Challenge

When one of the world’s largest travel organizations was aiming to improve earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation, and amortization (EBITDA), it needed the support of a firm that could identify and execute short- and mid-term opportunities.

CrossCountry Consulting was engaged for a four-week project to identify cost-reduction opportunities across all categories of selling, general, and administrative (SG&A) expenses with an aggressive implementation target date.

How We Helped

CrossCountry deployed a team of cross-functional strategic cost improvement experts to the task, beginning with dividing up the scope of work into two workstreams, which included:

  1. Overall SG&A analysis.
  2. Sales optimization analysis.

In addition to the wholesale evaluation of SG&A, the CrossCountry team assessed the Incentive Plan Simplification & Alignment, redefining incentive compensation plans to promote cross-selling activities across the product lines.

Results

Throughout the engagement, CrossCountry collaborated closely with the cross-functional client-side stakeholders to provide benchmarking against industry standards, identify opportunities for cost savings and technology improvements, and build a proposed implementation plan.

Through these efforts, the team was able to deliver cost-reduction recommendations to achieve:

  • $18.5 million annual cost savings.
  • 3% EBITDA margin improvement.
  • A new HR operating model.
  • A cost takeout proposal for account management and operations teams.

CrossCountry also developed a future-state commissions plan landscape including plan harmonization and a high-level future-state roadmap identifying recommendations for short-term process changes and longer-term technology solutions.