Transforming the Core Revenue Management Function of a Leading Container Shipping Company

Strategic Clarity
Drawing on insights from previous large-scale transformations, we supported leadership and teams in translating ambition into a clear direction by defining a structured path forward, sharpening priorities amidst complexity, and sharing best practices to avoid common pitfalls. This ensured an effective use of resources as well as alignment across workstreams to drive toward a common goal. We also acted as direct sparring partners, bringing an outside-in perspective, challenging the status quo, and stress-testing strategic options before decisions were made.

Execution that sticks
From the outset, our shared ambition was to drive solutions with real impact on day-to-day operations. To achieve this, we assigned clear ownership for solution ideation and subsequent implementation to teams within the function, ensuring that ambitious targets and ideas from senior management were challenged, refined, and detailed by functional experts. This resulted in highly motivated workstreams with a sharp focus on what truly matters, avoiding unnecessary complexity and overload for their colleagues. This created a clear link between concept creation and delivery, ensuring real impact.

Co-Creation for real buy-in
Co-creation was the backbone of the transformation. Through a global stock-taking phase, we conducted intensive focus weeks with each team, consisting of kick-offs, workshops, and interviews involving 300+ employees. Insights were captured live, synthesized transparently, and validated with participants – ensuring teams saw their input directly shaping outcomes and building genuine ownership for change. Investing the time to do so ensured that the transformation was not only designed for the organization, but built by it, thereby accelerating acceptance and readiness for execution.

Starting from various, sometimes contrary, ambitions for the function and no actionable path forward, the project future-proofed the organizational structure, defined a shared target picture and the required optimization initiatives, and created strong buy-in across all teams. Reshaping the organizational structure of their core Revenue Management function enables holistic yield optimization, reduces the complexity and drives stronger central guidance. Building on this, the optimization initiatives will equip the teams with the right tools and processes to make the optimal decisions and free up time from manual and repetitive tasks to focus on more strategic and value-adding activities. As a result, the foundation was laid for sustainable revenue impact and improved service quality in an increasingly complex market environment.

The project was carried out in close cooperation with the company’s strategy team and with the involvement of employees and managers from the core Revenue Management function. Neighboring global functions and regional sales teams were actively involved throughout. Executive sponsorship from CEO and COO ensured strategic relevance and decision speed. By working side by side with teams at every level, we ensured the results fulfilled management expectations while being fully co-owned by operational teams, enabling a seamless handover.