Merlin Entertainments Group - Service delivery strategy

Merlin Entertainments Group operates an international network of attractions, among them many of the world's best known brand names including Madame Tussauds, The Dungeons, Alton Towers Resort, LEGOLAND, SEA LIFE, Gardaland, the London Eye and others.  The company's 50-plus attractions and four hotels annually welcome more than 30 million visitors in twelve different countries across three continents - Europe, North America and Asia - and employ more than 13,000 staff.

The Accord Partnership was called in to help optimise the outsourcing partnership that Merlin Entertainments Group had in place for the BA London Eye's booking and ticketing system.  Key objectives of the assignment were to improve the functionality of the system, reduce the time taken to resolve technical issues and consolidate the support arrangements for the whole infrastructure.

A detailed supplier review was completed to identify and quantify the issues and inhibitors in the outsourcing relationship including an analysis of current commercial agreements to establish their relevance, value for money and whether the service levels were being achieved.  The review, which included structured interviews with key stakeholders, also studied the interaction processes to determine how effectively the two organisations were working together.

Over a two month period, Accord gained a detailed understanding of the outsourcing relationship, technical architecture, support issues and operating procedures.  This enabled the team to identify, quantify and prioritise the opportunities to improve the whole operation.  Accord managed the implementation of the recommendations which included updating the support contract for the self service kiosks, improving the time to fix element in the Service Level Agreement and eliminating the exposure to excessive service payments in the contract.  This enabled Merlin Entertainments Group to achieve significant savings^.