Technically Speaking - David Thompson of Amex Global Business Travel

David Thompson, American Express Global Business Travel

David Thompson joined American Express Global Business Travel as CITO just over a year ago. His remit covers IT strategy as well as information security and product development. Previous roles include a similar position at financial services company Western Union as well as stints at Symantec and Oracle.

For our November theme, PhocusWire talks to technology heads on the challenges of their roles and the rapid pace of change in travel technology and distribution.

What are the greatest challenges of your role?

I’m responsible for prioritizing our innovation pipeline to drive the strongest value for our clients and optimize their experiences. The biggest challenge is encouraging travel managers to embrace emerging technologies and become supporters of new products and services.

Travel managers play a vital role in helping us seamlessly merge our technologies with their corporate processes, and those that embrace these capabilities will increase their chances of achieving the best possible results.  

How do you get projects done when it comes to tech at Amex GBT, i.e small teams, individual responsibility, etc.?

We are a small team that capitalizes on an agile methodology to swiftly react to evolving customer requirements, while continually exploring key technology trends and capabilities. We strongly value insight from employees and clients.

Clients, in particular, provide deep insight around changing business demands and the integrations they’d like to see in our industry. This process helps streamline internal evaluations, and accelerate development, so products can be client-tested and scaled sooner. 

The testing and piloting phase often includes a commercial team, as well as clients who have requested the opportunity to partake in early deployments. This allows us to compile a group that is not only highly engaged but genuinely interested in helping improve our products and services. Along the way, many of them even discover ways to optimize their own programs. 

We see a lot of startups wanting to disrupt business travel; will they succeed?

Startups are often hyper-focused on one specific vertical or region of business travel. This acute targeting can reduce the breadth of their impact and make it difficult to disrupt on a large scale. Successful TMCs must focus on delivering end-to-end global functionality including omnichannel booking, spend management, traveler innovations and comprehensive data and analytics products.

Which area of business travel technology is most likely to be disrupted or most ripe for disruption in your view?

Areas such as supplier commission management and blockchain technologies have tremendous potential. Technology is advancing faster than ever before and its limits are boundless.

Over the next decade, I anticipate significant innovation between supplier and traveler will allow us to reach a point of true automation. For example, a traveler flying from New York to Los Angeles for a meeting will have their flight, hotel, transportation and even dinner reservations automatically booked through AI and mobile technology. All they will have to do is wake up and go, significantly reducing the friction of business travel. 

What are the greatest challenges facing business travel currently from your perspective?

Increasing global compliance requirements, such as GDPR, are driving key shifts in the industry. To be successful, TMCs must ensure these standards are a significant component of their product design and data architecture.

A growing desire for personalization has also sparked a need for predictive, intelligent products. Personalized recommendations improve attachment, increase program participation and enhance the overall travel experience. To advance the user-experience evolution, we must also partner with suppliers - each of which bringing its own unique set of challenges during integration.

When you look at the trends - blockchain, machine learning, AI, NDC, etc. - what do you think is going to have the most impact in the shortest amount of time, and why?

Artificial intelligence and machine learning feature the most promising short-term benefits and have already proven an ability to add value for clients and drive new revenue opportunities. Significant improvements in recent years have opened the door for numerous products and technologies that enhance the capabilities of TMCs by allowing us to analyze large volumes of data and optimize our offerings.

With access to these data-driven resources, TMCs can learn about a traveler base over time and make decisions and recommendations built around their personal needs. By shifting human resources away from manual processes to higher-value services, TMCs are also able to deepen customer interactions and improve capabilities, ultimately improving the quality of their offerings. 

What's your view on big consumer brands (Apple, Amazon, Facebook) and their impact on travel going forward?

Big tech brands will continue to drive innovation by providing opportunities for our industry to capitalize on new capabilities. For example, the rise of mobile functionality will lead to more integrated communications and mobile booking enhancements.

Cloud innovations from consumer giants have the ability to promote global deployment and business capabilities while optimizing technology investments. 

Will there ever really be a seamless traveler experience?

We have an exclusive opportunity to listen to our customers and invest in their desires for an end-to-end experience. A truly seamless traveler experience relies heavily on the relationship between a TMC and the organization, particularly its travel managers.

We understand that being away from home and family while travelling can be disruptive and difficult at times and are committed to helping reduce this impact. However, travel managers also have a key role in these efforts and those that view new products as business enablers, and embrace the capabilities of emerging technologies, will help achieve the best possible results.  

Tell us something you love about your role?

I get to travel the globe and meet with our customers and suppliers, experiencing our products and services first-hand. I colloquially refer to this as “drinking our own champagne” which, in addition to offering the chance to meet face-to-face, has played a pivotal role in shaping our overall technology strategy. 

Do CTOs in travel companies now have the standing they should with the CEO, and do you see those partnerships working effectively generally in the industry?

I joined American Express GBT as CITO because of the opportunity to work closely with our CEO and executive team to drive innovation and value in the business travel industry. Technology and innovation are the heart of business travel management and being at the center of this opportunity is truly exciting.

This partnership and support sparked the creation of a dedicated Technology Enablement Strategy, through which we will provide a comprehensive set of tools to help our travel counselors streamline their responses to clients. We have also been able to meet increasing requests for more data products and used our global voice infrastructure to leverage the full capability of GBT in disruption situations. None of this would be possible without a symbiotic relationship between all members of our executive team.