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Portbilet as White Label

Large companies on the market of passenger transportation often have got their own consoles and exclusive tariffs from airlines but would like to increase the efficiency of their business processes using automating and expanding their product offer. Head of the Portbilet project Anton Rybka told us how the technologies of Portbilet allow the holding's subagents to keep working under their own brand while preserving bonuses from carriers and getting maximum profit.

— Anton, tell us please how you came up with the idea of making White Label at Portbilet and what came out of it?

— Around five years ago we created a modification of Portbilet for internal needs of the company, to create an opportunity for the divisions to offer the Portbilet product under their legal names. At a certain moment, major subagents started to approach us about Portbilet as a tool for their content. Those companies had their established commerce, such as consoles and bonus programmes from airlines, exclusive private tariffs, and they wanted to keep it. Automation and managing sales via Portbilet attracted them, so they decided to merge their activity with our technology. After the first requests we were 100% ready to put them into practice since we had tested them on our internal users within the holding.

— How does the merging happen?

— We connect a subagent to Portbilet with all its functions but also add their own consoles to the system — only the company can see them, and it also preserves its airline bonuses. Another great function of Portbilet is that it allows you to add attractive offers from Vipservice in other areas to the subagent's consoles and tariffs. As a rule, even big companies have got a limited number of contracts. For instance, we upload their Sabre console with Aeroflot into the system, while they book other products: (tickets of other carriers, railway tickets, transfer, hotels) via Portbilet. No one has ever come to disconnect all other consoles but their own — it would be a weird decision.

— How does Portbilet separate "their own" and "other" bookings?

— In case of third-party consoles it applies transactional business model. For small and medium agencies with standard contract Portbilet is free of charge, and we monetise transactions made via third-party consoles. However, this model works only for large-scale subagents.

— Why so? Subagents may have smaller consoles of their own...

— The thing is, when subagents connect a console to the system, they undertake certain responsibilities. Our call centre does not see sales made with other consoles and does not attend them, so all decisions on returns, bookings, exchange, and any other extra services are up to the subagent to make. For this, they need their own support service and a call centre, something only big companies can afford. Smaller subagents use only Portbilet's services to cut down the costs.

However, large, medium, and small subagents alike can use our White Label without connecting their consoles to it. Thus, some companies wish to use White Label on their website without mentioning Vipservice and Portbilet. It is important for them to make customers think that it is their own technology. And we provide this opportunity to them. Still, mostly large consolidators and companies with a developed network of their own or partner sales offices use this option.

— Are there any other potential clients that might be interested in your product?

— White Label by Portbilet is a perfect product for large retail chains who would like to start offline ticket and travel product sales at minimum entry cost. A retail chain is, in fact, a number of cash registers where the assistant wants to sell a product or a service as quickly as possible and move on to the next customer in line. Their employees are not deeply engaged with the specifics of ticket sales, while Portbilet provides various tips and backups to protect a nonspecialist from mistakes. Our product allows a manager of, say, a mobile phone store to sell airplane tickets as easily as phone cases. Besides, it offers a great opportunity for cross-selling: for example, you can offer a SIM card with a good travel tariff.

We are ready to step into this direction. We can offer adequate branding since we have successfully tried and tested it on our internal customer at Vipservice.

— Portbilet is now available on international market, and it keeps expanding its business geography. Is the same true for White Label?

— Yes, besides, there are other BSP on foreign markets, other contract relations between airlines and their agents — our White Label fits perfectly into this situation. Foreign subagents upload all their contracts to Portbilet and use its functions. Even the need to support their own clients is a bonus here. Our partners insist on it, since they have a better understanding of the local mentality and market and speak the same language with their customers.

Local players understand their market and subagents better, so we don't have to spend time on it. Of course, we localise the system taking into account local laws. As of now, partners from Armenia and Kazakhstan work via White Label and soon the project will launch in Kyrgyzstan, Moldova, and Georgia.

Surely, we are working on accessing the German market as our strategic goal. With the CIS countries, it was not that hard, because before us there were no similar solutions of this level. On the contrary, the German market is well developed, and we will have at least one serious competitor. We are prepared for it and even foresee how this competition can influence positively the Russian market. A healthy competition will give birth to solutions we would be able to apply in Russia to obtain a significant advantage.

— Have you got any competitors in Russia?

— I do not see any competitors equal to Portbilet. If we consider only White Label, not the system as a whole, I am aware of a few companies that offer similar products. All have different conditions, but according to my calculations our offer has got the best price: some offer high monthly payments for each connected console, others require to pay for each operation, even for bookings, some put a very high price on individual modifications.

— By the way, regarding modifications: how many clients have got personal requests, and what are the costs for the subagent?

— Our experience allows us to predict if the modification the subagent asks for will be useful for other clients and partners. Besides, we can talk to our internal clients in the subagent or corporate business of the holding and ask them if they see a monetisation opportunity here. If the answer is "yes", we do it for free.

Still, they mostly require specific features for an individual business, so we prepare an estimate for them. Two types of situation are the most frequent. First, a major technology-heavy subagent requests a specific modification for their corporate client. Another case are local factors. For example, some regions are used to a specific type of reports, can be more flexible with taxes, etc.

Our knowledge allows us to implement projects of any difficulty, while the experience helps to demonstrate to the customers how their business processes can be optimised without extra costs on changing the system.


13.02.2019