It recently took on Vinod George, who has over 20 years of IT leadership experience in the travel and telecommunications industries, as chief information officer.

Vinod (right), who was from TUI Travel, said his mission was to turn data into action. “There is an opportunity to make a real difference here to our clients and agency members.”

He added, “Data is very important to the game but the information is only useful in the hands of someone who is willing and able to do something about it.”

His objective thus is to build a scalable architecture for data management which would allow customers “to move data from information to knowledge to action”.

WIT spoke to Stafford and Vinod on the sidelines of the RADIUS 2011 Global Meeting in Dubai in January. Stafford said Radius finished 2010 on a high note and over the last two years, it’s grown the average value of its business by 25%. “It shows our data-centric model is working.”

RADIUS prides itself on having global reach (90 agencies in 80 countries) and local expertise through its model of having shareholder local agencies and affiliate agencies in key markets. Last year, it added 10 new agencies, five of whom were in Asia. These included Ctrip, China, H.I.S Japan and Hana Tour, Korea.

Stafford sees Asia as a major market for growth this year. “We’ve expanded our reach into the region and with Ctrip, Hana Tour and H.I.S, it’s given our customers access to the best content in the region.”

Stafford said that with technology – first the Internet then mobile – changing the rules of corporate travel management, it was even more vital that marketing comes together with technology to produce the right solutions for customers.

Previously, both operated in silos but in today’s world, he said, the two had to come together. Put in that mix, data, and you’ve got a powerful trinity.

“As a company with global reach and local expertise, the glue that holds us together is technology and data – there has to be a different mentality these days to technology and collective decision making.”

While some may argue that the RADIUS model, a network of independently-owned agencies, may be a challenge to coalesce and move forward in one direction – each owner having its own interests and agenda – Stafford said there’s growing recognition by agencies that you need scale, resources and technology to compete in today’s market and to meet the needs of multinational clients and their next gen employees.

The question is, he said, “how do we collectively benefit from more commonality in our solutions”?

RADIUS launched a new website last August and more country websites will go live this year in Europe and Singapore, where it has a regional office.

According to Stafford, 40% of people search online for a travel management company and it was important that the Radius website is compelling and can be easily found in multiple markets.

With the increased focus on technology and data, could Radius risk losing the “relationship” factor that’s largely kept together the loose grouping of local agencies, most of whom know each other personally, in the alliance?

Stafford said, “Relationships and results are connected. The stronger the results, the stronger the relationships. We are now more focused on the client and building relationships with them.”

He added, “I think there’s an element of generation change going on. Travel historically has always been a face-to-face business but I think the new business model and new generation is more focused on performance.”

The change from “relationships” to “results” is also being driven by customers. “It’s an old world vs new world approach,” said Vinod.

“A series of changes have taken place in telecommunications – look at VOIP, the mobile explosion and medical information systems and now it’s time for travel to change. Everything is going mobile.”

Vinod said Asia has the ability to leapfrog in this area just like they did with telecommunications.

Stafford said that RADIUS would invest in mobile as well “but not just a mobile app”.

“We have to follow what the traveller needs and remember too that the company pays for the traveller – travel managers and procurement people have big influence on how the technology is used as well as what information is provided to the traveller.”