Podcast Summary: Product Therapy

Episode: Coaching Transformation: How a Hospitality Company Adopted the Product Model
Host: Christian Idiodi (SVPG)
Guests: Anwar Shapur (Chief Product and Technology Officer, Palace Hotels), Gabby Borfram (Product and Product Leadership Coach)
Date: September 18, 2025

Episode Overview

In this episode, Christian Idiodi explores the transformation journey of Palace Hotels, a Mexico-based hospitality company, as it adopted the modern product model. The conversation highlights the human, cultural, and practical challenges of introducing product-thinking into a non-tech, family-owned business, dissecting motivations, hurdles, and tactical changes with Anwar Shapur and product coach Gabby Borfram.

The episode offers a candid, behind-the-scenes look at transforming a thriving traditional business into a data-driven, customer-centric organization that behaves more like a tech company—thanks to leadership, coaching, and determination.

Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Origins and Motivation for Change

• Despite strong post-COVID performance, Palace Hotels' leadership was frustrated by the lack of value technology brought to business outcomes.
• Change was not due to desperation, but aspiration: leveraging technology to drive better results, not just maintain the status quo.
  • "If you're asking why the heck are we doing this, why the heck would we develop software and technology in a way that doesn't deliver outcomes?...it was not working from any point of view." – Anwar [01:04]
• The organization operated as an old-school software factory: projects were handed off, not maintained, and aligned poorly with real business needs.

2. Taking the Leap: Assessing Readiness and Gaining Buy-In

• Anwar attended a transformational workshop that reframed his beliefs about what was possible for non-tech companies.
  • Realized even a traditional, family-run, non-US company could benefit from true product practices.
• The process began by building trust at all levels, especially with traditionally skeptical family members (his brothers).
  • “The people I needed to convince the most were my brothers. And it was the last people I got to convince.” – Anwar [06:45]
• Gabby was brought in as a product coach precisely to be a physical presence and establish trust across leadership and teams.

3. Initial Assessment & Strategic Entry Point

• Gabby assessed three core areas: how software was built, how problems were solved, and how problems to solve were chosen.
  • Building process wasn’t terrible, but not the highest priority for ROI.
  • No trust established for changing what problems could be tackled, so the first focus: how problems were solved.
• "Our clock started ticking. So we need to deliver results. Like yesterday. The best place for us to start is to change how we solve problems." – Gabby [10:05]
• Recommendation: assemble a pilot team in an area with customer exposure but minimal business risk.

4. Building and Coaching the Pilot Team

• The pilot team’s product manager wasn’t an official PM—just the person with the right mindset and adaptability.
• Designed to maximize learning, minimize legacy interference, and deliver a 'poster child' success.
  • "This pilot... ‘we need to have a poster child. Like we need everyone in leadership to be like wow, that is amazing...’" – Gabby [14:50]

Rituals and Practice Shifts:

• Team-first foundation: aligning on roles and building trust internally.
• Behavioral shift: measuring success by outcome, not by feature delivery.
• Transition from solution delivery (building what’s requested) to genuine problem-solving.
  • “We needed to find that intersect. Going from things to build to actually figuring out what problem we were focusing on.” – Gabby [16:44]

5. The App That Never Was: Learning from Real Research

• The initial – and mistakenly assumed – solution was to build an app, as previous surveys had identified demand.
  • "We actually named it the App Team... and when Anwar referred to this like multimillion dollar mistake that we avoided, it's we decided to not build the app." – Gabby [19:26]
• Through true customer research and problem discovery, they realized the real need was investing in and incrementally improving the booking website.
  • “The conversion rate from that booking engine was below 1% and it's now above 5%...after a year and a half of focus on how to improve the guest experience when booking online.” – Anwar [20:08]

6. Data as a Trust and Decision Engine

• Investment in a data team enabled the company to debunk internal myths and replace opinion-based decisions with facts.
  • "We started being able to be the reliable source of data for multiple areas of the business...a very big lever for us to gain trust" – Gabby [21:52]
• Data infrastructure and analytics became central, influencing technology, marketing, and operations.
  • “The projects were only funded depending on who the loudest person asked for it...But switching to this product-oriented mindset and data-driven decisions, we had much more information to impact decisions and focus on client experience.” – Anwar [23:12]

7. Expanding Product Thinking Across Operations

• Problems formerly solved via capex (expanding restaurants, remodeling) are now tackled with product and tech (discovery features, booking interfaces).
• Cross-departmental collaboration increased dramatically—sales, marketing, operations and tech jointly own goals and outcomes.
  • "You shifted from a hotel that uses technology sometimes to almost like a technology company that provides hospitality." – Christian [26:29]
• Outcome-oriented roadmaps, clear team accountabilities, and permanent ownership replaced project-based, transactional mindsets.

