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Sabre Souvenirs : Ep. 11 | Be Curious

Meet Jayant Jain - Senior Principal, for Global Sales Engineering in India who works closely with Technology and Product teams. In this episode, he shares his experiences on a non-linear career path he traversed at Sabre and his story of growth and success that has made him a bridge between tech team and the customers today .

Published on May 7, 2021
Travel Technology
Podcast Transcript:   Preeti Sahu: Hello all! A very warm welcome to all our listeners in our latest episode! Hope you enjoyed listening to Amitesh Gar , who took us all through his Intern Boot Camp 2021 experiences and learnings in our last episode! Today, we have with us Jayant Jain- Senior Principle Sales Engineering – APAC. He has a varied profile and I’ll allow him to introduce himself after I welcome him. Welcome to the podcast Jayant! Hope you are doing great! Jayant Jain:  I’m doing good. Hope. You’re doing well as well.  Preeti Sahu: Why don’t you introduce yourself to the audience? Jayant Jain:  Oh yeah, absolutely! Hello listeners. My name is Jayant Jain and I am a part of the sales engineering team. And I look after all the sales opportunities in Asia Pacific region. Been with Sabre close to 14 years, 13.5 to be precise. And it’s been a very good experience so far in the journey.  Preeti Sahu: So, Jay, your role involves being a bridge between tech team and the customers, right? Why don’t you share your journey and what the role entails and why you chose this role? Jayant Jain:  I would also love to also highlight one key aspect of why Sabre is different from other technical or technology company. Right?  one of the key factors there is, and which also actually is a good segue to your question. One of the key factors, with other technology companies and Sabre is the kind of opportunities you get, right? So, you know, even if you’re coming from a finance background, technically I should be in the, financial services within Sabre. , but I went into training. I went into product training. Sabre gave me a lot of opportunities when it comes to handling themes. So I handled big teams at different cutovers / software switchovers. In layman’s language and in globally, you know various parts of the world,  what’s what’s the benefit was, I think the key, away from those experiences is, you know, we actually got the chance to handle, different, , people with different skill sets and with a mutual goal. Right. And we came out as a success. So, Sabre is a very unique with, as compared to other technology companies where you’re not just bound to your specific role, but you also get an opportunity to expand, based on, you know, your skill set and, you know, you’re given an opportunity to develop your skill set. So you have peers your, seniors helping you, doing that. Now as part of my role, which is sales, right? My primary job is to sell stuff to different airlines based on their needs and requirements. , I think it is very important to have technology team aligned with our business needs. Right? So, there is a lot of collaboration that happens between the Bangalore Development Center and the Krakow Center and sales team. I’ll give you a quick few examples for that. Like for example, we’ve been, we were working on the NGP – next generation platform for schedule change, the key aspect of developing something new was to know and understand what is the competition doing right now in that segment, number one. Two, how we can lead from our competition and make it something even better. Right? So maybe making it future proof 10, 20 years from now. Right? So that, that was our objective. And, tech team, jointly had lot of, interactions and workshops. , going through each minute details of what our competition is doing and what is the feedback from the airlines from a day to day challenge. And that bridge actually helps us bringing our products, up to making our product future ready.  Preeti Sahu: Wow. Quite a journey indeed, you’ve had Jay. Why don’t you talk about the synergies and differences in the various roles you’ve led and how they’ve helped you shape your career? Jayant Jain: So I started in training. So basically if you look at training, in a, in a very general format and not specific to Sabre, it’s, you know, you’re just trained about specific products or, software right? While I’m doing the training. , and I was part of the delivery and consulting team, which was, you know, um, and, you know, we were given the opportunities to actually lead different business teams, with the customers on site. So whenever there was a software switch over or migration, you know, I was given a lot of opportunities with many others, many of the people who lead different business teams and, bring them to a finish line. , with a lot of success. And I think that, unique, format that Sabre has, actually helps you to develop your leadership skills. It also helps you to, learn how you can manage, situations, challenges, and, you know, make a better person out of you and better professional out of you. I think that’s something, that has really shaped my career. You know, from training to sales, it’s a, it’s a very different ball game, right? So going in from teaching customers and then going into selling to customers, I think, you know, if anyone would look at it, it would say, okay, that’s a very big jump, but if you look at it, that’s only possible in Sabre, right? So, it’s a very good opportunity for many people. I’m a very good example, right. for many people that, you know, you can actually achieve, what do you dream of and that, you know, you have a lot of people here supporting you in achieving those dreams. I think that’s quite