were aware of key ‘must know’ information of the week within 24 hours.

One day, when the General Manager of the hotel had visited the coffee shop for a cup of coffee around 3:30 pm on a Wednesday, he was amazed how well informed the busboy who cleared his table was. This employee had mentioned that the staff were pleased about a corporate decision taken a day before that.

“How did you do that so fast, Chandi?”, the pleasantly surprised General Manager asked me. “That decision was made in Paris by the Le Meridien President on Tuesday morning, my boss, the VP – Asia sent me a fax about it on Tuesday afternoon from Singapore, and I informed you and the other EXCO members in Colombo about it less than 24 hours ago. Now a busboy in your coffee shop knows about that decision!” he added in a voice that blended happiness with amazement. He was very impressed.

CREATING THE ‘BUZZ’

In any business, a key for success is creating the ‘buzz’ through creative messaging to motivate and empower teams. When relevant people are treated well and communicated with effectively, they get excited about the organization, and they usually talk positively about products, services and people of the organization. That is simply a “win-win” situation.

At Le Meridien we did exactly that well, with our internal customer – the employees. Given the role played by a large number of top western musicians providing live music in three outlets, seven days a week, I treated them as members of our hotel family. As a result, the musicians acted as partners and ambassadors of the hotel among many of their fans. It was a simple formula.

We used the same concept of creating the ‘buzz’ in promoting every food festival, theme night and stage show we organized. Selling and public relations should never be limited to a small sales team, but to all of the staff as well as the associates such as other service providers (sponsors, suppliers and entertainers). As a result, we were always in the limelight and the ‘talk of the town’,

In addition to a host of younger artistes and bands who performed at the night club and the lobby bar at Le Meridien, we decided to do something different at our prime restaurant – La Palme D’or. I contracted a band led by a veteran musician who attracted an elite niche market. That band – Harold Seneviratne Combo was requested to provide music appropriate to a weekly theme night called: ‘Nostalgia ‘60’, which had to be extended by popular demand.

A GRAY LIE

In late 1980, there were no international, fast-food chains operating in Sri Lanka. As a result, some of the five-star hotels included items such as pizzas and hamburgers in the a la carte menus in the coffee shops. These relatively inexpensive dishes attracted attention and popularity, particularly in Colombo. With a view of riding that wave, I planned a month-long hamburger promotion at La Brasserie, hotel’s coffee shop. We wanted a creative advertising campaign.

The new General Manager of the hotel, Paul Finnegan told me, “I hear that our main competitor – Colombo Hilton is planning a similar Hamburger promotion in two months’ time. Can you organize this promotion sooner?” I agreed with him and placed it on a fast track. When he suggested that we should create a story that Le Meridien was planning to break a world record with the number of hamburgers we would serve during the month of April in 1989, I was not keen about lying about a world record.

“Come on, Chandi. It would be fun. Why don’t you use your creative mind to come up with something newsworthy, interesting and gives us a lot of publicity?” Paul motivated me to lie. I knew that ‘Gray lies’ were said to consist of lies that were ambiguous in nature or held the characteristics of a real lie yet, were still viewed as justifiable given the circumstance. With the blessings of my boss who was a chartered accountant, I worked on an interesting and ‘fun’ advertising campaign to promote ten special hamburger dishes created by our Executive Chef, Emile Castillo.

With input from Herman Gunasekera, the Managing Director of Creative Services Limited, who handed all advertisements for Le Galadari Meridien, we created a story line for the campaign. It claimed: “The Guinness Book of World Records lists 50,429 hamburgers sold during the month of July, 1986 at O’Malley’s Downtown Pub in Chicago, as the current world record. La Brasserie Coffee Shop of Le Galadari Meridien Hotel aims to break that world record during the month of April, 1989.”

To break that ‘fake’ world record, we had to serve over 1,681 hamburgers a day, which was an impossible target. However, I arranged a large black board prominently placed at the entrance to La Brasserie with a heading:

‘OUR PERFORMANCE SO FAR TO BREAK A WORLD RECORD IN HAMBURGER SALES…’

We had just three lines on the black board:

=World Record = 50,429 in a month

=Hamburgers served at La Brasserie so far in April =

=Balance number of Hamburgers we need to serve in April to break the world record =

I then gave ‘fake’ daily hamburger sales numbers to Christopher Ramsey, maître d’hôtel of La Brasserie. In an attempt, to sound real, I gave him different ‘fake’ numbers every day. His job was to enter those figures on the black board at the end of each day, irrespective of the actual numbers of hamburgers sold every day. This joke or the gimmick created so much ‘buzz’ and media publicity, we actually sold a large number of hamburgers. Based on the number I provided, we eventually surpassed the world record by a couple of dozens of hamburgers on April 30th. We received unprecedented publicity and we had to extend the hamburger promotion by another month! That was my last food promotion organized in Colombo.

By early May, 1989, I received a telephone call from one of my friends and school mates, Athula Senanayake. He had been promoted as the Food & Beverage Manager of Colombo Hilton, a few months prior to that. “Chandana, congratulations on your latest achievement! However, I am being given a hard time by my GM because of you. In front of all my colleagues, during the morning briefing today, he asked me when would I be able to break a world record!”, Athula told me in a frustrated voice. To his annoyance, I laughed out loud.

“Machan, don’t worry too much. We never broke a world record. It was all fake! A joke which resulted in lot of publicity.” I told my friend. After a long pause, Athula said angrily, ‘You lying bastard! Your bloody hamburger promotion resulted in a miserable month for me! Shame on you!”

FINAL ‘CONFESSIONS…’ ARTICLE
After one more article on Feb. 26, the concluding article of this
weekly column: ‘Confessions of a Global Gypsy’ will be published on Mar. 5 by the Sunday Island. Thank you for your readership over the last two years.