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Online travel booking is one of the most successful business models arising from the Internet boom. Yatra.com is a company which has attained tremendous growth and popularity among individuals and enterprises. The competitive nature of the business makes them regularly review their technology infrastructure and try and adopt an out-of-the-box-solution for better customer service. Manish Amin, CTO, Yatra.com tells VOICE&DATA about the infrastructure at Yatra.com and puts a question mark on solution providers in light of various issues

How important is the technology infrastructure for your company?
Being an online travel company, Yatra has to ensure smooth operation of the website 24x7. Technology forms the backbone of the company and we have to be sure that it is scalable and affordable. Also, we believe that choosing the right infrastructure is key for a fast growing company.

How did the IT infrastructure evolve in your organization?
The IT infrastructure has to be modified in such a way that automated processes and workflow solutions continue to function. My past experience with a European online travel company provided considerable knowledge and expertise to carry out the responsibilities correctly. At Yatra, we have ensured to invest in technology from day one, which will allow us to serve 10 times our target.

Manish Amin CTO, Yatra.com

What is the present status of technology solutions deployed in the organization?
We launched a very dynamic site offering vast travel products and better user experience than other online travel agents. We have an in-house development team with vast experience in the travel and consumer sector. For better customer service, we deployed a CRM solution with CTI. The payment system for an online business is of utmost importance both from the business and customer angle. To deal with that, we started the interactive voice response payment system. In addition, we have also developed an in-house application for our call center to serve the customer better. On the long-term path, we intend to upgrade our technology every 2-3 years. Ours' is a very competitive market and this time period can decrease depending on the market condition, as we want to be ahead of what others are doing. At present, we are in the process of updating our website using the latest technologies.

What were the initial challenges in adoption of technology?
There were several challenges in the beginning, but the prime challenge was getting the technology at the right time and at the right price. Since the hardware had to be ordered from outside India, it was difficult to get things delivered on time. Due to all these reason, we needed to re-strategize our planning for rollout.

What security measures have you taken, and how secure is your network?
From day one, security was on top of the list as we deal with customer and payment information. In our organization, only limited people have access to information. Now, since we have rolled out IVR Payment collection, no one in the call center needs to ask customers their personal details like credit card number as the customer keys in the information directly. On the infrastructure side, we have had firewalls installed at the Web and application layer. All our data is backed up on daily basis and the record is kept offsite also.

How prepared is your IT infrastructure to handle man-made or natural disasters? What about data back up and DR plans?
We have replication servers hosted from our office in Gurgaon, although the load capacity is not the same as in the data center. We are in the process of setting up two more data centers, one in India and one outside. As mentioned earlier, we have a daily back up of data both on and offsite. Our long-term plan is to share the load of data over multiple data centers once they are set up.

Who is your preferred telecom service provider, and how satisfied are you with the services?
Primarily, Reliance, BSNL/MTNL, and Bharti are the service providers for our call center. On the satisfaction level, I guess they are all on the same level. We have issues with all of them from time to time. We also have 2 NLD circuits from our head office to the data center, one each from VSNL and Reliance. Apart from that, we also have a 2x2 Mb Internet connectivity from Reliance and Spectranet. There always seems to be some issue with the Internet which is why we have redundancy in place.

What are your expectations from your IT and telecom vendors?
Whenever a problem occurs, the biggest challenge for me is to resolve the issue as soon as possible. So we expect a quick turnaround time from the solution provider for complaints. Also, there is a lack of commitment on the delivery of equipment side. The equipment provider should give the correct timelines to deliver the ordered equipment. If solution providers are planning any exercise or activity, they should inform us in advance so that we can prepare better. It is also the duty of the solution provider to keep us informed about new technologies and innovation, which will be beneficial for us in terms of quality of service and cost.

Any future plans for the improvement of your existing IT and telecom infrastructure?
We are in the process of opening up Yatra Shops all over India. We have already opened shops in Gurgaon, Ahmedabad, and Bangalore. For this, we need full connectivity in place to have everyone operating from a central location. We are also adding some new functionalities on our website which will give control to the customer of their bookings. Apart from that, we are all set to have a data recovery site in place for website and the call center.

Kumar Anshuman
anshumank@cybermedia.co.in

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