NEW DELHI: Online travel services company Yatra.com is beginning to increase its focus on non-travel B2B offerings since its core business has remained impacted by the Covid-19 pandemic, with no quick signs of recovery in the near future.
Dhruv Shringi, co-founder and CEO of Yatra, said on Tuesday that there was a big opportunity in rethinking certain paths of their business. The idea, he said, was to transform the firm from a travel services company into a business services platform on the corporate side.
“In the last 3-4 months, it has emerged that large organisations want to digitise their supply chains for goods and services... Keeping that in mind, we are building an integrated business services platform for corporates with the idea of streamlining the procurement process and helping companies plug leakages with better automation and compliance using tech,” said Shringi.
He added that the company is well capitalized with over $48 million in their balance sheet and slow burn rate of about $1.2 million a month, which gives them an adequate amount of capital and time to see this through.
The company said that it would also launch services such as expense management software, where soon it would be adding a corporate purchase card. It has also partnered with Ronnie Screwvala’s Edtech platform upGrad to deliver advanced learning and skill development programs for corporates and their employees.
Other newly launched services from the Yatra.com fold include artificial intelligence-based smart space and safe space solutions and an online platform for consumable sourcing for hotel partners. It is also partnering with a nanotech platform called Neodot for body temperature checks. One of the main reasons for the new ventures are its strong presence in the corporate sector. Yatra at present serves over 850 corporates and over 20,000 SMEs for corporate travel.