Barrière: At the Heart of Transformation

A cross-functional approach: strategic and operational

Barrière is the European leader in physical casinos, an important player in hospitality (such as Le Normandy, Le Royal, Le Majestic, Fouquet’s, etc.), and an iconic brand of French art de vivre.

The Group has experienced significant growth over four generations since its founding in 1912. However, in the face of the rise of online gaming, new concepts, digital collaborative hotel models, and booking platforms (such as Airbnb, Booking.com, etc.), and recognizing the potential of their expertise and brand both in France and internationally, the group now seeks to transform itself around three key areas: employee experience, innovation, and customer experience.

The first axis aims to make employees ambassadors of the brand, the second aims to position the Group as a leader in innovation within gambling and hospitality, and the third axis focuses on rethinking the Barrière experience for customers at every stage of their journey.

This transformation continues the efforts made by several generations of visionaries and aims to adapt its model to new demands and markets.

The dynamic led by Alexandre Desseigne Barrière, the management, the transformation team, and all the employees of the Group aims to adopt technologies, organizational best practices, disruptive models, and innovations to evolve the brand, its offerings, and strengthen the organizational model.

This cross-functional approach, both strategic and operational, allowed the Group to take immediate action, with the goal of preparing for the future without jeopardizing the existing structure.

A project-based approach

Business Project

The business transformation support aims to address challenges related to changing customer expectations, competition, the growth of online gaming, new hospitality concepts, and the competition from digital-only players (like Airbnb, Booking.com, etc.).

The mission involves designing and operationalizing disruptive business models, both physical and digital, with the goal of diversifying the economic model and creating direct value for the Group.

The innovative approach implemented allowed, in a short time, thanks to a multidisciplinary and complementary team, by combining strategy consulting expertise, industry and technological know-how, and collective intelligence, to open up a range of possibilities and capitalize on the Group’s tangible and intangible assets to design disruptive business models for tomorrow, creating value and ready to be tested.

Journey Project

Improving the employee experience was a clearly identified priority in the group’s transformation. For 5 months, the Onepoint teams worked diligently to deploy an unprecedented listening initiative in the group’s history, breaking away from its culture. They engaged with 157 people across 31 Barrière establishments.

Thanks to the immersions, it was possible to relaunch the internal communication of the group by creating comic strips illustrating the daily lives of employees, thus reducing the perceived “gap” between the headquarters and the field. Over 300 possible “local” actions were transmitted to the various departments, potentially improving employees’ daily lives by solving certain irritants in the short term. “Barrière Rituals” were also identified through local management best practices. Finally, all of this led to the creation or adjustment of numerous projects centered around five objectives: deployment of HR levers, transformation of management, re-enchantment of daily life, unleashing potentials, and long-term development.

Multiple results

Throughout the 2019-2020 period, numerous results were observable:

• 450 managers supported in developing their leadership
• Measurement of employee engagement and the impact of transformation projects (employee survey)
• A revamped onboarding and welcoming process
• A pilot experiment with polyactivity in select establishments, etc.