Transforming business through thinking, technology & partnerships
It’s safe to say that all successful businesses have, at one point or another, needed to transform. Whether big or small, the company or the transformation, change can make a positive impact. So, what businesses in the travel space are great examples that have embraced (or are embracing) transformation?
Contributing editor Martin Cowen has a look.
Transforming a business is an all-encompassing exercise in which there are many moving parts. Thinking, technology and partnerships are a foundationalset of pillars around which a narrative can be framed, with each element having a role to play in achieving a positive transformational impact.
The relative weighting of each pillar is never set in stone. Similarly, each pillar is interdependent and connected.
You can’t transform through partnerships unless there’s technology to support partnerships; you can’t transform through technology unless there’s an associated shift in thinking; you can’t transform through thinking unless there’s technology to execute on the identified changes…And so on.
Nonetheless, trying to identify the dominant and secondary pillars of a transforming business is a useful academic exercise. There is not a right or wrong answer. It can be thought-provoking and offer some direct and indirect learnings which can inform (or not) a fresh perspective on the theory and practice of transformation.
Here are two such examples of high-profile travel businesses which continue to transform into better versions of their established selves. The positive impact is viewed primarily through the lens of the businesses themselves, with transforming the traveler experience a complementary gain.
1. Uber – transforming through partnerships, supported by technology and thinking
Uber started off as a taxi app, transforming over the years into a global mobility and logistics platform. It is consistently finding new partnerships for technology-enabled use and business cases for moving people and/or things: Uber Eats, Uber Freight, Uber Health, Uber Transit and more.
Its latest “strategic global partnership” is with Open Table, the B2B2C restaurant tech business which is owned by online travel giant, Booking Holdings. The release talks about integrating the Uber, Uber Eats and Open Table apps. Uber CEO Dara Khosrowshahi says “the first step is to make it easier than ever to find and book a great restaurant and get there without a hitch”.
So, will users be able to book dinner with Open Table, and reserve an Uber at the same time in the same flow? Uber’s cloud-based platform supports the tech integrations (with Open Table’s cloud-based platform) which makes the partnership possible.
But there are business units within Uber that are dependent on partnerships that touch on manufacturing as well as systems. CEO Dara Khosrowshahi said at a recent event organized by the Wall Street Journal, “There are very few companies that are great at hardware and software at the same time”.
So Uber is thinking about how hardware partnerships can transform its market reach beyond taxis and takeaways.
It has partnerships with electric vehicle (EV) manufacturers, charging networks and finance houses to help drivers transition to cleaner vehicles. It has partnerships such as with Waymo and NVIDIA to scale its autonomous vehicle aspirations. The Uber Eats self-controlled sidewalk delivery robots in the US and Japan have also emerged through partnerships.
2. TUI – transforming through technology, supported by partnerships and thinking.
TUI is the world’s leading integrated tourism business (according to TUI) and there’s no reason to challenge this. As per its 2024 full year results, its airline fleet is 130 strong, its hotel and resorts portfolio comprise 400 properties, with 17 cruise ships, some wholly owned, others as joint ventures. It has more than 1,200 travel agents, an activities platform, a transfer business and much more. It is a massive consumer brand and an important B2B supplier.
But it is also a poster child for transforming a business through technology, a case study in the reality that transformations are cumulative, holistic and ongoing.
According to material prepared for a Capital Markets Day in March, TUI is “transforming into a scalable and platform-based global curated leisure marketplace”. CEO Sebastien Ebel is quoted as saying that the “next steps of the transformation offer new potential…”
And the next step of this transformation is only made possible, and will only happen, through technology. The success of any marketplace (elsewhere TUI talks about being “a global tourism platform company”) is as much about the tech as it is about the inventory.
CIO Peter Jordaan explained how the TUI tech stack has been transforming over the years and needed rationalizing as a result of many years of mergers, acquisitions, divestments and consolidations. TUI started talking about a “digital, standardized, globally scalable software architecture” in 2017 and has been almost all-in with AWS since, with their relationship a strategic partnership than a standard commercial arrangement.
There’s also a strong mindset angle to TUI’s transformation. The decision taken more than eight years ago - to rebuild from scratch in the cloud, committing to cloud-native rather than cloud-enabled - meant that its back end supported use cases for big data, machine learning and Artificial Intelligence , preparing the plumbing to roll out generative AI innovations at scale for travelers and internal processes alike.
Transforming business through thinking, technology & partnerships
Most businesses need to keep transforming to stay relevant. In travel, and technology, and travel technology, standing still is not an option –transforming travelis a must. In these examples, Uber opted to be more than a taxi app and got into logistics and TUI committed to a cloud-native tech stack
Commercial considerations are paramount when considering how to transform and chances are that thinking, technology and partnerships steered the conversation and commitment down their chosen path.
These travel businesses are transforming themselves, but what of traveler – and travel – itself? How can the three pillars be applied to how consumer-facing trends and preferences are transforming, in the context of a business-oriented transformation happening at the same time? More to come on this later.
Disclaimer: All opinions expressed are solely of contributing editor, Martin Cowen, and do not necessarily express the views of Amadeus.
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