Hala Travel Management, a joint venture between Etihad and BCD Group, provides full consultative and travel management services to government and corporate clients. Managing travel for different businesses while having to consolidate data for its parent companies, required a unique set of Information Technology capabilities to streamline and automate their unique business workflows.
Nucore’s Agency Management Platform had the internal, add-on, and integration capabilities to establish a sustainable business environment for all client services, consolidated management of the TMC, and sourcing the data required by its parent companies.
HTM Information Technology demands had surpassed their Unit 4 ERP (formerly “Agresso”) system capabilities. Unit 4 ERP is a general purpose, cross-industry, platform. Travel Agency workflows, process automations and industry-specific reporting requirements were not prime architectural design parameters. As a result, HTM began struggling with functional deficiencies unique to the travel industry that were being continuously uncovered as the industry’s digital transformation continued to accelerate.
HTM had multiple IT shortfalls including, among other concerns, finalizing End-of-Day (EOD) reporting and uploading, error prone and time-consuming manual reconciliations (GDS BSP, bank, and providers), parent company IT incompatibilities, multiple user interfaces, limited MIS customization, and shallow report detail drill downs for problem resolutions.
A major drawback of the HTM system was its lack of automation of daily tasks requiring significant hours of manula labor. Preparing and finalizing HTM’s EOD reporting to its parent company was time consuming and error-prone. Automating accounts payables and receivables, as and other financial would streamline daily operations. (Nucore, being a real time financial system, allowed reporting to be sent at any time – EOD or otherwise.)
Invoice printing was limited to the main office requiring staff labor to process printing requests for individuals and coporate customers for all locations without remote printing capabilities. Further, remote operations used U.S. servers supported by BCD Group in the U.S. There were no Middle East market changes since the only changes and updates were for U.S.-based customers. Being located in the U.S.. also caoused time zone, day of week, and holiday non-syncrohnous time stamping.
Perhaps most important consequence of HTM’s IT was the inability to comply with its parent company’s security and IT policies due to HTM’s remote desktop architectural model.
The Nucore Agency Management Platform has been solely dedicated to the travel industry’s needs from its inception through multiple generations of upgrades and platform deployments. Today, Nucore remains 100% focused on only the travel industry and its ERP business requirements. Due to the highly competitive and rapidly changing travel industry, Nucore was the first technology partner to provide quarterly system upgrades, free of charge, to every client.
Selecting a technology provider is a mission critical decision. For more than a decade, Nucore Software Solutions has developed a client support infrastructure that rivals in-house DevOps. Nucore system analysts are on the front line of all sales, transition, and data migration processes. Nucore agile development provides innovative quarterly updates, and Nucore’s three-tiered customer service support, training, and maintenance is unparalleled in the industry.
The foundation of any ERP platform, as is any business, is its financial system. Nucore’s web-based Agency Management Platform is driven by TRAACS, a real-time accounting and financial control system. TRAACS also serves as an add-on and third-party integration hub. The modular architecture allows functional expansions developed by Nucore or third parties to be added to the platform with little or no business interruption. Without these capabilities, HTM would not have been able to optimize its client services, but it would also have been difficult, if not impossible, to streamline and automate the data connections with its founding companies.
During its rapid scaling ot revenues, client services were increased, operating costs reduced and staffing increases held ta a fraction of HTM’s revenue growth yielding a major profit margin increase.
Communications between HTM and its parent companies was reengineered, streamlined, and automated eliminating multi-system user interfaces, spreadsheet analytics, and dependencies on error-prone manual labor. Management was able to redefine HTM’s unique MIS needs and access reports on-demand, anytime, from anywhere. Operating efficiencies and management effectiveness improved. Skilled staff demands and associated operating costs were reduced, resulting in increased profit margins.
Nucore’s Agency Management Platform real time processing enabled HTM tto fully automate a batch mode upload for End-of-Day reporting to Etihad’s SAP ERP system.
Additionally, HTM now has access to automated Agency Debit Memo tracking and resolution, quarterly system upgrades, automated refunds, GSD EMD, RA, and Reissue data capture/collection, definitive user access, and Nucore functional add-ons such as GDS Mate (automated Fare finder, unused ticket manager, and seat finder tools), Traise (automated booking to invoice module), and TRAVTICS (travel business intelligence and analytic dashboards).
The HTM customized Agency Management Platform from Nucore will be continuously improve as HTM scales account revenue. HTM will no longer drift away from its IT capabilities. Nucore will continue to improve travel automation, expand operational and client features and functionality as well as support clients through future platform deployments, IATA changes, and technology advancements.
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