When it's hard but necessary to be the one that says "Stop" to a good team.

More than 30 years ago, travel distribution was all about B2B and travel agency networks. As a train company, SNCF had always been a pioneer, creating distribution companies abroad to fulfill the need of mobility for people eager to travel to and through France by trains (SNCF or its predecessor had an office selling french train tickets as early as the roaring 1920's in New York). More than 30 years ago, this pioneering spirit still prevailed when SNCF created an European distribution business in 6 countries with its main head office in Brussels. The business story was very successful and soon the business reached a significant gross booking value in Belgium, the Netherlands, Luxemburg, the UK, Germany, Switzerland, Spain, Italy and to a lesser extend in some Nordic and East European countries.

However, by the turn of the millenium, a new channel of distribution called "Internet" started to eat slowly but surely the B2B channel market share in every travel industry especially in the leisure market. You probably can start to see where this short article is going...not in the right direction as far as our business growth is concerned and so went more or less south our B2B sales figures.

I joined the European Business Unit of Oui.sncf almost 3 years ago and the B2B activity I am talking about represented at the time about 30% of my commercial portfolio (the remaining 70% was a growing B2C digital business). Looking at the sales history and more importantly looking at sales perspective, I asked myself the following question "what can be the strategic future of a commercial network of B2B subsidiaries in a world ruled by the mighty OUI.sncf in France, by Expedia in the rest of the world and with new competitors entering the market with B2C only business models ?" Asking the question was already starting to get an obvious answer with a bit of doom and gloom at the end of the reflexion.

At a certain point, you need to recognize that the market conditions have changed so much that something more radical needs to be decided and implemented to modify substantially the financial KPI's. And the distribution model needs to be re-framed accordingly, however painful and difficult it might be from an HR standpoint. It is always better to anticipate such a change than letting the market impose it upon you in a messy way. That's why in April 2018, SNCF decided to merge its European B2B activities with its existing strong B2B french department. The change needed to be effective in less than 9 months and I was the one (supported by HR, a great Executive Comittee and by two terrific project and operations manager) who had to implement it. And my job was also to break the following bad news to the staff (more than 100 people across Europe) : after more than 30 years of operations, our last day of commercial activity would be on 31.12.2018 and a new organisation would take place on 1st Jan 2019 without most of them.

I will not go through the 7 phases of mourning on that occasion, I just wanted to express my thanks and gratitude to the people of the B2B Business Unit I had the privilege to lead over the last 3 years and through that final reorganisation process. I know that they fought relentlessly to counter balance an adverse market trend in the past, they adapted to various changes several times, especially when we externalized and centralized our local call centers, they had to live with the consequences of the cost savings decisions I made along the way. They are a bunch of talented individuals that business reality bite at some point. So, despite all their good work, the team and even family spirit that prevailed in each Voyages-sncf office, I had to close the business in its current form so that it can continue in the future on a more sustainable basis for the SNCF group with a totally different organisational set up.

With the decisive help of the Oui.sncf HR team, I negociated with each country rep the financial terms and conditions of departure for each individual : it's probably never perfect or enough from a employee point of view but I am proud to be able to say without hesitation that it was done in a cooperative and constructive spirit. Everybody was fairly treated : that was our promise to everybody on day 1 and we kept it.

Besides, at the same time that this team delivered a complex process of change management to close down all business activities, it delivered the 2018 sales target and exceeded bottom line budget figures. Well done guys, I have tremendous respect for your professionalism. That's what I said to you on our last company farewell convention that was held in Valencia last November but I wanted to re-iterate that message on this article as we have been through a lot during those final months of 2018 together.

Being a leader is not always easy or pleasant especially when you are the one saying "stop, we can't go on like this" to a good team of profesionals for strategic and economic reasons. I know that this decision and the project impact each one of you but I also see already some short term positive moves in this change as some of you have already found new roles, changed careers, embraced new life goals or opportunities.

These final months as an organisation are our common story now. And I am grateful that we did it together in the same way we did business before, staying true to our company culture.