RHYTHM - The SOTC Internal Newsletter December, 2016
Dear Colleagues,

As we turn the page on 2016 and begin a new chapter, I'd like to take a few moments to applaud you all for your dedication and commitment to the organization and to the business. I am personally very proud of the success that Business Travel has witnessed during 2016. The Last Quarter in particular has been a high pressure one in terms of targets. Thank you for the tremendous efforts that each of you have put in to keep in line with the year’s budget.
We will hit our 2016 targets thanks to the hard work that the Sales team has done - bringing in some key wins. I am extremely happy that we have delivered business excellence through some of the accounts we won within the very first year of trading and these have come in line with the expectations that we had for them.

It is a matter of pride for me to affirm that Sonic 2.0 has now firmly established itself as a leader in the marketplace. Some other leading corporates and competitors have now started looking at benchmarking their products with Sonic 2.0 and the customer response that we received is very encouraging. Our large customers such as Bharati Airtel and Star have completely migrated to our Sonic Module.

We embarked on a journey of centralizing the entire account payable organization at SOTC Business Travel and today our team has achieved a high level of efficiency.

Account Centralization was one of the new moves that we introduced and I'm happy to witness how stable established and successful this initiative has turned to be. All the processes which were managed at multiple locations have now seamlessly been brought together and we are now seeing enhanced productivity and sales efficiency. I would like to recognize and applaud the hard work this team has done.

To lower the credit risk in the market we have embarked on a very ambitious programme in partnership with American Express BTA and Visa CTA – that of moving customers onto the card platform. The client management and sales teams have made significant progress in this journey. Much of the groundwork has already been laid to showcase a significantly improved card portfolio for 2017.

Our Corporate Cars initiative has also been a great success. My congratulations to the team behind this success.

I am proud to announce that for the first time ever the Sales organisation has delivered over Rs. 100 crores of traded volume in new sales wins during the year. This is a significant achievement, setting a strong base for future growth.

We will continue to invest to a marked extent in technology, in order to make our processes easier and more efficient, as well as to significantly enhance the consumer experience. As part of this endeavor, SOTC Business Travel will be one of Sabre’s global launch customers for their work space 3.0.

An exciting launch in Quarter 1 of 2017 is that of CRM. This launch will coincide with a new improved Sonic 3.0.

A Fare Quotation App will also be introduced and this will reduce the time taken and enhance the quality of the process. Thus, all our Technology investments will drive and improve the business tremendously in 2017.

We are at the end of the contractual agreement with various airlines. I urge you to continue to keep the focus on our preferred suppliers/ airlines as this helps us drive better GOPS.

2015 was a very difficult year for Business Travel, but I would like to thank the team for really working their hearts out to deliver a brilliant performance in 2016. 2017 will surely be a rewarding year thanks to the hard work and perseverance shown by each one of you. I'm sure the coming year will bring both challenges and great rewards.

I wish you and your families much health and happiness this holiday season.

Together, let's look forward to ushering in an even brighter 2017.
Best wishes,

Manoj Chacko,
CEO - SOTC Business Travel
Technology Advances for Business Travel
 
The Business Travel team has introduced a series of innovations and developments on SOTC's technology front, which will increase productivity, be more user friendly, promote time optimization and enhance the customer experience. These include:

• A renewed contract with Sabre a leading global player in GDS. As per this renewed contract, the Business Travel team will be delighting more and more customers with the new look of Sabre’s work space. SOTC will be the first to test the product and get a look and feel of the new revamped, upgraded look. The company is the first organisation across India to roll-out the new implementation, which has additional features like a brand new, user-friendly workspace and new and better macros, which give immense productivity benefit and enhance user delight.

• SOTC has introduced a new pre-trip fare optimizer and post-trip fare optimizer to help customers find the cheapest fare.

• Business Travel has also introduced CRM, which will bring tremendous productivity and quality benefits to the business.

In addition, the Business Travel team is gearing up to launch SONIC 3.0. - a new and improved version of its successful cloud-based corporate travel booking tool SONIC 2.2, which provides an end-to-end technology suite encompassing an advanced internet booking engine facility using multiple sources of fares and availability, combined with comprehensive reporting and management capabilities. Powered by a fare pricing engine, ensuring the speediest, lowest and most accurate fares, Sonic 3.0 aims to offer clients integrated solutions individually tailored to a company's corporate culture and travel program needs. The system is PCI-DSS compliant and has seamless integration with the invoicing system, a breakthrough in its kind.
Credit Control Team: Playing a Vital Role
 
The 48-member Credit Control team, which is a part of Business Travel Division, handles the AR (Accounts Receivables) Management (collections) of the company. Team members are deployed across India at various branches.

The team's KRA includes submission of invoices as per agreed time lines, following up on payments, centralized charging of credit card transactions, handling industry best practices in BTA, centralized COD desk outstanding monitoring & collections, clearing of dues by the outstanding invoices with the payments collected, providing various reports, MIS & JN Tax statements of different periodicity, debt reconciliations with customers, attending reviews, and reverting to queries from both Internal and external customers. Also under its purview are DSO Management, ensuring reduction of bad debts and reduction in +120 provisions, ensuring compliance & # Integrity, playing a key role when implementing processes for new customers, providing customer debts status to the management, etc.

