<B>Amex Taps TRX EnCoRRe</B>
By Megan Hjermstad
American Express Corporate Services is set today to announce that it has selected the EnCoRRe mid-office quality assurance product developed and supported by TRX Inc. for quality control and file finishing.
The agreement with American Express, which operates by far the largest U.S. business travel agency, further emphasizes TRX's independence from WorldTravel Partners. TRX, formerly WorldTravel Technologies, began as a spinoff of WorldTravel Partners in 1997.
"Strategically, it is an extremely important milestone internally for the company as it continues to grow and serve the travel agency market and externally to send a strong signal to the travel industry as a whole that we are in support of WTP but independent of them," said Trip Davis, president and CEO of TRX.
Davis could not comment on the financial impact of the deal as the company still is in a quiet period prior to its initial public offering.
Other mega agencies have taken a similar approach by outsourcing technology to a third party. TRX already has a strong penetration among the top 10 travel management companies and has extended the EnCoRRe product to Maritz Travel, McCord Travel Management, WorldTravel Partners and Uniglobe franchise agencies, in addition to 10 to 15 smaller agencies. Meanwhile, competitor Aqua Software provides mid-office technology to Carlson Wagonlit Travel and Navigant International.
"It is getting more difficult for travel agencies to develop applications so they are looking for third parties to provide them," said Steve Reynolds, executive vice president and chief technology officer of TRX. "It is getting expensive. Agencies just can't invest that much money into something like this."
Under the new agreement, American Express later this year will begin integrating TRX EnCoRRe with its proprietary quality-assurance tools. TRX will work with American Express to determine how to integrate EnCoRRe with existing Amex mid-office technology--including AERO (American Express Reservation Optimization), which checks seat availability and PRDS (Preferred Rate Database System), which compares negotiated and GDS rates.
Reynolds said the relationship is a "consultative" one. TRX will share its technology expertise with American Express to help it through the integration process.American Express will test technology interoperability in its design and engineering facility in Phoenix before customers beta test it later this year. "It is always better to do testing in a controlled environment than a live one," said Michael Laughlin, vice president of office solutions and technology.
Although live call centers won't begin using the technology until the end of the year, American Express customers will see improvements faster than if it had opted to spend extra time on in-house product development. "We went to a third party to enable time to market," said Laughlin. "When we saw a product out there could increase time to market, it made sense to us."
Laughlin said American Express selected TRX because of its ability to integrate with current processes, its flexibility, its integration teams and its supply mechanisms. Laughlin also noted the ability of TRX to scale to support its size. "It will take some time to implement accounts because every one of them is big and every one is different," Reynolds said.
The EnCoRRe suite will enhance--not replace--American Express' existing proprietary mid-office software. EnCoRRe will further automate many of the standard file-finishing tasks, such as data entry, quality control and ticketing--some of the things American Express does today in a manual format.
Reynolds said the real strength of EnCoRRe is in the area of PNR finishing. "It can move a lot of robotic tasks away from the point of sale so routines can be built on the fly," he said. "It doesn't require programming." EnCoRRe also will allow large corporate accounts to load into the mid-office comparison fares--seven day versus other fares. The mid-office suite also tracks cost center and department codes, and corporate account information for downstream reporting.
While the mid-office improvements are unlikely to be a deal closer with potential corporate clients, American Express clients will see an impact in improved quality and accuracy of the data and improved agent productivity. "It is meant to free up the agent from some of the reworking that needs to take place," said Laughlin. "There will be benefits in efficiencies gained. We are looking to provide the best efficiencies and best products for our customers and travel counselors."
TRX will offer dedicated hardware and servers to American Express out of its Dallas service bureau. American Express also will have a dedicated team. "This is unique in that it's a service bureau model," Reynolds said.
"American Express is not just buying the software and selling it themselves. Once you buy the software, you need to pay staff and pay for hardware. Long term, it would make sense to try to centralize it to as few systems as possible.