Chris Carmichael, Innovation Lab TUI
Doctor TIC interviews Chris Carmichael, a British that changed his residency from Heathrow to Mallorca to lead the TUI Innovation LAB.
1. What does the TUI Destination Experience in the TUI Group and how many people work at Parc Bit currently? What is the purpose of the Innovation LAB?
TUI Destination Experiences are the sector of TUI responsible for everything that happens in destination. That means that we start looking after our guests the moment they leave the aircraft and continue until they get back on the flight at the end of the holiday. This includes airport operations, transfers, excursions, care at the hotels and also a 24x7 contact centre (which is nearby in Son Castello). There are around 300 people working in Parc Bit as it is our head office, covering operational and strategic parts of the business.
The Innovation Lab is based in the Parc Bit office, with the responsibility of testing and delivering value from newer technologies and techniques that would otherwise take longer for a traditional business to reach.
2. What does “innovation” mean for you?
I’ve had many long debates about that……. To me, it is the accelerated delivery of new concepts to cause a step-change. That means ideas aren’t innovation without delivery, and incremental evolution is just business as usual.
3. The “Tribe” consisted gathering 18 TUI employees during an 8 week intensive brainstorming to design a new roadmap using Agile and design thinking tools. Could you tell us how the members of the Tribu were chosen, who are they and how did they work?
The Tribe was a new thing for TUI. We announced it at our senior management conference in Sa Coma back in March with the idea to accelerate change in two key area in our business. We had two squads looking at future aspects of Sales and Guest Experience. The squads were made up from people from all over our business, such as Hotel Reps, Sustainability Coordinator, and the Head of one of our markets. They joined from as far as Cyprus in the East and as far West as the Dominican Republic. We had a really good mix of views and experiences from this. They spend a solid 8 weeks researching then using agile and design thinking techniques to help us identify some elements for our future strategy.
4. It´s the first time TUI has been realising this kind of “out of the box” project, based on the previous successful experience in firms like Spotify. Could you explain us the most relevant outcomes from this practice?
For me, the key practice that I personally need to implement is focus. The team were 100% focussed and managed great things, whilst in my day to day I’m normally trying to do 10 things at once.
5. This 8 intensive work weeks included field trips to other innovative European companies from others sectors to be inspired, which companies did you visit and why?
We visited two companies, both noted for how they are embracing new thinking in their business. The first was a theme park in the Netherlands, which has run a project around their 2030 vision with their entire staff. The second was a Belgian bank with a laser sharp focus on customer experience and what it brings.
6. You have also used many different work methods ,like the so-called Crazy 8’s (a core sprint method), how does it work and how did you filter all these ideas to build a long term roadmap?
In principal we ideated, reviewed, then enhanced the ideas repeatedly. When you are doing that process multiple times per day you quite quickly reach a focus point and the important steps on the roadmap.
7. “You can’t predict, you can prepare.” — Howard Marks. After having worked 20 years in IT & Innovation for British Airlines, and now managing the innovation LAB for TUI Destination Experiences, would you tell us which are your own personal habits to get ready for the future?
As an engineer, I’m always thinking about cause and effect across multiple fields. To me, the near future should be relatively clear, but to see that I look at and consider as many causes as I can and try to see how they will link together. I also like to look at everything through our guests eyes; my exposure to technology will be greater than for most of them, so what is important are the things that will grab their attention.
8. You are currently cooperating with a local company based in Parc Bit, APSL, could you tell us why did you change your technological partner from the one in the UK to outsourcing it locally?
I get great quality work from a company that acts more like a partner than a supplier, and they are 50 metres from our door.
9. Among many others successful projects, you have recently developed the Virtual Reality glasses to present tours and excursions to your clients. Could you explain to us how was the process to build these VR contents, which technologies did you use and how do you evaluate the ROI?
Measuring the ROI was the easy part. We ran the headsets in a few hotels where we had years of fairly consistent results, so any major changes were down to the VR headsets. This convinced us to rollout so what we have now, in over 50 hotels, is apps containing the different excursions that we offer.
The TUI team have actually taken all the 360 degree footage using cameras we have sent to them, so it was a real team effort.
10 .Another remarkable project you have is the “Smart Bus”, connecting your buses with the central office announcing the next hotel stop to your travellers (since there are different names a same hotel can have among different markets). Could you tell us which technologies did you use to develop this tool? What were the main technological challenges to develop such a project?
This was a nice challenge — we are all familiar with trains and local buses announcing the next stop, but they always follow the same route, so it is fairly easy to programme. Our buses never go the same way twice. What we have built is a GPS based system that uses two pieces of cheap Android based hardware (and only one if we want audio only) that can make sure our guests are happy they are in the right place, getting off at the right hotel, and learning a bit more during the journey.
11. Artificial Intelligence will lead the technological development for the next decade, how do you see its applications within TUI Destination Experience?
We are already using some AI features with our guests. For me, the ability for a large company like TUI to be able to ensure that every one of our guests gets the service, information and personalisation they need is a huge opportunity.
12.What would you suggest studying to a kid just finishing high-school? In your case, you personally studied engineering and then changed to IT, would you do the same again?
Would I do it again? Absolutely. I learned so much working on complex aircraft avionic systems that working with IT systems seems natural. For kids today, they need to think about how to be something that bots and intelligence can’t do better, or they need to be the one telling the bots what to do. The world will always need people with good empathy though as I don’t see IT mimicking that anytime soon.
13.Automation and digitalisation are replacing some jobs and creating new ones, as it happened with all the technological improvements trough our History. What would you recommend to a person whose job is at risk to be replaced by a machine? Which are the most important skills to develop nowadays?
I think it is still too early to say where the winners and losers are. The change, just like previous industrial revolutions, will bring along a lot of new roles that we aren’t even thinking of today, but if I was starting again, I would be looking at technology skills.
14. Is there a book or a movie that has inspired you in your job or simply changed your way of thinking?
One that really stood out for me was “The New Normal” by Peter Hinssen. It is a few years old now, but most of the lessons still hold true. We are in the biggest period of change in human history, and the pace of change is accelerating. This is the world that we have to be prepared for.
