• Investment World
• eWorld
• Brand Line
• Mentor
• Life
• Canvas
• Praxis
• Urban Pulse
• Brand Quest
• The New Manager

Stocks

• Quotes
• SE Diary
• Scoreboard
• Open-End Mutual Fund

Cross Currency

• Rates
  
  

Shipping

• Ports
  
  

Archives

• Yesterday
• Datewise
• Resources
• In Focus
• In Depth

Group Sites

• The Hindu
• The Hindu ePaper
• Business Line
• Business Line ePaper
• Sportstar
• Frontline
• The Hindu eBooks
• The Hindu Images

T.E. Raja Simhan

To offer end-to-end functionalities for hotels

Chennai , Jan. 9

Tata Consultancy Services Ltd (TCS) will launch its software product for the hospitality sector by March. It would be similar to the company's banking product (Quartz) and will offer end-to-end functionalities for hotels and later be integrated with the company's airlines solution, according to Mr G. Srinivasaraghavan, General Manager (Strategic Business Initiatives), TCS.

The product would offer an integrated package for guests, covering bookings in hotels/resorts, travel agency, cruise and car rentals.

It could also be integrated with TCS airline solution that works on common platforms such as Saber and Worldspan and Amadeus.

These global distribution systems distribute tickets on behalf of airlines, he said.

Product Launch

The product would be first launched in the US, and followed by UK and India. It would work on SAP, and was conceptualised in Spain with an independent service provider of SAP. "We would be one of the earliest players to offer a complete package — right from front desk to back end processing — for the hospitality sector," he told Business Line.

Mr Srinivasaraghavan said at present hotels do not capture the entire data of its customers. For instance, a large group with a chain of hotels in Chennai and across the country captures only the loyalty information of the customers and this alone is shared among the group hotels. However, other information such as customers' food habits or whether the person is a frequent traveller to a city is not shared due to lack of software, he said.

Share Information

However, the TCS product would capture every data of the customers and share the information with other group hotels. This would enable hotel in the group to provide customised services to customers wherever the person goes, he said. For TCS around 4 per cent of its revenue (consolidated $2.97 billion in the fiscal 2005-2006) was from travel and transportation.

This sector is annually growing at 70 per cent and TCS has around 50 clients in this sector.

Globally TCS has 2,200 people for travel and transportation business of which 500 people focussed on hospitality segment, he said.

Airline Innovation Lab

TCS is in discussion with three airlines to develop solutions and some of them are in the pilot stage. These solutions are being developed at the TCS Airline Innovation Lab in Chennai, he said.

TCS recently established the lab to incubate and develop time to market assets and tools in the areas of bar-coded boarding pass, common use self service solutions, RFID solutions for inventory in maintenance, repair and overhaul operations and baggage handling, iProtect (fare audit and revenue recovery tool) and airline messaging adaptors.

The lab, set up at a cost of Rs 4.5 crore, works as an extension research and development arm for various airlines. TCS has established alliances and relationships with technology and industry leaders such as SAP, IBM, IATA, SITA, Worldspan and Star Alliance. It also leverages its partnership with IBM to provide solutions for its airline customers, he said.

TCS has also set up a dedicated aircraft engineering and maintenance centre of excellence with SAP in Waldorf, Germany, and Chennai to provide global SAP support in customer projects. The centres also acts as a coaching zone and has a solution group with experienced/certified resources servicing global airlines, he said.

IT Spending

Mr Srinivasaraghavan said the annual IT spending on innovation by some airlines range from $2 million to $10 million. In addition, clients outsource their innovation to TCS, he said. The global spend on IT services in the travel and transportation sector was around $30 billion, he said.

More Stories on : Hotels | Software | Outlook | Tata Consultancy Services Ltd

Article E-Mail :: Comment :: Syndication :: Printer Friendly Page

Stories in this Section
More NFOs to hit market this year

Copyright © 2007, The Hindu Business Line. Republication or redissemination of the contents of this screen are expressly prohibited without the written consent of The Hindu Business Line