The Credit Control Team plays a vital role in the business as this team completes every business transaction by collecting the payment against every invoice raised for the different services provided by the company.

Team members not only collect dues but also safeguard the assets of the company which are in the name of Sundry Debtors by monitoring the same and updating their status to the Management on a regular basis.

The team’s many achievements include record high-volume collections, reaching lowest provisions and reaching lowest DSO in 2016 in different months.

Pramod Menon
Senior General Manager – Credit Control
Business Travel, SOTC Travel Services Pvt. Ltd.
2016 Vision, Mission & Achievements of Chennai Branch
 
After the flood calamity last year, SOTC's 40-member Chennai Branch team started the year 2016 with limited sales. Undaunted, Michael Praveen , Business Head - Tamil Nadu and Telangana, said that SOTC Chennai was going to be Number One in its market year-end. This seemed to be such an impossible goal that everyone laughed, including his own team.

He outlined the Vision and Mission of 2016 for Chennai - his plan being to increase business by focusing on service delivery and new client acquisition and is happy to report that the Chennai team kept moving forward slowly and steadily, notching up plenty of achievements through the months.

The teams 'never give up' attitude resulted in SOTC signing a number of prestigious new contracts. They took service delivery to the next level, so much so that their existing customers referred other corporates to them.

Ongoing training inputs for the Chennai team on topics like leadership, customer focus, service delivery, managing change and better operational efficiency contributed towards enhancing customer confidence, countering threats to accounts and winning appreciation.

Throughout Michael Praveen led through example - never taking leave, personally handling large bookings and winning accounts, conducting numerous training sessions for his team and even preventing a large fraud!

The team's sustained efforts paid off soon as they started setting benchmark sales figures and service delivery levels in Chennai, didn't lose a single customer during 2016 and created fear in the minds of competitors thanks to quick and consistent growth.

"When I said SOTC Chennai Branch would be Number One by the end of 2016 all laughed, when I said, SOTC's service delivery could never be matched, again they laughed. But now after all the achievements at Chennai Branch, it's my turn to laugh, as well as continue to keep the SOTC flag flying high in the sky! I strongly believed that going through pain will deliver results and working really hard will definitely bring in success!"

Michael Praveen
Business Head – Tamil Nadu and Telangana
In a candid interview, Avani Shah shares her growth experience at SOTC-Business Travel
 
What has your deepest learning been with handling your work/project?
As my mom says, "We cannot change our yesterday, it's past and gone. But we have control over our tomorrow, so plan and live!"

Describe your proudest moments and achievements.
Year 2016 has been a year of achievement. My hands have been full - handling 24 corporate clients. I had an opportunity to speak at the MD's Forum and to attend MDP 2016. I also got a chance to serve one of our most prestigious clients - Star India.

What were the challenges you faced along the way?
Handling a large number of clients kept me really busy. Each client is totally different in nature and requirements, but delivering excellent service to all was the key focus.

In September my Business Head asked me to take over the Star India account and my first thought was: "Oh my God!" but within a week I somehow managed to hand over all other accounts to my co-managers and start handling Star India.

What/ who has been your support system?
A revamped CXO desk, having support from Abdul Khan and Mohd. Imran Chaudhari 24X7, along with lots of synchronization, the will to deliver and focusing on the whole Star travel desk team helping the customer to experience the best of SOTC's Business Travel have helped support me in my endeavours.

Your success mantra?
I believe in loving what you do and the rest follows. Our team motto is: "Team Work makes the Dream Work".

Avani Shah
Manager - Operations
Hyderabad Team Will Not Give Up!
 
Michael Praveen took over as Business Head for Hyderabad on June 10, 2016, when total business sales was not very high. However, he motivated the team and focused on achieving the maximum from the minimum resource available. Thanks to excellent service delivery the Hyderabad team grew the business by over a third and bagged two large new corporate accounts within the span of five months - despite no local sales manager, no local client manager, no visa desk and no leave replacement!

"Excellent service delivery became our advertisement," affirms Michael. It has taken us ahead and won us good accounts."
Action-packed Football Match
 
The opportunity for the SOTC team to play in the Futsal Football Tournament hosted by Air India was an exciting one indeed!

The SOTC team members, clad in t-shirts sporting the company's logo, reported at the venue on November 19, 2016. Each of them put in their best efforts in the SOTC v/s Air India match, but unfortunately our team lost this game by a single goal (3-4). However it was a great experience and both participants and spectators enjoyed it immensely.

Ahmad, Ajaz
Deputy Manager - Finance, Business Travel
 
Editorial: Bineeta Mehta, Nishant Kolgaonkar, Neha D'Cunha.
Contributors: Brijesh Modi, Hema Byrappa, Manoj Chacko, Pallavi Rai Marwah, Shrijani Ravi, Sudhansu Karmokar, Shirley Joseph, Zarine Mathias
Layout: Yogesh Wakkar.
Web: Rohit Patil.