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an opportunity for Amadeus to assess both where the business was going right, and where it was going wrong.
“ The Olympic contract hurt us” Watson reflected ruefully, saying Amadeus lost between £ 6 million and £ 7 million in 27 days;“ three months after the games, I removed the whole senior team”.
“ Our plan was growth” said Watson. With a new handpicked senior team that was motivated by Watson’ s vision and style, Amadeus embarked on its strategy to realise its target of becoming a £ 50m business. The strategy involved two core criteria that employees could identify with and contribute to: firstly, to achieve more transactions, and secondly, to increase spend per transaction.
used to be from NEC venues, but this is now 79 %, with 21 % of revenues now coming from outside events.
Watson explained how he stepped into his role as Managing Director following Amadeus’ contract catering for the London 2012 Olympic Games. Although well known that the contract was lossmaking for Amadeus, the business remains extremely proud of the role it played delivering catering for the Games. The experience also provided
The‘ Service that Sells’ training programme was implemented and launched to support the strategy, with all employees revisiting the training annually to ensure the ethos remains at the heart of the business.
To date, £ 4.3m has been successfully spent in key areas to achieve the ambitious growth target. This includes the development of Amadeus’ people, updating to an EPOS till system, progressive software to enable seamless communication with casual staff and technology to enhance the customer experience, such as the QJacker app for pre-placing orders.