Adopting a DevOps Mindset to Build a Multispeed Travel Enterprise

We live in exciting times, and technology integration into core travel businesses is now providing opportunities to deliver features to customers in new ways and at speeds that were not possible previously. Today, a slight delay can lead to high customer dissatisfaction and could lead to cost implications for customers. While different companies use different methods to swiftly accommodate the increasing customer expectations, it results in excessive complexity and cost. A critical path to success lies in simplifying and automating the business process for rapid development and deployment. As technology evolves and takes center stage in the travel industry, DevOps has been characterized as the next transformation driving the industry forward.

DevOps: An Overview

DevOps is a set of principles, practices, and tools to break down silos to promote better business alignment. It powers the automation of development, testing, and deployment, eradicating the endless series of concurrent activities. When implemented across an organization, DevOps enables developers to streamline their products and SDLC (Software Development Life Cycle) to create efficiencies across various IT processes and ensure fast delivery, and better results. While DevOps is gradually maturing, it is expected to grow well beyond its current status over the next few years. A testimony to this is the growing size of Global DevOps Market- estimated to reach USD 14,969.6 million by 2026.

The Rapid Evolution of Ops Practices

The world of travel business is constantly changing, and DevOps has been at the forefront of this change, helping companies to improve collaboration between development and IT operations, achieve quality, stability, reliability, and reduce manual errors, thus enabling them to be more agile. A new paradigm within DevOps comes into existence every day for businesses to adapt quickly to the rapidly evolving customer requirements. A report by Gartner predicted that by 2023, 40% of product and platform teams would employ AIOps in DevOps pipelines, thus reducing unexpected downtime by 20%. The DevSecOps movement came into existence to put more emphasis on securing features and processes at the onset of development, while DevFinOps focuses on the cost and performance efficiency of cloud usage across the business. DevTestOps, on the other hand, is a combination of continuous testing and DevOps, and now the latest buzzword is DevXops.

Continuous Integration for Continuous Success

DevOps has quickly become more than just a trendy term; a way of thinking and working, a movement that is here to stay, promoting a culture of continuous everything. It is a mindset and a framework enabling teams to practice their crafts in effective ways that can be applied to various tasks, and the right set of DevOps tools can be a game-changer for any project. DevOps process seeks to deliver value continuously and incrementally and hence is gaining recognition. In 2021, 83% of IT decision-makers reported implementing DevOps practices to unlock higher business value.

The Role of DevOps in Creating Efficiencies

While there are several definitions of DevOps, there is no single, standard DevOps process, it’s a different journey for everyone. Many organizations follow similar methodologies; however, they keep evolving as they move forward. In its evolution journey, the travel industry can immensely benefit from using DevOps practices, including optimizing costs, shortening the feedback loops, ensuring business continuity, eliminating context switching, and improving team communication and collaboration, thus improving company loyalty.

DevOps and Cloud, the Cornerstone of Innovation

Supporting the high-speed digital demands of today’s travel requires robust IT infrastructure and services that operate at always-on, near real-time speeds. Since the pandemic, most travel organizations are paying attention to digital transformation and have moved to the cloud to accelerate innovation, agility, and growth. To further increase their competitiveness, they are exploring how the cloud and DevOps can work together to achieve this needed transformation.

DevOps practices grow in tandem with the growth of the cloud, and the future of DevOps looks promising. While it is not a one-size-fits-all strategy, regardless of which DevOps path businesses take to digital transformation, using the cloud as a single common thread allows DevOps teams to drive meaningful IT transformation that directly impacts business goals.

Relationship between DevOps and the End Traveler

DevOps culture and workflows significantly influences the attributes that constitute the customer experience. Among other benefits, DevOps promotes fast and continuous feedback and monitoring from operations to development to detect problems before customers are impacted. From facilitating reduced transaction time, minimizing the time to market for new products and features, to offering stable operations by avoiding crash situations, DevOps facilitates a seamless customer interaction with the service provider, thereby helping the company serve the customer faster. Structuring a DevOps mindset, thus, enhances the end traveler experience at various touch points in their journey.

DevOps, a Must for Economic Development

A change in culture and mindset is required to transition to DevOps and making effective changes with a DevOps mindset can significantly contribute to the development of travel businesses of any size. The trend of focusing on team dynamics, leadership, and culture will only increase in the future, and the potential of growth and significant benefits of DevOps acceptance will be the way to do business in the days to come.?