How will Amadeus’ cloud-native technology and partnership approach transform travel to the benefit of all?
In myprevious
blog, I took the opportunity to explore how Amadeus operates the critical systems our partners rely on to keep the global travel industry humming.
Today, I would like to follow up with a look at the work we are doing to transform the travel industry by harnessing the power of technology, ensuring we are ready for the next stage of our evolution, whatever the future brings. As our industry evolves, we work to proactively identify, monitor, and experiment with the most promising emerging technologies, developing a set of building blocks for our industry.
But what does this mean in practice?
Cloud-native future
Many of you will be familiar with Amadeus’ move to the cloud. As we move our systems from private data centers to the public cloud, alongside our partners at Microsoft, we are rethinking all of our applications, includingAmadeus Nevio
andOutpayce
, our payments platform.
This goes beyond merely ‘lifting and shifting’ solutions: This is one of the biggest migrations in the Cloud done on Azure. It is a sophisticated endeavor designed to balance the speed of migration with the transformation required to fully capture the benefits of the cloud.
A years-long process, the move will drive the open systems on which our future will be built. Today, we are making strong progress, with 40% of our applications now activated in the public cloud. This new way of thinking also allows us to connect with our partners more effectively, from startups to large global corporations. Each has the chance to develop by gaining access to the modular building blocks they need. In this way, we enhance flexibility and scalability, allowing systems to adapt to changing requirements without significant rework.
A great example of this ambition coming to life is the Creation Platform, which allows airlines to access a wider ecosystem and be connected to and integrate with third parties of their choosing.
Partnership ecosystem
Of course, we do not work alone, and Amadeus is focused on leveraging our position at the center of the travel ecosystem to build a network of small-to-medium sized partners in a standardized and automated way.
Through the Amadeus Partner Network, for instance, we have created a partnership model that enables our partners to access, integrate, or develop solutions on top of existing Amadeus technology and platforms. This helps them scale their business and unleash their revenue potential, while allowing us to foster innovation and tap into emerging trends.
A great example is the Amadeus Cytric Partner Ecosystem, which brings companies into our network, giving corporate travel managers a single place to view and manage all of their travel.
We also strive to participate in existing ecosystems of larger platform and technology companies through our Premium Partner and Strategic Alliances Partner programs.
For example, alongside Red Hat, we are deploying OpenShift to facilitate our ambition to become a cloud-native, open source-fueled organization, while work with Databricks has allowed us to optimize our data pipelines using state-of-the-art features. Today, our customers can access several years of historical data, with high refresh rates, with low infrastructure costs.
By collaborating with these important players, we can work together to make our solutions work better together, accelerate our time to value, and explore new areas to leverage their go-to-market capabilities.
Another example of this is our partnership with Mastercard to help accelerate the adoption of virtual payments in travel and support the development of innovative payment offerings across the travel industry.
Investment for tomorrow
None of this change happens in a vacuum, and Amadeus has shown we are ready to invest to drive our industry forward. We are proud to be one of the top research and development investors in the travel sector, and last year we invested €1.1 billion, or roughly 20% of revenue.
Our investment ensures our teams have the tools they need to create the solutions of tomorrow. We have a 10,000 strong global engineering community, including some of the most talented technologists and developers anywhere, and they are equipped with intelligent AI-assisted programming tools that streamline the development process.
Amadeus is also open to partnering at scale, acquiring companies, and releasing new products more quickly. We have recently acquired Voxel , a leading provider of electronic invoice and B2B payment solutions for travel sellers, hotels, and other travel players; while earlier this year we completed the acquisition of Vision-Box , a leading provider of biometric solutions for airports, airlines, and border control customers.
We understand the travel industry is digitally transforming and acquisitions such as these offer another opportunity to improve the experience of travel.
Better future for all
Travel never stands still, and at Amadeus, we are developing a new set of technology building blocks for our industry. Today, our cloud-native technology helps our customers boost revenues, maximize distribution strategies, and build deeper, more personalized connections with their travelers.
Together, we will deliver on our mission to serve every traveler better.
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