Unilever plc this decade embarked on large-scale efforts first to consolidate its travel operations with a single travel management company and then to implement an online booking tool across multiple countries. To successfully accomplish these projects, the Anglo-Dutch food and consumer products giant relied on a companywide framework for managing change as well as specific approaches to accommodate cultural differences between countries.
"The key to effective change management is helping people to shift from discomfort to discovery as quickly and as painlessly as possible," according to Bill Doull, Unilever's global travel manager and European supply manager for non-production items.
Speaking this fall during an Association of Corporate Travel Executives conference in Munich, Doull first explained "the emotional cycle of change," starting with denial ("It is not going to happen to me, it does not apply to me," he said, referring to employees' initial reactions), followed by doubt and then discomfort/resistance. The cycle bottoms out in a "danger zone ... where you have the assassins coming out that want to sabotage your program" and negatively influence others, Doull explained.
The cycle then improves, as exploration and discovery ("open-mindedness" and "hopeful realism") evolve into understanding ("informed optimism") and then the "happy area" of integration and commitment.
To smooth the path through that cycle, Unilever follows a change leadership template: planning, creating the shared need, developing the vision, mobilizing commitment, communicating change, aligning the infrastructure and sustaining momentum.
Relating that approach to travel, Doull said that "a common understanding" is paramount because "travel is a very emotional subject. It touches everyone from the CEO down to the lowest of the low in organizations. Everyone has an opinion."
In 2001, Unilever began consolidating its travel agency arrangements. It started with 14 agencies servicing employees in 22 countries. By 2002, it used one agency (Carlson Wagonlit Travel) in all European locations.
Before starting, Doull said, he visited with managers throughout Europe rather than dictating to them via email. He also made sure Unilever's IT department was ready for the project. "There is no point in suggesting a new travel agency if you are not capable of doing it," he said.
The change management program stemming from the agency consolidation took three months. "We had to do training sessions with new agents, had to constantly allay fears about the service breaking down and had to make sure IT was on their game to do telephone connections and everything else," Doull explained.
"The fundamental thing a single agency does is not about cost," he added. "It is about delivering credibility for the travel program."
A second project was implementing an online booking tool. Starting in 2004, Unilever deployed a customized version of the KDS system(internally branded U-Travel). It now reports 82 percent adoption in France and the Netherlands, according to Doull's presentation. In North America, Unilever uses Concur Cliqbook and has attained an adoption rate of 89 percent.
A more recent implementation in the United Kingdom, begun last year, presented unique challenges, as Unilever has a wide array of business units and joint ventures operating in a market which generates a diverse travel pattern with lots of complex itineraries and passport and visa requirements. Thus far, the company has achieved an 8 percent adoption rate with a 2008 target of 70 percent.
In each market, the company took a different approach, depending on cultural and organizational distinctions. "We communicated the business case to France, France signed off on it and off you go," Doull said, referring to the "top-down" Unilever corporate culture in that market. "In the [consensus-driven culture of the] Netherlands, it was, 'We understand it and we want to do it, but we need to get agreement on it.' " In January, Doull told The Transnationalthat the Netherlands implementation included on-site training, promotions and "everything else to reinforce the message."
For the United Kingdom, where there is "a whole mish-mash" and "no central control," Unilever opted to make CWT responsible for handling the KDS contract and implementing a change management program. "I still run the program," Doull said, "but I expect them to manage the tool like a person because I am using the tool to get rid of people."
Doull listed several additional travel change management projects that Unilever will tackle over the next few years, including meetings, incentives, conferences, events; virtual network travel centers (whereby Internet technologies replace physical support centers); end-to-end travel data and processes; and demand management (including webconferencing).
For each one, as it has done in the past, Unilever will embark on "stakeholder mapping" to understand the planning needs and "who will be responsive to particular messages," Doull explained. "We haven't even tracked behavior of apes, so how can we track human behavior and expect to understand anything? What we can do is make the time, have the focus and try to understand people as best we can without losing track of project goals."