New Thomas Cook boss Harriet Green has signalled a return to the operator’s founding principle of inspiring the British public to travel overseas by exploiting latest technology.
In her first major speaking engagement since becoming chief executive, she told today’s CBI Conference in London how she had been struck by the power of the Thomas Cook brand.
Just 16 weeks into the new role, she divulged nothing of a turnaround plan being worked on for Cook, but said an obsession with knowing the customer would be driven by technology.
She said brand, innovation and differentiation, having the right business infrastructure in the UK and an obsession with customers were driving mantras.
On the last point Green said “all roads lead to technology”.
She said success stemmed from “how you make the customer feel in terms of what you have committed to do, in igniting their passions and creating their dreams”.
Green gave a simple example of what she meant, telling the audience that when she came in to her role she was told that Cook’s customer base was split evenly between men and women.
But she said a deeper analysis of the data found that 72% of the customers who make the travel buying decision were actually women.
“Is that important for our business? I do not know, but I know that knowing the customer is key,” she said.
Green said Cook’s mission was to open up possibilities to customers.
She pointed out that despite the downturn seeing disposable incomes drop 5% in the last 18 months, 46% of British customers intend to take some form of foreign holiday in the next year.
This equates to 22 million potential customers. “It would seem it’s absolutely critical to bring the world to people on their phones, on their TVs, on the web.
“We have to bring the world of possibilities, affordably and powerfully, to them.
“It’s bringing this information, this world absolutely to their fingertips and efficiently providing them with the opportunity to travel, explore and adventure, as Thomas Cook originally intended them to do.”
Green, who was speaking as part of a panel discussion on ‘winning business in a changing world’, said she had experience of running business on four continents.
She said innovation did not always have to come from a technical engineering advance but could be about how firms create a proposition that was “deeply compelling” for the customer.
Having heard earlier addresses from Prime Minister David Cameron and business secretary Vince Cable, Green said she welcomes the government’s sense of urgency.
She said: “I get a sense of incredible joined up positivity between government and business and a sense of real urgency and, as someone who is usually brought in to transform things, that urgency absolutely must happen.”
Discussing the challenge of recruiting the right talent, Green said global businesses needed to make sure their senior teams reflected the kind of people they want to employ.
“If your senior team looks like people you are trying to hire, in that it’s diverse in terms of ethnicity and gender, you are much more likely to attract the talent than if you have an array of a particular type of suits.
“Having teams that make people say they are my role models, having different people in the senior team that people globally can relate to , that’s very powerful in attracting talent.”