BR Interview. Going places: local firm dcs plus takes travel tech global

One of the most successful Romanian businesses internationally, dcs plus, a company designing and developing IT solutions for the travel and tourism industry, has opened three new offices in key markets Dubai, Singapore and Sao Paolo, while New York is also on the cards by the end of 2018. BR talked to Andrei Savin, head of the global sales & partner network, and found out more about dcs plus’s plans and the markets it is operating on.

By Romanita Oprea

How much has dcs plus changed and developed in the last two years?

We’ve been quite busy in the last two years and just to give you a glimpse of what we’ve been up to lately, I’ll start with the opening of the three local offices in Dubai, Singapore and Sao Paolo, all key regions across the world, full of opportunities and with an increased appetite for scalable travel technology. We’ve changed our HQ office building, we have grown our team by bringing on board more than 100 new employees, taken dcs plus to new markets such as Singapore, Iceland and even Papua New Guinea and been travelling around the world while partnering with high-profile industry events.

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In the last few years, the travel industry has become overwhelming in its dimensions, diversity and complexity. There are a lot of players in this highly fragmented market, but we are the only one that offers a full stack of enterprise grade solutions addressing the needs of all types of travel companies: TMCs (Travel Management Companies), DMCs (Destination Management Companies), tour operators, OTAs (Online Travel Agencies) PCOs etc.

How has 2018 started and what are the main plans and goals for this year?

We started full speed ahead. 2018 is all about strengthening our presence in existing markets and continuing with our international expansion. One of our most important goals was to open dcs plus offices in key regions. APAC (Asia-Pacific) and LATAM (Latin America) are already on the map, and the US will be the next one. Besides that, we have enrolled in several strategic partnerships with leading travel management companies to drive innovation, speed and efficiency and to better serve and support their global networks of travel agencies.

What about for the near future?

We’ll keep up our accelerated growth. The company, regardless of the market on which we operate, will always focus on developing solutions for the travel vertical. What keeps us wanting more is that we are not just a technology company. We are a motivated team whose mission is to understand the challenges of the travel chain and, from there, to seek solutions. We have grown and enabled major partners around the world by doing so, aiming for a long-term relationship. This is the dcs plus DNA.

You’ve opened offices in Singapore and Sao Paulo. Why particularly these locations?

It started when we noticed a lot of business enquiries coming our way from both regions and while all this came as a reassurance of the quality of our work, we understood that there was a need for enterprise travel software in these two areas. Due to the absolute size of the industry there, these regions will be a major catalyst of growth. So, both Singapore and Sao Paolo came as a natural choice to house the dcs plus regional operations. After all, the establishment of these new offices will enable the scaling of the business and will help in supporting the rapidly expanding customer base in those regions.

How long did it take to set everything in place and what will each office offer?

It was a fast-track process. Once we saw the opportunities presented, we acted upon them. For example, in Singapore’s case, the entire endeavor took us around four months from location scouting, to putting all the paperwork in order and opening the office for business.

In terms of role, all local offices act as regional headquarters of the company, with a focus on business development and support. Being (physically) present helps us to better understand the market particularities, strengthens our commitment to our clients and vouches for the long-term partnerships we already have in those markets.

What are Singapore’s market’s particularities? What about Sao Paulo’s?

Asia-Pacific consists of some of the economies that have flourished most in recent years, thanks to the expansion of the middle class and the increasing affordability and willingness to travel, particularly intra-regionally. Industry wise, APAC is one of the world’s fastest growing travel regions in numbers, an early adopter when it comes to technology to rely on (from an agency perspective) and with mobile-first travelers.

For Latin America we expect 2018 to be a year of evolution, as the result of rapid technological, economic, political and social change. LATAM is a highly fragmented market with numerous currencies, cultures, languages and business operating environments. This might make harvesting the full opportunity of the region a real challenge but as a whole, the region also offers big gains for technology providers that are up for it. Complexity brings opportunity to online and travel tech companies, as local suppliers expand throughout the region and look for new partners.

What are dcs plus’s most successful products and services and why?

