Case study: Kyle McGinn, Opodo.com

As chief technology officer (CTO) of internet travel firm Opodo, Kyle McGinn says he cannot focus on cost control at the expense of innovation.

‘Cost control is a key priority for us, but new technology is what allows us to differentiate ourselves,’ he says.

McGinn’s strategy is to find ways of using new technologies that will not increase overall costs, and will reduce the cost of making the business more competitive. ‘It is all about clever use of new technologies, keeping an eye on the cost base and being one step ahead,’ he says.

One of McGinn’s recent successes was the development of the online travel industry’s first shopping basket, which was rolled out to the web site earlier this year. McGinn admits that a shopping basket might not sound innovative, but it’s a big step forward in the travel sector. ‘Customers can now order more than one flight or holiday in a single transaction, which has never been done before,’ says McGinn.

The benefits of the shopping basket are significant: transaction costs for Opodo are reduced, and customers are more likely to order multiple products.

Next on McGinn’s to-do list is Web 2.0 – a set of technologies designed to make internet content more interactive.

‘We had a research and development team working on technologies like Ajax, which we think will let us increase revenues by providing a rich user experience,’ says McGinn. ‘We’ve done some testing and the feedback has been brilliant.’

But McGinn is wary of focusing exclusively on innovation. ‘People can easily spend too much time innovating without fine tuning what they have,’ he says.

In the past year, McGinn has reorganised the firm’s outsourcing arrangements, bringing some functions back to the UK from overseas, and investing in near-shoring for other functions. Opodo also plans to move hosting providers, which will cut costs significantly, says McGinn.

Perhaps more importantly, the new hosting provider has experience of virtualisation technology, including VMware, and Opodo will use this to build and test applications before going live. ‘The hardware move on its own will save money, but the flexibility of being able to try out new things so easily will bring long-term benefit,’ says McGinn.

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