Flight Centre Travel Group is one of the world’s largest travel companies, having grown from a single Australian store in 1982 to now turning over $13.5 billion with 15,000 staff and some 2,500 stores globally.
What do you look for in a partner?
It’s the ability to be flexible, to roll with the punches and be agile, and to really offer value above and beyond. They have to be keeping up with what’s going on, which in the partner space is a very interesting challenge. In this world of commoditisation and continuous evolution and change, we’ve got to have an ecosystem of partners who are able to come along for the ride.
There are guys who have really stepped up in terms of how they engage – pre-empting some of the value you are looking for – but who struggle with execution. Then there are guys who do really well on the execution, but struggle with evolution and changing offerings to the market. There is a bit of a gap between the two.
How is your use of IT providers changing?
We see ourselves making much greater use of partners in our operating environment. We look at partners the same way we look at our operating stack. If it is a commodity, that is something we put out into a competitive environment to drive price, choice and performance. We have done that in the telco space, where we have disaggregated the telco function so that rather than having one vendor in there, we have multiple vendors working within a performance-based environment.
If they are performing really well, chances are we will give them more business. If they are not performing well chances are they will lose business. And typically that is how our contracts are now set up and standardised, and pretty much simplified with a ‘three strikes and you’re out’ model.
How does that change the relationship between Flight Centre and its partners?
It gives us the freedom to change. Partners feel like they are in a constant selling mode, as opposed to signing a big contract for five years and saying ‘see you later’. We now have short-term contracts and that has driven the price down, because there is a lot more competition.
Our relationships are about actively trading with them day in and day out, and they are always coming to us to try to sell to us. When you have a partner or vendor tell you they are uncomfortable with something you are doing, that tends to indicate you are on the right path.
Is it just about price?
We range from commodity-type relationships through to more strategic partners. The attributes of those are someone who is a bit more flexible and a bit more agile, and who challenges us in terms of whether we are doing the right thing. They provoke a bit of thought, and connect us to other opportunities and people. The things we work on with them are ‘above-the-line’ thinking. We are starting to talk with our strategic partners about what we can do together to create some sense of disruption or differentiation in the marketplace.
RESUME
- Feb 08 – present Group CIO, Flight Centre Travel Group
- Apr 04 – Feb 08 Global IT operations leader, Flight Centre
- May 01 – Apr 04 Software development manager, GBST
- 1996– 01 Various roles, up to director of transport solutions, Mincom
- 1988 – Nov 91 Analyst/programmer, Telstra
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