IBS sets up office in Canada
IBS has set up an office at Toronto, Ontario, Canada. This is IBS’ third center in the Americas after Atlanta and Washington D.C.

Through the new center in Canada, IBS seeks to establish a business presence in Canada and provide business focus and support to customers/prospects in the region. Alan Young, a veteran from the TTL industry who brings an in-depth understanding of the Canadian market will head IBS’ Canada operations.

IBS opens development center in Bangalore, India
IBS opened a development center at Bangalore, underscoring the company’s plans to expand to become a 1000 crore company by 2010. This is IBS’ 12th global centre and the 3rd in India. The opening of this centre will help IBS reach out to a large talent pool as well as to prospective customers in the Indian market. In addition, IBS also has plans to set up own campuses at Cochin and Kozhikode in the near future as also another development centre in Chennai.

IBS forays into hospitality sector
IBS acquired a majority stake in Atlanta-based Hotel Booking Solutions Incorporated (HBSi), a leading provider of IT solutions to the hospitality industry. With this acquisition, IBS enters the hospitality sector augmenting its existing Travel & Cruise line of business.

IBS acquired a 66% stake in HBSi in a “cash and earn-out” deal with the option to acquire the balance in the next three years. The deal would enable a faster growth for IBS’ travel, cruise and hospitality business. HBSi brings with it proprietary Demand Management™ solutions, industry expertise and more than 30 eminent hotel and travel distribution clients based in the USA, Canada and Europe.

This is a major acquisition for IBS and its 4th globally, having previously acquired TopAir from EDS (Switzerland, 2002), Avient Technologies from Honeywell Corporation (UK, 2003) and Discovery Travel Systems (USA, 2006).

Crew Management Solution for Jet Airways
IBS has signed a deal with Jet Airways to provide AvientCrew, IBS’ airline crew management system. Jet is the first airline in the Indian Aviation industry to sign up for the product. The solution will help Jet manage the increasing complexity of its crew operations as a result of flying to multiple international destinations.

AvientCrew, is a sophisticated crew management system, that provides an integrated solution that enhances decision support capability to support the crew management needs of Jet Airways, which is one of India’s leading private airlines. The product helps airlines manage their crew & optimize crew utilization and enhance productivity right from initial planning through to the day of operation. It enables easy viewing and manipulation of pairings, rosters, crew data and fast system enquiry. It provides crew management decision support functions that are effective in solving a wide range of problems by real time simulation and advanced ‘What if’ capabilities. The system improves crew productivity through pairing and rostering optimization and reduces disruptions due to absence of crew.

Avient Solutions is now IBS Software
Avient Solutions, an IBS group subsidiary, is now IBS Software Services. The company, incorporated into the parent company brand, will continue to serve as the Global Centre of Excellence for the Airline and Airport Operations line of business as well as representing all of IBS’ interests in Europe.

The name change would reinforce the single-entity status of Avient Solutions and IBS Software. It is part of the next phase in the strategic business plan that has consistently achieved increased revenue and global growth in the last ten years.