Companies in the Travel and Transportation industry are highly vulnerable to changing market conditions. Rising fuel prices, border restrictions, or global disasters of any kind can destroy the bottom line of even the best-performing business. These situations are largely unpredictable, but there are ways to mitigate the risk. One of these ways is technological innovation.As it is in most industries, today the company with the best tech often wins. This means fundamental infrastructure, like systems for fleet management or online marketplaces for airline travelers—but new technology offers plenty more opportunities. The rise of AI and machine learning will create new ways to manage operations, solve issues, and even predict risky market fluctuations.

In this industry, there can’t be one system to manage everything. It’s not feasible, and it’s not even possible. All companies are a part of a deep, complex, interconnected network of businesses ranging from huge to tiny. This means that you need a lot of business savvy to succeed here, but also that you need an adaptable, future-proof tech infrastructure to stay in the game.Many leading companies demonstrate how to use technology to improve the bottom line. You’ve probably heard of the famous “never turn left” rule at the transportation giant, UPS. It seems like a small thing, but it actually saves huge amounts of money and makes everyday work safer for the huge global army of UPS drivers. But it’s not like they just told their drivers to never turn left. UPS implemented a complex system that calculates the best routes based on the condition to favor right turns.Then there’s everyone’s favorite, Amazon. Perhaps it’s silly to even mention them because no company can match their scale and market coverage. Transportation is just a part of their operations, but they’re still making plenty of innovations in this area. Delivery by drone or same-day delivery are prime (pun intended) examples of this. All of this is made possible thanks to their ingenious use of technology.

The industry is vast, and there is a lot of different technology that makes it all tick like clockwork, for example:

• Booking systems
• Travel operations management software
• Customer experience suites
• Personalization systems
• Online marketplaces
• Reservation
• Loyalty programs
• Fleet management systems
• Operation support applications.

Still, this is just scratching the surface. There’s a lot more technology that enables smooth operations and keeps customers, as well as employees, satisfied.

It’s not enough to just build a great system or application to gain a competitive advantage. Technology in this industry should be:

• Adaptable,
• Integration friendly,
• Future-proof,
• Easy to maintain.

Due to the vulnerable nature of the industry, tech should also be cost-effective. There are already a lot of risks, so experimenting too much with costly, unpredictable technology can have poor consequences. It’s good to maintain a mix of tried and tested solutions and use bleeding-edge, experimental tools in places where risk is relatively low.  If you’re looking for a technology provider to help you make the right decisions and drive innovation in your company, contact us and tell us about your ideas.