By: David J. Wardell

© 1991 By: David J. Wardell.  Reproduction or redistribution in any form without written permission is strictly prohibited.

For many years Canadian agencies have quietly enjoyed one of the most sophisticated business systems anywhere in the industry.

A brief look at one of these systems and the firm that supplies it provides some useful insights into what is possible with truly advanced travel computerization.

Global Travel Computer Services, based in Toronto, which is business service company specializing in the travel industry.

It offers a number of products and services to support its travel agency customer’s business management and accounting needs.

Global’s most important product, developed by its own software engineers and operated by the company for its customers, is Matrix — a point-of-sale "front office" system.

While the point-of-sale concept is very common in many industries, notably banking, in the travel industry it is offered only by Global’s Matrix system.

Because of the way airline reservation systems and networks are designed, individual terminals can be used to access various systems connected to the same network, depending on the way individual transactions are constructed, or "addressed."

By using specialized formats, a CRS user can direct transactions or messages to other airline or car rental systems and receive replies directly from those systems without sacrificing any functionality of the basic CRS.

This is the premise behind multi-access, direct access and other CRS technologies that CRSs commonly use today.

Matrix takes advantage of this same capability by allowing any workstation connected to a participating reservations system to direct transactions to the Matrix host, using the airline network.

Reservation agents create and update customer accounting and related records on line at the same time CRS reservations are made.

An interface between the CRS and Matrix eliminates the need to duplicate reservations data entry.

The sales agent can access all customer records as easily as a booking in the CRS.

The agent is always working from current, readily available accounting and customer files and, more importantly, these files can be coordinated and administered centrally,

Most other agency accounting systems operate in a "batch" environment, as opposed to Global’s point-of-sale approach.

In a batch system, someone other than the person who made the reservation and dealt with the customer enters accounting data into a computer with many other transactions — in a batch — so that transactions can be tracked and reports run on some predetermined schedule.

Global has reallocated accounting and management information data entry to the reservation or sales agent.

Significant overall company productivity and improved data accuracy result from this approach.

Point-of-sale data entry also means that an accurate, dated database can be maintained for all Global subscribers on a current basis.

This means that, for example, an agency executive using Matrix can access a reporting program in the morning and display the consolidated sales and productivity figures for his entire agency network — which can literally operate ocean to ocean— that is current and accurate as of the previous night.

That report can be displayed by business units as well, down to individual agent sales anywhere on the network, and it can show variance against budget targets.

Aside from productivity gains, the data base sophistication available through Matrix is unique in the travel industry.

Global’s more than 600 subscriber branches have these and many other services available partly because most services are provided by a consolidated data center, where true economies of scale can be created.

Large-scale computing systems that are beyond the ability of most agencies to support can be operated for the benefit of all customers and, perhaps more importantly, the careful attention to software design, data base administration and report integrity that make a data processing operation successful are fully addressed.

Other Global computer services, including an excellent management reporting system and PC-based query tool, were developed specifically for the travel industry using some of the most advanced software techniques available.

With the latest generation of business management and customer service tools available to them in a highly usable form, Global’s subscribers should be the envy of many of their American counterparts.