Travel
Superbreak was one of the UK’s largest short break operators, a £140m travel business that lived or died by its website. I sat on the executive board responsible for digital and technology end to end: strategy, development, infrastructure, ecommerce, customer experience, supplier management, the budget and the teams. Over roughly three years online revenue about doubled, from around £40m to more than £80m, on a modernised platform with much bigger technical teams and proper delivery governance behind it.
Superbreak was one of the UK’s largest short break operators, a £140m travel business that lived or died by its website. Online sales, customer experience and the technology behind them were not a side channel, they were the business. And it was growing fast, which is a good problem that quietly turns into a hard one. The platform, the development capability and the leadership all have to grow at the same speed, or the cracks start to show.
Simple to say, hard to do. Grow online revenue, and do it without the customer experience or the technology buckling under the weight. That meant modernising an ageing platform, building much bigger technical teams, tightening how things got delivered and lifting day to day operational performance, all while the commercial side kept pushing for more. Standing still was not an option.
I sat on the executive board, responsible for digital and technology end to end. That covered digital strategy, technology, development, infrastructure, ecommerce and customer experience, along with supplier management, the budget and the teams. Board level accountability for the commercial numbers, not just the technology.
The headline is the one that matters. Online revenue roughly doubled, from about £40m to more than £80m, in around three years. That growth was carried by bigger, better run teams, tighter delivery and a platform that could take the load.
Owning the commercial numbers, not just the technology. The remit covered digital strategy, technology, development, infrastructure, ecommerce and customer experience, plus supplier management, the budget and the teams, reporting at executive board level.
You grow the platform, the teams and the delivery discipline at the same speed as the commercial plan. Modernising an ageing platform, expanding the internal technical teams and introducing delivery governance so projects landed predictably were all one piece of work, not three.
This kind of remit is fractional digital leadership. On why growth outruns delivery, see digital agility.
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