Helping hands
Engaging tech start-ups for digital projects is a risk for travel companies, but both sides can reap the benefits
By LINDA FOX
world, with lead times for reaching millions of users cut to a matter of months.
This has led to a recognition from big companies in recent years that technol- ogy is evolving so rapidly they might need help to keep up. Some of the large airlines and hotel groups have admitted openly they are looking outside to the start-up community for that help. Christophe Tcheng, vice-president of core products and platform architecture at American Express GBT, confirms this trend. He says large companies are making strategic decisions to work with start-ups. “We decided we wanted to be open in terms of technology. We wanted to make sure we can embrace innovation from the outside,” he says. “That means APIs [application planning interfaces] so that any company can come in and consume our data. We’re becoming a platform for innovation rather than the sole innovator for our customers.”
Brandon Balcom, senior director of open innovation at Carlson Wagonlit Travel says the TMC is thinking along similar lines. “We’re on this path of transformation. The mindset is centred on changing from cus- tomer service to customer experience. We’re
acting more like the best companies in the e-commerce space. We realise we have to develop a Silicon Valley-like mentality.”
But it’s not a case of simply saying, “let’s just find a start-up and work together”. There are some obvious issues and some more subtle ones. Where do you start? Tcheng says he gets lots of approaches via email and referrals, and finds it useful to meet start-ups at trade shows. CWT, meanwhile, has a partner- ship with start-up accelerator Plug
and Play. This gives it access to start-ups via special events. Once the TMC has decided who it wants to work with, it has a dedicated innovation team based in Silicon Valley to help it move the start-up quickly to a proof-of-concept phase.
This also enables start-ups to stay focused on development and not get dragged too early into business operations. It helps keep the fresh, innovative thinking alive and helps the business decide when, and if, to move to integration into the company’s existing systems. Balcom says: “We don’t want to spend time,
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