8. Team Topology and Cultural Change

• Strategic team design: outcome-focused teams, clear domains (sales, operations, HR, vacation club).
• Product, tech, and design talent were strategically hired/reconfigured, building a critical mass of people committed to the new model.

9. Challenges, Resistance, and Lessons Learned

• Cultural resistance primarily at the leadership level—especially within the founding family—and required patience, transparency, and “being more stubborn.”
  • "The more stubborn person in the room wins." – Anwar [30:46]
  • “Our key principle: protect the company from ourselves if we are ever in a disagreement.” – Anwar [33:42]
• Trust took time to build and was anchored by visible, measurable wins delivered by pilot teams.
• The company adopted a spirit of continuous transformation—never “done,” always iterating and improving.

10. Transformation Results and What’s Possible Now

• Data-driven culture, company-wide OKRs aligned across departments.
• Collaboration led to new cross-team initiatives, e.g., when online bookings fail, leads are routed to sales, resulting in $600k of new bookings in two months and a rapid feedback loop for continual improvement.
  • "Every time a guest doesn't finish booking their vacation on the webpage, that turns into a lead for the call center...from March 1st to now, so two months, has turned into $600,000 of bookings." – Anwar [36:01]
• A culture of continuous discovery, learning from customer pain points, and iterating solutions is now embedded.

Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• On the Motivation to Transform:
  • “Just spending every hour of every day... to deliver something that doesn’t have any value is just nonsense.” – Anwar [01:04]
• On Leadership Buy-In:
  • “There’s no plan B, this is it.” – Gabby recounting Anwar’s commitment [08:20]
• On Early Practices:
  • “Behind there was a big waterfall. So it was like all the agile ceremonies, all the titles...but in reality what we were having was waterfall.” – Gabby [14:03]
• On Team Dynamics and Coaching:
  • “Our first meeting was on what it is for us to be a team, what it is for us to have each other now to rely on... establishing this trust.” – Gabby [15:33]
• On Shifting Mindset:
  • “Building in this feature doesn’t mean success at all... We’re actually done when we solve a problem that makes customers happy and that works for the business.” – Gabby [16:44]
• On Avoiding Unnecessary Solutions:
  • “Thanks to this research, we ended up realizing that this multimillion dollar effort was going to waste. So we improved what we currently had, and that has gone a long way and tripled the conversion.” – Anwar [12:38]
• On Outcomes:
  • “The conversion rate from that booking engine was below 1% and it's now above 5%.” – Anwar [20:09]
• On the Cultural Shift:
  • “You are moving from maybe an organization fueled by lots of opinions to one that was making data-driven decisions.” – Christian [22:50]
• On Family Business Dynamics:
  • “Let’s protect the company from ourselves if we’re ever in a disagreement.” – Anwar [33:42]
• On Coaching and Playbooks:
  • “Fully believe on the teachings of the experts that have gone through this, then that leads me to get a coach like I did with Gabi, who has been key on all of this.” – Anwar [39:25]
• On Determination:
  • “I go back to the question of like, what if this doesn’t work? And he’s like, this has to work. There’s no plan B.” – Gabby [41:14]

Timestamps for Key Segments

• [01:04] Motivation for transformation
• [03:40] Early frustrations and discovering product mindset
• [07:46] Gabby’s role and building trust
• [10:05] Assessment criteria and pilot team setup
• [14:50] Coaching the pilot team and initial cultural shifts
• [18:33] Measuring and achieving pilot team success
• [19:26] Discovery: not building the app
• [20:08] Results from focusing on booking website
• [21:52] Data-driven decision making adoption
• [23:12] Organizational changes: from opinion to data, cross-functional OKRs
• [29:01] Team topology and scaling the model
• [30:46] Internal resistance and winning with persistence
• [34:43] Cultural and familial challenges; building lasting trust
• [35:11] Tangible business results and continuous discovery
• [39:25] Transformation “playbook” and advice for others
• [41:14] Gabby’s closing praise on Anwar’s determination

Advice for Leaders Embarking on Transformation

• Rely on proven frameworks and the advice of seasoned experts; “stop having thoughts of my own and start trusting Marty's thoughts on everything that has to be done.” – Anwar [39:25]
• Securing an experienced coach is invaluable to navigate complexity and stay true to course.
• Commit with determination; there’s “no plan B.”
• Build teams with the humility to unlearn the past and passion to learn and grow.

Tone, Language, and Feel

The episode is candid and conversational, often pragmatic and encouraging. The tone is one of mutual respect and deep learning—from the failures of old ways to the empowerment and trust of the new. The speakers highlight not just business tactics, but personal and cultural transformations.

Conclusion

This episode provides a vivid, actionable map for non-tech companies navigating product transformation—spotlighting the crucial roles of leadership commitment, trust-building, coached experimentation, and cultural change. The Palace Hotels story demonstrates that successful product transformations don’t require desperation—just vision, humility, and relentless focus on real outcomes.