RateGain specialises in providing Software as a Service (SaaS) solutions to its global customer base comprising leading hotels, airlines, cruise lines, car rental companies, online travel agents, tour operators and wholesalers, who depend upon RateGain’s innovative products for revenue management, rate intelligence, distribution and brand engagement activities. Founded by entrepreneur Bhanu Chopra in 2004, RateGain is now a leader in the hospitality and travel technology area. Starting with just a few thousand dollars, the company, today, records a turnover of more than 50 million dollars. Through Bhanu Chopra’s leadership strategy, MYB uncovers the story behind RateGain’s enormous success.

If you have booked travel online, chances are that you have experienced RateGain. The idea to start RateGain was based on user experience. Back then (in 2004), when all the online travel agents were coming up, I would go on different sites to compare prices and it just made sense to me to set up a site that would do all these comparisons. I could see clear gaps in the sector and my aim was to lessen the ambiguity for travellers. I wanted to build a system that would enable them to get the best deals on their mode of travel. There was a business need of providing price comparison products for travel websites to benchmark their product offering versus their competitors.

In 2004, the entrepreneurial ecosystem was in its infancy and venture money was almost non-existent. Raising capital meant taking a loan from a bank, but with nothing to put as collateral, even that was hard to come by. While I come from an entrepreneurial background, funnelling money from family run business was also not the option. Other challenges were mostly about how talent should be attracted. We were a brand new company, with this idea, and no institutional capital. So the challenge we faced was to do with employees, how do you hire them, excite them and retain them. I started with three employees but scaled up once we saw traction. Every customer was important to us and they helped us learn and develop our product. There was a lot of to and fro feedback between our initial customers and us. They gave us the front row seats to their business and helped us to develop a deep understanding and insight in the sector. They made us understand business requirements and helped us shape our future products.

While the original idea was to build a B2C business, I knew such businesses are capital intensive and would stretch my financial limits. That was time I decided to flip the business model and make it B2B where I could develop the products for other travel companies. B2B business burns less cash and tends to generally bring profits faster. For that, however, you need a good product and a good sales strategy.

We reach out to our customers through a number of ways. We have thousands of customers across pretty much every continent except Antarctica. If a hotel comes up there, we will be there as well. We have a big online presence where we reach out to potential customers and existing clients with our products and services. We are also regular at various trade and industry exhibitions, where we showcase our finest products. However, what really helped has been the word-of–mouth marketing across countries that we operate in. In many cases our clients have referred us to someone who may need our solutions.

We have been able to constantly stay ahead of the curve because we have been able to predict the emerging technology trends and plan well in advance to capitalise on them. What has worked for us is the fact that we do not compete with e-commerce travel sites or hotels. We are merely in the business of providing competitive intelligence and helping our customers know what’s happening around them. We are able to clearly bring out the value proposition for our products and SaaS and cloud has only helped our cause.

Product development and improving existing processes is an on-going process and no company can afford to rest on its past laurels. For RateGain staying ahead of the curve and continuously improving and innovating its processes and products has always been the key and we have teams in place dedicated to the aspect. I do not believe in micro managing, which means I only look at the larger picture and set the ultimate goals for the company.  It is largely up to the teams on how they want to achieve it.

The toughest part of being in-charge during the initial days was keeping the larger objective of the company in focus. With thousands of things to do, as an entrepreneur you have to dabble in almost everything. Senior level management bandwidth is a problem during initial days of a company and almost every decision entirely is left to the entrepreneur. Sometimes it takes superhuman strength to cover all bases.

Today, being-in-charge is much different and my challenge is to ensure we continue to stay relevant and continue to clock the growth that we aspire. As a company we have over 10,000 hospitality clients from all major regions of the world as well as the top fifty Online Travel Agents on our systems. Ensuring their requirements are met and our products are able to deliver and at the same time ensuring we add new clients, is tough. However, it is the most integral part of our business and something I am always on top of.

One of the greatest lessons I have learnt along the way is the importance of having a great product and an equally stellar customer service. In the B2B segment customer service is pivotal for your business to succeed and we at RateGain take it very seriously. I have learnt that persistence can be your biggest asset. All businesses go through ups and downs but as long as you can be persistent, things will always work out. And I think, for me, as a leader, it is important to let my team have the freedom to operate and to be able to make mistakes. The essential thing is to learn from those mistakes and continue to work on them. Fortunately, for me, I have a great managerial team that can look at the business when I am travelling. We have several layers of management tasked with different aspects of the company and this means most normal day-to-day things never come to me. This keeps the wheels of the business turning.  An entrepreneur cannot and should not look to manage everything once a business reaches scale. It is important to let go so that the business can mature, but at the same time hold individuals responsible for what functions are.

Over the years I have also realized that it is very important to keep fit. If a company depends on you and your ability to carry on, ensuring that you do not let work burn you out is very crucial. It is also important to have a good work life balance. Everyone at RateGain is urged to have a good work life balance and I go to great lengths to follow it. I think it is very important to switch off every day so that you can get back to work the next day with renewed vigour.

The RateGain journey has been tough but a very satisfying one. In 2004, I could have only hoped to have the kind of impact we do for the travel industry today. A learning experience, each year has had its own set of challenges and solutions that have only gone on to enrich my experience. At this point in my life, I know a lot has been accomplished but a lot remains to be done and for that I am rearing to go.