Exclusive Interview: Gert Noordzy, Managing Director of Northside Consulting recently spoke at a number of industry conferences in Hong Kong, Singapore and Shanghai on root causes of hotel opening delays.

Now back home in Macau, 4Hoteliers has had an opportunity to catch up with Gert and learn about Organizational Project Management for the hospitality industry.

What is Northside Consulting all about?

Northside Consulting is an innovative consulting firm, specialising in Organisational Project Management for the hospitality industry.

As an Outsourced Strategic Project Management Office (PMO), we provide expert strategies and comprehensive solutions for any type of new hospitality project, from hotels and resorts to casinos and theme parks.

Our approach facilitates ‘on time, on brand, on budget, on customer’ openings, ultimately optimising a property’s value and increasing investment returns.

What kind of services does Northside Consulting provide?

Our services evolve around three areas of expertise:

• Project Life Cycle Management,
• Pre-opening Assistance, and
• Project Performance Improvement.

Project Life Cycle Management is about providing strategic support for initiating and planning any of the phases of new hotel project life cycles. Pre-opening Assistance is high- and low-level support during the pre-opening and post opening phases of the new hotel project life cycle, and tactical project recovery.

Project Performance Improvement is about improving new hotel opening project performance, enabling hospitality companies to open hotels more effectively and efficiently, and on large scale.

What are the advantages for property owners and hotel companies to outsource pre-opening services?

The overall objective of pre-opening support is to achieve simultaneous technical, operational, and commercial readiness. Not every hospitality company has the economy of scale to employ a full-time pre-opening specialist. The main advantages of outsourcing pre-opening services include:

• Extending a company’s pre-opening team, without increasing the corporate office head count,
• Pre-opening support on demand to absorb incremental workload and meet contractual obligations during peak periods, and
• Making more effective use of limited internal resources in view of the number and geographic spread of new hotel projects.

Many new hotel openings in the region are delayed. What can you do about it?

It is all about improving new hotel opening project performance. Our methodology has 2 phases:

• First we conduct a New Hotel Opening Project Performance Assessment. Our research-based method establishes a hospitality company’s current performance baseline.
• The second phase is Organizational Project Management Maturity Improvement. This is a comprehensive change management program to take a hospitality company from where it is now to where is should be. To improve hotel opening performance, hospitality companies must prepare in terms of culture, organization and education, before project management can be applied effectively and efficiently.

Why is organizational project management maturity so important?

Globally US$ 109 million is wasted for every US$ 1 billion invested in projects. At the same time, high-performing organizations meet goals 2½ more often, whilst low-performing organizations are 13 times more at risk of losing money.

Our current research of over 600 post-project reviews in Greater China demonstrates that three quarters of all new hotel openings are delayed after the Hotel General Manager has started.

The consequences of delays hurt hotel owners and operators alike: increased pre-opening expenses, delayed cash flow generation, delayed business ramp-up, delayed GOP and ROI, delayed owner and operator incomes, missed business opportunities, and negative impact on non-financial key metrics.

China currently has 2.7 million hotel rooms and the available development pipeline data indicate that at least 2 new 150+ room hotels will be opened in China every day for the next 25 years. In my view, current methods of opening new hotels do not work and cannot be scaled. A different approach is needed and other options must be considered.

What is your personal objective?

Project management is now used in more than 85 occupations across a wide swathe of functions and industries.

The hospitality is not one of them, despite high growth on a global scale. In view of the exponential growth, my personal objective is to help the hotel industry transform itself and embrace project management as a strategic competence. Part of this is achieved by publishing research articles and speaking at hospitality conferences.

Last year I published Project Management of New Hotel Opening Processes, a blue-print for success for anyone involved in hotel openings. The book has meanwhile been translated into Simplified Chinese and Spanish. Translation into Portuguese, Japanese, Korean and Indonesian is work in progress.

Gert Noordzy â€" Managing Director, Northside Consulting

Gert Noordzy is an international hotelier, Organizational Project Management subject matter expert and doctoral candidate. Gert graduated from Hanze College Hotel Management School, Zwolle, the Netherlands, and holds an MBA from the University of Saint Joseph, Macau with majors in Strategic Management & Marketing and Financial & Business Analysis.

He is also a Certified Associate in Project Management of the Project Management Institute and holds a Financial Advisors’ International Qualification (FAIQ) from the Chartered Insurance Institute.

He has over 20 years’ professional experience in Greater China and South East Asia and has been involved in opening over 30 new hotels. In 2014 he founded Northside Consulting Company Limited. 

Gert can be reached at gert.noordzy@northside-consulting.com. For more information, visit www.northside-consulting.com.