Changing Tech Stack as key driver for Digital Transformation. Approach, choices, rationale and lessons learned. It's first and foremost about people.

1. 1Dennis Van Allemeersch 1
TITEL
Changing Tech Stack as
key driver for Digital
Transformation at HotelSpecials
Dennis Van Allemeersch
Marketing Technology congres, Maarssen
Dec. 1st, 2015

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INTRO

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Online
Travel
Agency
2002
~110
Hotel Booker ?

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What is
HotelSpecials trying
to achieve with it's
digital
transformation ?
What changes are
being made in it's
tech stack to that
purpose and why ?
And what have
been some
important lessons
learned to date ?

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Faster
Higher quality /
productivity
Future proof

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IT’S TEAM NOT TECH

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What did we change ?
New departments
• (technical) Product Managers
(by function)
• BigData & Analytics
Changed people
• Developers

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Hard recruiting lessons learned
WHYWHO
WHATHOW

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PROCESSES AS GLUE

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Key process change ?
False security Work agile
Think Big – Start Small
(<> Command/Control)

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Also here it’s about people
Scrum master
are you
How to make it stick ?Top down Leadership
Team, not alpha males Key role

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Other process lessons learned
SEEING = BELIEVING

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TECH STACK – BEGIN ?

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Overhaul from
Legacy to
complete New tech stack

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Transformation takes time …
Not 3 months
Not 1 year
But 2-3 years
Finding right people, Familiarizing, Adjusting processes,
Starting, Reaping results

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Bottom-up approach

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Migrate through 2-track approach
Challenge: different (release) speed

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START: HOSTING/ DATA

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Switched hosting:
More flexibele
Better pricing
Future proof tech
Servers from:
120
to …
45

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Learned some things along the way
Less is More65% capacity
=> false security
Minimise distance
external hosting -
internal developpers
Transparancy in
Documentation

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CODE SWITCH

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From PHP to GoLang

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Simple Http server

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Most performant

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COLLABORATION

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Jira > tickets
Confluence > documentation
Scrum Boards > status

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Automated unit testing
(status: 40% FE; 65% BE server code)

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WHY > RESULTS > LESSONS
Stable and reliable
releases
Right tools = enablers
(<> manual Excel interventions)
Invest in how to do releases & proper documentation
5x / year > Continuous
1,5h / release > 20 min

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Scalable A/B testing capability
From Optimizely > Google TagManager > Embedded platform
GTM limitations in scaling up
# tests / year x15 ! with 25-30% succes rate !

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HARD CORE

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Re-wrote custom build bookings engine

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Kibana for real-time Demand insights
More flexible & personalised vs Google UA
Challenges: make actionable for business, attribution modelling

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Elastic for Search
Faster for big data
Not re-inventing the wheel

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NEXT: SCALE

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ESP
Stay with Selligent but upgrade
> increase productivity (dynamic templates)

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CRM
From to Scope to SF ?
> using all functionalities / capacilities ?

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DMP
Now none (Relay42 ?)
> control over own data
> scalable personalisation & targetting
Winners Dutch E-mail Marketing Award 2015
# bookings x2,5 => scale & repeat

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Need as much application managers
as marketeers
About marketing processes first & foremost
Automation follows