After recently transitioning out of the CEO role, Sabre's Sam Gilliland sat down with USA Today, discussing some of the more salient challenges for the company in the near-term: personalization amid endless choice, friction points in travel related to security and time-to-travel, and best practices within the industry.
"Taking complexity and making it simple" is a common thread, whether in displaying travel choices for consumers and managing security infrastructure to make travel less stressful. Listening to customers via in-person meetings and social media is also identified as a way that Gilliland keeps tabs with how their products are working with customers - especially via mobile.
Gilliland says that direct feedback "drives the cadence of our business," with the future leading to an increased use of unstructured data to personalize offers in ways that are not currently possible with a set, structured data stream.
"Anything is inventory, anything is available for sale," with the new industry standard of unbundling offering a technological opportunity to up-sell and be sure that all unbundled inventory is available for customers to purchase - and available in a way that is more likely for them to actually purchase in-stream, as the offer is individually personalized and targeted.
Gilliland uses Travelocity as the example for many of these personalized offerings via Sabre.
Original video lives here.