TRAVIX INTERNATIONAL
then for the most part built it from the ground up .” A major challenge that struck during the transformation was in trying to integrate truly global requirements into a single system . One of the platforms had been built from the ground up to suit the North American market : “ The US business model for travel is very different ; they had a lot of complex functionality and capabilities that we don ’ t necessarily use in Europe ,” McDonald says , “ so when we had to migrate their platform – the hardest platform we had to work with – the stakeholders were managed very carefully so we didn ’ t miss anything . They were relatively happy with what they had and didn ’ t want to lose anything , but at the same time wanted to take advantage of everything they ’ d get on the new platform .”
Once the platforms were securely consolidated , the focus turned to tooling in order to streamline each smaller process . Teams were having to use multiple systems for every job , so if somebody in Amsterdam was working on the US or Asian site , they would require different tools for each one .
“ Having to learn systems in triplicate or more lowers operational efficiency , and with that , once you smooth it down to a single platform it ’ s much easier for you to measure the success of the changes you ’ re implementing ,” McDonald says . “ The finance operations team went from using three different accounting packages and back office processes to a single platform , which means we can actually
160 April 2017