Our technology is designed to anticipate any scenario and respond to any situation, both online and offline. The product vision is simple and cut-through: offer an enterprise-grade, business critical end-to-end solution. So, we created all dcs plus products interconnected. This means that you can manage your sales process and generate any report in TINA, you can create and manage your own inventory in AIDA, you can aggregate and distribute travel content from your own inventory as well as GDS’s and Wholesalers in IRIX. You can use TRIP to sell all this content to your online customers and keep your customers close after the initial purchase in TravList.

Our flagship product is TINA, one of the world’s most advanced web-based ERP systems for the travel industry. Actually, I say that TINA is the only real ERP specially designed for travel. Think about it as the software translation of the travel agent’s day-to-day operations able to accommodate virtually any business model, to increase its efficiency and to remodel it to achieve the desired results.

How do you innovate? What is your process?

We are engineers. We are computer scientists. We are techies. But most importantly, we are listeners. We like to keep things simple and on point. This means we take one process, one need, one problem, and we turn it on all sides until we find a better way to do it.

Travel is an inherently human industry; it exists to enable people to experience new parts of the physical world. This means that by paying attention to the needs of our customers we grow together. If you combine that with the multitude of markets we’re present in, you’ve got a recipe for success.

How much of a challenge or a chance was the fact that you came into this world from Romania?

I’d say it was part challenge, part chance. Some markets are very reluctant to work with Romanian companies, but being a global company now, we overcame this. By now it is clear that Romania has a world acknowledged talent pool when it comes to technology. But it wasn’t always the same. When we started, working in IT wasn’t so much of a glorified occupation and that helped us a lot. There wasn’t a lot of jobs available out there and we had plenty of talented programmers to choose from. Today the market has changed a lot, with Romania becoming a world-renowned IT talent pool provider and a stamp of approval of the quality of our work.

How much did the investors that believed in you (Earlybird and Credo Ventures) count in your evolution and expansion worldwide and how has each of them contributed to your success?

We did not actively look for an investor, but ever since 2007 we were approached by various investment funds and companies. We were never looking for capital; we were always profitable and grew and doubled our business every year. But, as engineers, we’re curious by nature and we wanted to test and see what these companies interested in us had to offer, apart from financing.

Earlybird’s funding helped us grow our team, expand and diversify the products in our portfolio, so that we could target a more varied segment of players in this industry.

Adding Credo Ventures investment, we got the support to expand our footprint more rapidly in new markets and allow us to develop and provide innovative products and services to more companies than ever before.

How did you decide to take investments from them and why particularly at that time?

Earlybird approached us in a very “non-VC way”. Before talking about figures, we spent nearly half a year talking about ideas, concepts and business models. We started talking about figures only after we realized we liked each other and had similar business philosophies.

Now, with two major VCs behind us, we can proudly state that we share a common business vision, based on stable and long-term growth and development.

What are the main trends in the industry and how do they reflect on dcs plus’s activity?

The advent of technology is fostering a change in the travel and tourism industry. Consequently, travel companies are adopting various technologies to improve operational efficiencies and meet customers’ expectations. For us, it is crucial to always be in sync with our customers and make their operations run smoothly while offering reliable, efficient and cost-effective travel software solutions.

About dcs plus

dcs plus is a global leading company, designing and developing IT solutions for the travel and tourism industry. Founded in 2002, it operates worldwide, offering adaptable, cutting-edge resources and tools for hundreds of travel and tourism professionals. The company says it is focused on delivering innovation and, through its solutions, aims to provide excellence to travel industry players, regardless of size, business model or market.

The solutions offered by dcs plus translate into “stability and boosted efficiency for the most demanding leaders inside the industry”. Its complete range of business critical end-to-end solutions – TINA, AIDA, IRIX, TRIP and TravList – are used by major travel agencies in more than 45 markets: Algeria, Argentina, Australia, Bulgaria, Canada, China, Colombia, Cyprus, Czech Republic, Dominican Republic, Ecuador, Egypt, Estonia, France, Georgia, Hungary, India, Iran, Israel, Italy, Kuwait, Latvia, Lebanon, Lithuania, Nigeria, Panama, Peru, Poland, Puerto Rico, Romania, Russia, Serbia and Montenegro, Singapore, Switzerland, Taiwan, Turkey, UAE, the UK, Ukraine, USA, Venezuela and others.