Travel and Tourism
Smooth sailing
How Tammy Krings put together a plan to power through a downturn at Travel Solutions
By Mike Cottrill
Smart Business | October 2009
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Tammy Krings may be even more tired of hearing about the recession than you.
She’s not one to say that she’s had it worse than someone else, but the downturn came early for Travel Solutions Inc.
“The travel industry felt it very early, and we took a very quick view of how it was impacting us, and one of the things that we quickly concluded was that our business was down, obviously, and we looked at it by sector,” she says. “We looked at it every which way we possibly could.”
As the recession deepened, Krings, who is a CEO and leadership coach at the travel company she started and co-owns, had discussions with her peers to pick their brains about what actions they were taking. She was surprised to find most executives had the mindset of a cheap plastic surgeon: cut, cut, cut.
“I’ve talked with a lot of my CEO-level colleagues, and I would say, ‘What are you doing?’ and they would say, ‘Well, we did this,’ and I’m waiting for more, ‘What else did you do?’” she says.
“We went to great consideration to make a very comprehensive recovery-type plan before we needed it, and that’s why we did a very long list of tasks and initiatives to make those things happen, and most of my CEO counterparts were saying, ‘We’ve cut costs,’ and that is not a sustainable mode of operation. We were looking at a remedy that would be sustainable across a long period of time [and] that would also build up the disciplines of the business so that even in the good times we are lean and mean.”
While Krings took many different steps to help get the $645 million company through the downturn, the basic overview of the plan was to get her 160 people to understand what was happening and what it meant for them, take initiatives that moved the company forward and to make any cuts as quickly as possible so they could get back to business.
