Startup CIO Shares Proven Strategies for IT Leaders

Sourav Sinha has spent two decades, in a career spanning over three decades, focused on the aviation sector. So, when he joined BeOnd, a Dubai-headquartered Maldivian startup luxury airline targeted at the leisure market segment, he leveraged his experience and expertise to quickly get the company off the ground.

Here are strategies that Sinha adopted successfully, which apply to technology leaders across companies of all sizes and verticals.

Coevolving the Business and Technology Strategies

According to Sinha, embedding technology within an organisation’s culture is critical. “Research proves that if both the IT and the business strategies are coevolved, the accrued benefits are more effective in driving growth and innovation,” he says.

This is what he decided to do at BeOnd. Sinha came onboard as the sixth executive-level employee, including the founders, in the organisation. He joined the company in September 2022, while operations began in November 2023, so he was a part of the business strategy as it unfolded.

“As we were putting the business strategy in place, based on the brand vision, we put in technology and governance framework around the whole thing. My experience of the last 20 years as CIO for four different airlines greatly helped. I could draw from relevant portions of my experience in the past on how those airlines benefited from a particular way of doing things and could identify the possible weaknesses or gaps that I had seen in other organisations,” says Sinha.

Technology That’s Scalable, Cost-Effective and Not Too Optimisable

When it came to operations business domain, choosing the right technology solutions, which were cost-effective and suited the organisation’s size, was crucial.

“If I have used a particular system in a certain organisation, I can’t simply replicate it. It could have been overly expensive for us and would also be an overkill in terms of functionalities. For example, I couldn’t have spent $1,000,000 on a crew rostering system with very effective optimisation logic. An airline of our size, with only a few aircraft at launch and 50 crew, needed only so much of optimisation and functionality,” he says.

When Sinha began scouting for such solutions, it was an eye-opener for him.

“It was also a learning experience for me. All these years, I have been part of large airlines and the technology solutions and vendors for them are very visible. However, behind those are several other companies, even some of the same companies, that offer a smaller version of the solution with fewer functionalities yet pretty effective, thereby helping save upfront costs,” Sinha says.

Sinha decided to go the cloud way. “I didn’t have an opportunity to spend a lot of capex and more importantly, I could start with a very low configuration and then scale it at requirement. By leveraging the strengths of different tools included in the subscription, I could reduce costs compared to buying them separately. Additionally, I could adapt industry best practices for compute, storage, and sizing, which are already implemented by the cloud providers, further optimising efficiency and cost savings,” he says.

Like Sinha, IBRS also believes cost models can’t be the only motivation to leverage cloud. The need to have a clear business strategy on why cloud, what opportunities it may bring the business, and how to transition, manage and exit the cloud is essential to see the true benefits.

IBRS further recommends that the key to a successful strategy is to use an effective framework that allows your organisation to migrate to, operate and govern the engagement, and exit the engagement. A cloud strategy is a commercial arrangement. Understanding the business benefits of entering into a cloud contract engagement and being able to measure success factors is equally as important as the selection of providers for functionality and cost.

Choosing the Right Time to Bring in Tech

The importance of timing when bringing in new systems can’t be understated. However, before an airline starts operations, there are many factors outside of an airline’s control.

For example, Sinha deployed a document management system early on to develop and submit manuals for review, both internally and by regulators, and then incorporate the feedback. This was not a typical first-priority system for any other organisation, but it was crucial for BeOnd at that stage.

“Timing the implementation of these systems is critical, as the goalposts are constantly shifting based on external dependencies like the availability of aircraft, airport slots, audit and approvals from the Civil Aviation Authority and such others. If I am too early in deploying a system, I start paying for it without generating any revenue but if I am too late the company could miss out on business opportunities,” says Sinha.

“Based on my experience, I know the actual time required to implement a system, beyond what the vendor may claim. We can’t wait for the Civil Aviation Authority to complete their audit before implementing certain systems, as that would be too late. I need to ensure we are ready well before the system is truly needed, to account for any unforeseen delays,” he says.

Building the Right Contracts

The core commercial system for an airline is the airline reservation system.

“Some may think you don’t need this until you’re ready to start sales, but that’s not the case. We need it not only to be prepared to sell as soon as we receive the Air Operator Certificate (AOC) and the International Air Transport Association (IATA) approval, but also because there are several other systems, such as the website and the online booking engine, that need to be built on top of it,” says Sinha.

“The contract with the reservation system provider should, therefore, be structured in a way that ensures adequate resources for integrating with your internet booking engine, while minimising the fees payable until you start sales. The cost should only start accruing once you begin earning revenue. This balance needs to be reflected in the contract terms and conditions,” says Sinha.

According to IBRS, some suppliers may offset their lower-than-expected pricing by including a ‘sting’ in their contract for early termination. Review all contracts thoroughly and resolve the contentious clauses before signing.

Also, be wary of managed services providers who offer a low price for business-as-usual services, such as IT operations. The insights gained could then be used to become the only viable bidder for project services, which enables them to charge a significant premium. IBRS recommends sharing the project services work between providers to avoid being cornered.

Another area is distribution, where you may use larger platforms like Sabre. The challenge is convincing such vendors to work with smaller airlines as they typically operate on volumes, and the initial volumes for such operators will be much lower than established operators.

“One way to convince them is by offering a slightly higher commission per ticket, given your higher earning potential per ticket. As a CIO, you need to navigate these negotiations with GDS providers, as although they are commercial distribution partners, they are essentially technology platforms,” adds Sinha.