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2022: General Discussion

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It's interesting just how powerful Mellors have become in recent years, owning Fantasy Island and now providing what is an essential service to Merlin (at what I persume is a great profit for Mellors) . They've got plenty of leverage if they want to rise the price too, of course Merlin probably won't want to be paying a company who basically runs a rival park for that sort of service for long, so I was surprised they'd used Mellors.
 
JAperson said:
It's interesting just how powerful Mellors have become in recent years, owning Fantasy Island and now providing what is an essential service to Merlin (at what I persume is a great profit for Mellors) . They've got plenty of leverage if they want to rise the price too, of course Merlin probably won't want to be paying a company who basically runs a rival park for that sort of service for long, so I was surprised they'd used Mellors.
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I would expect the Retrosquad contract is with Alton Towers not Merlin.
 
I don't know why we have this obsession with differentiating between 'Alton Towers' and 'Merlin', which crops up on here over and over like they are separate entities. They are the same thing. People working at Alton are Merlin employees, they represent and work towards Merlins quite tightly defined goals using Merlins very tightly defined budgetary constraints using centrally published policies and processes. Anything done is therefore a product of Merlin, regardless of whether person making it works at Towers or in Poole.

Even if the Melors contract was put in place locally without anyone working externally from Towers noticing (which considering the size, cost, and reputational risk involved is unlikely in the extreme), the procurement process would have followed well defined Merlin dictated policy and procedure and decision flow chart to justify. It is therefore a Merlin decision regardless.
 
Speaking of contracts, remember when Coffee Longue first opened in Forbidden Valley and it served Starbucks coffee for a short period of time. Ever since it has been Costa, and that is all because Chessington signed a contract with Costa, which was in breach of the exclusive contract that Merlin had singed with Starbucks. Starbucks obviously pulled them up on this and the contact was cancelled, and we were left with Costa across all Merlin parks.

So in the case of Chessington signing that first contract with Costa, they did that without Merlin knowing what was going on. I suspect things have been tightened up since then mind.
 
pluk said:
I don't know why we have this obsession with differentiating between 'Alton Towers' and 'Merlin', which crops up on here over and over like they are separate entities. They are the same thing. People working at Alton are Merlin employees, they represent and work towards Merlins quite tightly defined goals using Merlins very tightly defined budgetary constraints using centrally published policies and processes. Anything done is therefore a product of Merlin, regardless of whether person making it works at Towers or in Poole.

Even if the Melors contract was put in place locally without anyone working externally from Towers noticing (which considering the size, cost, and reputational risk involved is unlikely in the extreme), the procurement process would have followed well defined Merlin dictated policy and procedure and decision flow chart to justify. It is therefore a Merlin decision regardless.
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Because the theme parks constantly seem to be doing their own thing, see Robs coffee example. There are some things that are obviously centrally led such as the larger food and beverage procurement (Coca-cola, Cadbury, Burger Kitchen packaging etc) but there are often things in all the parks which are at the complete opposite to what other parks in the chain are doing. Mardi Gras started at Alton Towers, the other parks copied a year later.


Yes there will be a procurement process to follow, but as long as you are correctly following a process no-one else gets involved and by the time the accountants notice you did something its already happened anyway. At my place of work I need to get three quotes if its over £5k and my manager approves the order happy I followed the process, unless its over £10k no-one really senior is going to see that order. I would expect its quite possible for their theme parks to have similar amounts of autonomy quite easily.
 
I suspect each park's management has a certain amount of freedom to do what they deem necessary to improve their park in any way without asking Merlin for permission first. Another example of one park doing something different to another is Towers using Leek signs who are local to Towers. As far as I know Thorpe used a local sign company to do theirs for their recent Mardi Gras.

As @jon81uk says, there will more than likely be a financial level at which the decision has to go higher than the park management. Whether Retrosquad was one of those decisions, who knows.
 
Steve74 said:
As @jon81uk says, there will more than likely be a financial level at which the decision has to go higher than the park management. Whether Retrosquad was one of those decisions, who knows.
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My procurement senses are tingling... they sourced each ride from a different showman, which would have spread the cost over three contracts. So I'd guess that would leave each contract in a lower procurement bracket.
 
Rob said:
Speaking of contracts, remember when Coffee Longue first opened in Forbidden Valley and it served Starbucks coffee for a short period of time. Ever since it has been Costa, and that is all because Chessington signed a contract with Costa, which was in breach of the exclusive contract that Merlin had singed with Starbucks. Starbucks obviously pulled them up on this and the contact was cancelled, and we were left with Costa across all Merlin parks.

So in the case of Chessington signing that first contract with Costa, they did that without Merlin knowing what was going on. I suspect things have been tightened up since then mind.
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Coca Cola bought Costa Coffee in 2019. Would've thought that would have something to do with it with their relationship with Merlin.
 
jon81uk said:
I would expect the Retrosquad contract is with Alton Towers not Merlin.
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I would suggest it is very difficult to ascertain exactly where the contract lies, for instance, AT Resort Operations Ltd is just one limited entity in a web of 93 companies spread across 12 countries.

You can rest assured that AT/Merlin/whomever is in charge of buying will have screwed Mellors down, these are expert negotiators with plenty of options.

What is a little sad is that AT are effectively being "propped up" in the flat ride department by travelling funfairs, yikes.
 
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