Founded in 2007 and entering the travel market in 2009, Goibibo has grown to support 21 million users, 98% of whom are based in India. “We specialise in domestic Indian bookings and outbound bookings for Indian residents looking to travel to other countries,” explains Vikalp Sahni, Co-Founder and Chief Technology Officer, Goibibo. “We are also growing our presence in inbound travel to India.”
Goibibo started with two engineers and three business managers—a workforce that has grown to 200 engineers and about 300 business managers, including a large business development team. “Our business development managers are integral to our growth, as they help build relationships with partners such as hotels,”Sahni says
Goibibo prides itself on a culture of fast-paced development and innovation. However, it had initially elected to run traditional workforce productivity applications on in-house servers. These applications forced team members who needed input
into proposals, presentations, spreadsheets, and other business documents to send out drafts, and then aggregate and consolidate feedback from multiple sources.
This process was not just time-consuming, but vulnerable to version control problems as several versions of the same document could be in circulation throughout the business.
Furthermore, Goibibo had to expend considerable time and resources maintaining and upgrading hardware, software, and associated facilities. This ate into the technology team’s ability to improve the features and functionality of the company’s websites and applications.