Sabre's strategy for the future

Just outside the Uruguayan capital of Montevideo along pot-holed roads and amidst farmland is a business estate. One of the most prominent buildings there is Sabre Holdings' Global Customer Support Center.
It seems an odd place for a sharp, multi-million pound IT company to build such an integral part of its business. But says Sam Gilliland, chairman and ceo, it epitomises how his company is developing.
In an interview with BTE, Mr Gilliland and Tom Klein, executive vp and president of Sabre Travel Network and Sabre Airline Solutions, laid out a four point strategy for the company's growth. First of which was acquiring a global workforce – which was where Montevideo came in.
Out of a workforce of 853, 94% are Uruguayan with the rest coming for North America, Europe and other South American countries.
Between them they speak 15 languages and offer support and solutions to Sabre agents and customers in 45 countries. In Europe alone they deal with 20,000 customers. All speak at least two languages and often a few more. Sabre chose Uruguay because of its "excellent" education system.
But the centre which opened in 2004 and is run by Sabre vp Yannis Karmis, does more than just help with agents' problems. Among the staff are accountants, expert analysts on pricing, some of whom have PhDs in maths and software support experts. These are, Mr Gilliland said, people who in time will move into new jobs in the company.
The second prong of the strategy was to "differentiate" the company. "There are great opportunities on the product side but it is not so much the individual features but the whole end to end process that interests us," Mr Klein said.
"It is not about selling an air ticket or booking a hotel room buy increasingly corporates are looking to us, to Getthere –  it is about booking, reconciliation, getting data and looking to drive  value."
He gave as an example Sabre's Traveller Data and Security Suite and the travel manager's increasing involvement in travellers' security. "So we have to look at how we can make it easier for the travel manager to get this data. You have to be able to go in and get this data wherever the travellers are, whichever cities they are in and you have to do it very quickly," Mr Klein said. 
The aim here, Mr Gilliland said, was to drive costs. "I think you will see us increasingly drive measurable costs out of the end to end process. We have customers for whom every penny, every 50 cents matters and we need to be more responsive on that.
"We need to be able to benchmark and measure this and we are now much more focused on this than in the past," he said.
The third element is pricing - hence the maths experts in Montevideo. The analysis of pricing and the subsequent benchmarking is becoming increasingly important for Sabre. "We have spent a lot of time on pricing and shopping," said Mr Klein. "We have to find both the best trip and the lowest fare for the corporates. There is a lot of leverage in finding the lowest fare. We feel we are doing a very good job on this." 
The final strand of the Sabre strategy is to focus more on suppliers. "We want suppliers to leverage our network. We have got a good presence in the Americas, Asia and in key European markets. 
"We can see growth in the Middle East and Eastern Europe, a small market but growing
quite a bit. But our sights are on Western Europe. We want a greater presence there and get into markets where we are not strong. We are doing this through increasing the number of hotels on our systems and through our airline products," Mr Klein said.
These are two crucial areas for any GDS. They, especially in Europe, need more hotels on their systems while airlines are looking to see their differentiated fares presented in a clear way.
But airlines, like BA, are actively encouraging travellers to book through their direct websites. This, as Mr Klein acknowledges, is an indication that buyer behaviour is changing. The consequence is that for GDSs, the airline market is smaller than it was, although he says there are signs that the drop is levelling off in America.
But both executives acknowledge that Sabre has to change to accommodate this shift. "We need to be vigilant about rates outside the GDS. We can not assume that customers are getting the best rates.
"GDSs in the past have been air-centric. We are trying to simplify that. There is a need to turn to other areas," Mr Gilliland said.