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Travel woes
The meteoric rise of cloud to the very top of corporate strategic agenda underscores the belief that the future of computing lies on cloud.
This is true of the travel, transportation and hospitality industry as well. Players in this sector are well aware of the urgent need to adopt cloud to realize the digital opportunity. However, the challenges in this industry are different from the others. There are companies of various sizes; they need to operate in coordination with other players in the industry; the customer journey involves numerous touchpoints; and customer-centricity is key not just to business success, but even survival. In other words, the business processes in the travel and hospitality industry are markedly different from those in the others.
Moving to cloud for players in the industry is not an easy decision. First, they have to assess their cloud readiness. There’s a tendency to gauge cloud readiness from an IT-only perspective which can lead to costly misjudgments and impact the business in the longer run. What is needed is a holistic appraisal based on business, data and technology dimensions.
Holistic view
That is where a cloud propensity model can prove to be useful. It captures the holistic business process view through a thorough assessment of the entire business and sub-business process environment.
It provides a framework to assess the current landscape and clearly identify where the company currently stands vis-à-vis industry benchmarks.
By tracking the business process maturity on three key dimensions of business, data and technology, the cloud propensity model provides a much-needed industry view of cloud adoption as well as a critical, comparative assessment to pinpoint deviations from industry standards. This model can save months of effort during the assessment phase, which in turn helps prioritize and sequence the business processes for cloud adoption.
The propensity model
The cloud propensity model for the travel and hospitality industry tracks more than 30 attributes across the business, data and technology dimensions through a three-step process.
Step 1: Assess the enterprise’s key business process using comparative analysis with industry-specific cloud business propensity model.
Step 2: Define reference architectures and patterns for cloud migration.
Step 3: Select accelerators to speed up the cloud adoption journey.
The assessment based on the propensity model offer key insights into cloud migration priorities. The business processes are slotted into three buckets.
60-100% propensity: High level of cloud readiness with the business processes having established market solutions. These processes would be first in line for cloud adoption.
45-60% propensity: Mixed levels of readiness, with very few matured solutions available on cloud. These business processes will take a little longer to migrated.
Less than 45% propensity: Low business propensity for cloud, mainly due to legacy and mainframe technologies. These business processes will take three to four years to move to cloud, and will initially reside in the organization’s data center.
Assessment Framework
A cloud readiness assessment based on the propensity model, exposes outdated business functions
It does not align with industry standards, and helps enterprises focus first on correcting misaligned functions, which ensures long-term health and success on the cloud. It provides:
An excellent framework to ascertain the industry standards in cloud adoption
A comparative study with deviations from industry benchmarks identified
Understanding of business, data and technology dimensions of all business processes
TCS, along with Amazon Web Services (AWS), has created several reference architectures and accelerators to help companies close the gaps identified by the propensity model. TCS consultants help travel and hospitality companies differentiate their capabilities on cloud. Through our Digital Value Broker framework, coupled with design thinking-led creative problem solving, we partner with companies as they navigate the challenges of cloud adoption and hybrid IT strategy across the cloud life cycle. Our tools such as business propensity benchmarks, cloud value economics assessment, and cloud value estimator models are tailored for different travel, transportation and hospitality segments.
We further extend the technology value chain for the travel industry by harnessing next generation technologies such as blockchain, IoT and edge, workloads on AWS. TCS has worked with a wide gamut of players in the industry, including 35 airline companies and two major airline alliances, seven major logistic providers, 11 railway customers, 10 seaports, five postal organizations, five leading hotel chains and three car rental companies to adopt the next wave of digital technologies
Better CX
By moving to AWS cloud, several of our clients have been able to improve operational efficiencies and enhance the customer experience
The pivotal aspects of running businesses in disruptive conditions. TCS assists enterprises adopt AWS-native services, enabling them to respond quickly to the ever-changing market dynamics through innovation. We believe innovations, born out of unsettling global conditions, will impact and improve the way we travel, live and entertain ourselves in the years ahead.
Read more on how Star Alliance is reinventing itself with the power of AWS cloud here.
