Intelligent CIO Middle East Issue 51 | Page 59

CASE STUDY H How has Seera Group driven pioneering technology initiatives in the travel sector? As the region’s leading travel and tourism company, Seera Group is powered by a robust technology platform that covers the group’s different businesses including travel management (Elaa), consumer travel (Almosafer and Tajawal), Hajj and Umrah (Mawasim), destination management (Discover Saudi) and car rental (Lumi). Digitisation and leveraging next-generation technology are central to what we do. As the technology leader in the industry, we focus on understanding travel and industry trends through data analytics, create innovative solutions that enhance the customer experience and ensure seamless service delivery through our tech platforms. In fact, Almosafer, the flagship brand of our consumer travel unit has been the industry leader in serving as a one-stop shop for hotel, flight and holiday bookings, with more than 6.1 million app downloads in 2018 and over one million followers on social media. Similarly, Tajawal’s desktop and mobile booking services offer flights to thousands of destinations, 1.5 million hotels around the world and complete holiday packages – and has recorded over 2.2 million app downloads in 2018. In the last four years many partners have contributed in shaping our vision and helped us execute our transformation. BCG, for example, has done a good job in articulating how IT can be restructured to address growing business demands and ambitious goals. We also have been working with AWS and Accenture very closely in building and deploying various products and platforms throughout the years, they have been instrumental in that regard. Last but not least, SAP and Salesforce were helpful supporting our operational efficiency and customer centricity goals. We work with leading tech providers to drive our digital offering. Recently, we partnered with Salesforce as it is an integrated platform that offers us real-time insights on customer trends and converts them into genuine brand experiences that build loyalty. The informed insights we gain through Salesforce will be part of our competitive strength that will enable us to win more customers. Further, partnering with Amazon Web DIGITISATION AND LEVERAGING NEXT- GENERATION TECHNOLOGY ARE CENTRAL TO WHAT WE DO. Services (AWS), an Amazon.com company, was another milestone for us, allowing us to respond faster to customer needs. Recently, we also released a report titled Decoding the Saudi Arabian Travel & Tourism Industry in association with SkiftX, the largest intelligence platform providing media, insights and marketing for key sectors in the travel sector. The report offers a comprehensive understanding of travel trends and traveller preferences of the Kingdom. How do you evaluate new approaches for delivering value to customers? Our product team places emphasis on building platforms that enhance use of ease as well as assure simpler user experience and interface. Complementing this, our engineers www.intelligentcio.com INTELLIGENTCIO 59