Thomas Cook drives digitalization through e-commerce platform

Thomas Cook wanted to leverage emerging technologies and the digital ecosystem to drive its sales and service.   The Open Source journey Thomas Cook embarked on a digital initiative and introduced its e-commerce platform to make its web usage more flexible, with a rich interface and easy access. They built a dynamic platform with full ownership of IP and source code. The whole IT team, from architect to developers, was recruited fresh from the campus to successfully launch the platform like a start-up. For undertaking this project, Thomas Cook adopted virtualization solution as the base. This was done for a smooth e-commerce experience and to easily meet the needs of a regular upsurge of demand for the company’s services. The platform provides the company the ability to ramp up the performance using reliable, high-availability hosting services. This bespoke application was developed right from scratch, completely on Open Source platform using collaboration tools, BPM, CMS, CRM, Mobility, Cloud, and BI technologies.  Single platform where all services converge This e-com initiative has driven the digital business of Thomas Cook and serves as a major channel of sales and customer service for the organization. It made it easy to find all essential information at one single place, instead of doing extensive multiple online searches on different inconsistent web sources.  According to the company, 20 percent of the holiday sales is contributed through this online channel, which has encouraged the organization to move closer towards the digital journey. Apart from easily booking hotels and flights, the platform also assists its customers with the help of travel guides, maps and weather reports from various countries. It provides a one-stop solution for all the travel needs, including a foreign exchange service with door-step delivery. “The digital platform is a major channel of sales and service for the organization. 20% of the holiday sales is contributed through this, which has given a lot of confidence to the organization to move towards the digital journey,” said Amit Madhan, President and Head, IT & Shared Services, ‎Thomas Cook India.  The company’s e-commerce platform has API integrations with airline systems, global distribution system, hotel bed suppliers, CRM, applications of leisure travel, visa and foreign exchange. It is a scalable platform to support all subsidiaries of the company like SOTC and TC Tours. With the availability of hundreds of hotels and airlines, Thomas Cook supports its customers through each stage of the travel purchasing process.