Northstar

PEOPLE www.travelweeklyweb.com A chat with… Cheong Sui Hunn General manager, Abacus Travel Systems Pte Ltd, Singapore As Singapore's leading provider of travel solutions and services, Abacus Travel Systems empowers travel agents and the travel fraternity to make informed decisions in every facet of the travel industry. We speak with general manager Cheong Sui Hunn, to find out what it's like to oversee the organisation that is constantly innovating and introducing new-solutions to ensure that the Asia-Pacific's travel industry remains connected and enabled. Q: Can you tell us more about your role here as the country GM at Abacus Travel Systems? What's a normal day like? A: I joined Abacus in 1989, the first batch of pioneers here, and was then asked to set up the HR, Finance and Administrative departments here so I grew over the years with Abacus. In April 2011, I took on the GM role. It's been a rewarding journey. My role now is to build the business, engage more business partners both locally and in the region. I spend much of my time on customer engagement, exploring how we can further assist our customers to increase their procuctivity and business efficiency. Q: Abacus is known for being the backbone in IT solutions for travel agents, how do you motivate the different divisions here at Abacus, to keep up with the demands in today's travel and tourism landscape? A: Human talent development is important to Abacus. We support our clients in terms of IT, services and even management consultancy work. Therefore, I constantly nurture my people in three areas. Firstly, the people skills area: building relationships, networking and working with partners. Then there is the IT skill. Our solutions that go out in the market have to be best of the class, adopting the latest technology so our people have to know what's the latest and how to adopt it and transform the technology into a workable solution for our customers. Thirdly, there is the business skill. You have to see what the travel agencies need in the long haul. The economics of costs, doing business is a challenge because you do not know which generation of consumers will be the niche of the growing pie. Therefore we have to teach our people that business trends and translate them into solutions and products that can help the travel agencies grow their business. 10 | ■ TRAVELWEEKLY ASIA | AUGUST 2013 Q: From automated tools to assist travel bookings, to back-end system for agents and then there's the mobile solutions, the range of Abacus offerings are varied but focused. Yet, when we mention GDS for example, the first thing that the mind relates to is that of flight bookings or ticketing, perhaps from the whole history and derivation of the system itself. What does Abacus do to assist travel agents in selling or promoting more of the travel inventory? A: Like you've mentioned, we have tools in all areas. We have the productivity tools, online tools, business management like the back office system and the travel intelligence system. For example, as in the case of the recent airline crash, whoever gave the first response or information to the travel agents will have that edge. At Abacus, we have the pre-trip and post-trip report, and with Abacus Travellntelligence, travel agents are able to track where customers are and evacuation operations could start immediately. Of course we also have the customer service tools and we have them online too. There are so many areas that we touch upon and there are so many travel agencies that we deal with. We support and provide integrated solutions for the customers. We also orchestrate the whole workflow based on the clients' needs and put in the required solutions accordingly. Q: What's the top, highly used Abacus solution in Singapore? A: That will be the Abacus WorkSpace. As of today, I just approved 2,000 licenses for this solution. This is a new platform launched earlier this year. Year on year, our licenses has grown by seven per cent and that's because this is the next generation point-ofsale system that helps automate the work processes for our customers for improved productivity. Q: I understand that the mobile platforms for corporate travel solutions like TripIt Plan has been useful, since it's developed on HTML5 platform. How's the take-up rate like for Abacus' mobile solutions, so far? A: For mobile, the take-up rate will be 12 per cent, year on year. That is a very good indication of a high sales rate. For the first half of this year, the take-up rate was actually 50 per cent. What we have gathered is that travel agents prefer to use their mobile to service their clients particularly after office hours, whereas during work time, they would prefer to do so via their workstations. In terms of a disaster, when all lines are down, for example, they can still service their customers. Situations like the haze for instance, where you couldn't head to the office, travel agents can still access their workthrough this mobile platform for business continuity. Essentially, the Abacus Mobility Suite complement the other productivity tools that are readily available and used by the travel agents. Q: What would be the most challenging task that you've had to undertake as the GM of Abacus Singapore? A: I think people relationship and the nurturing of people will always be a great challenge to individuals who are running an organisation. If you manage to retain the best people, you get the best team and your company will do well. Even if you have the best product, without the best team, your business cannot excel. www.travelweeklyweb.com

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