Serko, Senior Vice President Asia Pacific, Murray Warner on the sidelines of the Australia Pacific Aviation Summit 2021

Transcript

Murray Warner:Hey, it's been a big couple of years for Serko. You know, obviously there's been a huge slowdown for nearly 2 years now, which impacted everybody. But I think, I think the really fortunate thing for Serko is that we had a chance, I think pre-COVID, to be able to expand outside of just our ANZ market, our sort of home here, into both the US and into Europe. And even though we've had some restrictions and lockdowns, obviously in this market, we've actually seen different rates of return in other markets, which has been good for us in a lot of ways because we could place some bets in some different places. And I think actually learn a lot about the global travel business as opposed to the ANZ travel business. What it also meant for us is that it was a chance for a little bit of a pause from customers and what they're doing. And I think Serko, like a lot of companies, actually got a chance to stop and think about what's working well, what's not, and what do we want to be when we grow up. And, you know, defining what that mountain is and the map that we want to take to hike to the top of it and how we're going to do it and the teams that we need has actually been instrumental in making us a better business. So to your question, coming out of COVID which, you know, we think is happening, you know, now and up through January and the rest of the year, we really think we're in a great position to be able to bring a lot of new products and innovations to the market and really, really change the face of business travel in ANZ. I think more than anything, the time in COVID was a time that we could talk to customers because they weren't traveling either and they weren't so busy. And it's— you find out a lot of interesting things when you talk to dozens and dozens and dozens of customers. They start to tell you stuff about what they like and what they don't like and what they're worried about. And for us, probably more than ever, maybe in our history since we were really, really little, we really got a good view into what's most important, what's most painful, what they love about business travel. It's a great thing with software, and we're a software company, so software can do— I'm not going to say anything or everything, but it can do quite a lot, and you can really do some interesting things with technology. And for us, I guess it was a way to kind of step back take away all the noise for a moment and really think about the most important things. You know, this coming years for Serko will see us expand globally in a lot of different markets and start to connect those markets together. There's not many global technology travel companies, which, you know, we're fast becoming, and I think, you know, we'll not only globalize, but we're gonna open. If we've learned one thing, is that We can't solve all the problems of business travel, but being able to partner and connect and have openness with other technologies and other services companies, and certainly the travel management companies as part of that, is going to be fundamental to really being able to expand globally for us. And so I guess my thought and my message out of your question is we see a much more open world in front of us. Where I think all the players within the travel industry will go from a maybe somewhat of a siloed approach at times to a much more open, and I think that's what we're hearing from customers.

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