important. Preeti Sahu: So, based on your role, you must have been having insights on various challenges and focus areas that the airline industry is looking to work on in the post COVID era. Could you share some of them with us? Jayant Jain: Yeah. Sure. So, I think COVID shook all the industries and travel was the worst hit the one. But we are picking up quite well. The domestic travel is going to, come up first. That was our prediction last year, back in June, July timeframe, if you remember Sean’s call where he mentioned the domestic is going to pick a first. And that’s exactly what we see in the market. Domestic travel is picking up very fast when you see a lot of consolidation happening within the airline industry, which is good. In a way. And we see a lot of new startup airlines coming up, which is also good. So, we see the LCC component segment of the market is, picking up or ramping up very fast. And that gives us as a software provider, you know, a lot of opportunity to tap into a market that wasn’t the case, if you asked me two or three years down the line. So, I think, from that perspective, we are in a good shape, with Radixx in place and a lot of investments we are doing in the revamping Radixx platform that think,  you know, airlines do see a lot of change in how we see business and, you know, they are ready to collaborate with us, when it comes to providing a  new gen software solution. Preeti Sahu: So, Jay, I was actually going through a couple of travel stories and it looks like more than business, the travel entertainment section is actually picking up more…people are traveling for personal reasons. Is that a trend that is kind of consistent across the industry? Or is this one-off trend that will go away in a while. Jayant Jain: Right. No, I think it’s going to stay in this is, I’ll tell you why. Because now corporations, business units have realized one thing globally is that business can be done remotely without traveling. Right? So corporate travel is not going to pick up very soon. And the leisure travel is going to pick up very fast and leisure travel is one of the biggest components when it comes to the overall industry space. Right? So. It is good to see that trend. And I think it’s going to stay for long corporate travel is going to pick up, but slowly it’s not going to be as fast as a leisure picked up. So, leisure is going to keep on going up. And like I said, domestic, it’s going to be, you know, quite smooth and fast as compared to international travel.   International travel will still take some time. But not too far. Preeti Sahu: Okay, great. So, um, You did tell us that you have around 13 and a half years of experience with Sabre, so that obviously means that you have a lot of tips and tricks in your bag, which you can share with us. And also, the new batch of Interns that we hired recently around February 2021.Would you like to share something with them? Jayant Jain: Yeah. So, I think one of the reasons which I see, you know, and not just me there, so many other people who have been with Sabre for more than, a number of years, I would say. And I think the one thing that all of us would agree is that level of transparency, which we actually see flows down from the top. So starting from Sean to everyone, you know, the company has been quite transparent with us where we are, right? And it gives you a sense of belonging and responsibility because your leaders are open and transparent to you, right? Where we are and how, what we are doing to mitigate all the risks and everything. So, in addition to that, you know, I think, it also goes back to our Sabre values actually. And you know, these are not just words, but also it helps you in your personal growth. Like, you know, curiosity- it’s very important to be curious. It’s very important to ask the questions. So, my message and humble suggestion to all the interns who are joining or if they are listening that – be curious. I think that’s one of the key things in Sabre. If you really want to excel in your career, you need to be curious. You need to ask questions, if there’s something you feel, which you want to do. You know, that’s something you should lay out in your plan and reach out to your mentors and reach out to your leaders and tell them and share with them that this is what you want to do. And I can assure you from my experience, you know, your mentors and leaders actually help you achieve what you want to really do in your career, which is very different from any others technology company. So, would be my suggestion. And, you know, I think one important thing is that you need to start thinking about collaborating a bit more with other different teams. The more the collaboration, the more, you know, it would help drive your passion and it would actually create  an environment of mutual learning between not just your peers or your friends who are joining in with you, but also with your leaders, and I think it’s very important. For the company as well, to have to have such kind of environment where people are curious and ready to innovate.  Preeti Sahu: Okay, great. So, I have noted down your tips and tricks of which Sabre values and more collaboration are the top picks. And thank you so much for your time Jay. I hope our listeners will take note of the different tips and take their career to greater heights. We’ll keep coming back with more stories in our upcoming podcast. The link to our podcast will be updated on our website as, and when they happen. So, don’t forget to keep visiting our YouTube and other social media channels for more such stories. Goodbye, and meet you in the next episode.  Jayant Jain: Thanks Everyone!    

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