MAM
Thomas Cook India honoured with “India Travel Partner of the Year 2018” Award by SAP Concur for its digital-led achievements in the Business Travel sector
MUMBAI: Thomas Cook (India) Ltd., India’s leading integrated travel and related financial services company, was honoured with the “India Travel Partner of the Year 2018” Award by SAP Concur at the recently concluded India Partner Ascend, 2019. The award, presented by Ms. Mankiran Chowhan, Managing Director, SAP Concur, recognised the exemplary achievements of Thomas Cook India in pushing the boundaries of business travel, expense, and invoice solutions, to make a meaningful impact on employees and their businesses – locally and globally.
For today’s always on-the-go business traveller, automated solutions are a critical need. Thomas Cook India has, hence, stepped in by playing a vital role as a dynamic change agent to successfully transform business travel – optimising costs and implementing technology enhancements which deliver superior customer experiences.
The company’s technology-driven culture has seen the delivery of two vibrant innovations that work seamlessly across digital devices, to empower business travellers:
· Click2Book: A direct customer self-booking platform that provides a comprehensive suite of products across flights, hotels, forex, and travel insurance, incorporating real-time availability and rates, along with corporate policies
· iBook: A unique custom-built business travel management tool to enhance the experience of a corporate traveller – where multiple client profiles, invoicing, and credit limits, can be managed seamlessly. The App is built to cater to the specific reporting needs of corporate clients.
Thomas Cook India’s partnership with SAP Concur is, hence, a strong reiteration of the company’s focus on leveraging the power of technology to create a more seamless and integrated solution for business customers.
Mr. Mahesh Iyer, Executive Director and CEO, Thomas Cook (India) Limited, said, “It is truly an honour to accept the award of India Travel Partner of the Year 2018 from SAP Concur. At Thomas Cook India, we’ve been sustained in strategic ideation that brings value to multinationals, Indian corporates, and SMEs. Our delivery of employee experiences help eliminate tedious tasks, and hence, enable them to work smarter. Concur helps us deliver cutting-edge solutions by driving automation and integration – equipping our corporates and SME travellers to better manage their travel expenses and invoice processes.”
Speaking on the partnership with Thomas Cook India, Ms. Mankiran Chowhan, Managing Director, SAP Concur, said, “We are delighted to present this award to our TMC partner Thomas Cook India. SAP Concur’s value proposition is simplicity, integrated travel, and expense management, and we look at partnerships that help translate these into customer experiences. The award recognises Thomas Cook India’s commitment to partnering with us towards a completely automated organisation when it comes to managing travel for our key customers, thereby freeing employees and resources to focus on more strategic tasks to improve overall productivity.”'
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IICT partners with Gativedhi to bring studio production tools to students
New MoU lets students explore AI-driven production pipelines for AVGC-XR
MUMBAI: The Indian Institute of Creative Technologies (IICT) has teamed up with Gativedhi Technologies to give students a front-row seat to modern studio production. The collaboration will integrate Gativedhi’s AI-powered production intelligence platform, Shotrack, into academic programmes, letting students experience the workflow systems used by animation, VFX and gaming studios.
Under the MoU, faculty, students and researchers will get hands-on access to Shotrack through beta programmes, pilot deployments and academic evaluations. This will allow them to explore simulated production pipelines, understand asset management, track tasks and monitor schedules, essentially seeing how complex projects come together behind the scenes.
Shotrack is designed to tackle a key industry challenge: when multiple studios work on the same project, differing internal systems often create bottlenecks, slow approvals and complicate version control. The platform provides a unified production environment, enabling smoother collaboration across distributed teams while generating operational insights and predictive analytics to optimise crew allocation, forecast schedule risks and manage costs.
The collaboration also opens doors to Gativedhi’s wider ecosystem. Upcoming tools include StudioTrack, for studio operations management covering budgeting, recruitment and IT infrastructure, and WorkTrack, which measures workflow efficiency and team productivity across industries.
IICT plans to embed these tools into programmes covering animation pipelines, VFX workflows, gaming production and media project management. Students will also benefit from guest lectures, masterclasses, workshops, internships and research projects that connect academic learning with real-world studio practices.
IICT CEO Vishwas Deoskar, said the partnership provides “An environment where production pipeline tools can be explored, tested and refined while students gain insight into how large-scale productions are organised.”
Gativedhi Technologies founder & CEO Senthil Kumar added, “This collaboration introduces students to real-world studio management tools and helps us improve our platform with academic feedback.”
With Shotrack in classrooms, India’s future animators, VFX artists and gaming producers will get a taste of studio life long before they step into one.
