Welcome to Sienna, Sienna is software, a baby that will evolve from an idea into networking business software the likes of which have not yet been imagined. My peers describe Sienna as” Face Book for business” I like to consider her “The Global Distribution System”

 In Experience Africa.com I have created a website where the content contained within its database can be shared with other companies.

For Sotheby’s Realtors Cape Town we have created the website Africa Concierge, when Sotheby’s a clients enquires for a accommodation Experience Africa receive the enquiry and make the booking tacking a health margin.  We have approached other companies all of whom like the concept, if we had enough programmers the project would snowball but in truth the current website and database are only a demonstration. A more stable database needs to be created integrating the duplication technique and adding financial, shopping and CRM modules from the core.

It will take about 5 months to recreate database connectivity  after which we will be integrating companies on mass, all of whom will be encouraged to upload or link their portfolios to Sienna’s database, Leo Tripp for instance will be uploading there, Ski Chalets in Europe. If say Sotheby’s were to book a skiing chalet from Leo Trippi, we do not get involved other than to take a percentage of the commissions earned, automatically collected by Sienna.

Example a ski Chalet costs $10,000 to book, Leo Trippi give us a trade price of $7,000 Sotheby’s buy for $8,000 and sell too their client for $10,000 or $9,500 offering their client a discount

It is important to link with a GDS (Global Distribution System) as quickly as possible, Virgin Atlantic & Virgin Holiday already have a significant relationship with a GDS probably Galileo or Amadeus. Connection to the GDS will give us the main foundations of a global offering not just an African portfolio & travel partners will sign up a lot quicker if they were given the ability to make online booking for the world’s flights, hotels & car hire.

Consumer relationship management (CRM) systems are difficult to customise Sienna will create one that works for the travel industry integrated into the booking procedure , This software will dramatically improve our affiliates customer relations and efficiency  and hence their bookings and Sienna’s profit. It will also encourage them to book Sienna’s venues as opposed to others and encourage them to upload their own stock into Sienna’s database. Business using Sienna CRM will love it and word of mouth with attract new business to use the software.

By linking financial software to the CRM and booking databases, inter office financial and administrative details will be vastly improved and mistakes far less likely. At first simply integrating into the CRM and keep track of all bookings credits and payments will be incredibly useful,  later we will integrate the booking system directly into banks or more to the point Virgin Money. It’s been done in South Africa by First National Bank so it defiantly possible.

One key to Sienna’s success will be the creation of fun user friendly software, I’ve mentioned customizing it to a particular industry but the real key comes from ease of use. All interfaces will be basses on management games for children over 12’s. If a 12 year old can use it, even the most math struck book keeper, admin lacking sales person or time strapped COE will really appreciate even love the ease of use, usefulness, accuracy and enjoyment of the software.

I estimate it will take 9 months of development for the main website, CRM and the financial module to be complete at which time we can launch a beta version (beta versions are working software that are still being tested for bugs and stability)