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Introduction

Engineering the Platform for Next-Generation Travel

Client: A leading Indian B2B travel technology platform
Industry: Travel & Tourism, E-commerce, SaaS

How Indexnine’s Expertise in Microservices and API Integration Reduced Time-to-Market by 75%, Powering the client’s expansion into new B2B2C revenue streams.

Integration Bottleneck

Challenge

As a high-growth platform, the client’s monolithic architecture and manual integration processes were creating significant operational drag. The lengthy, multi-month timeline required to onboard new airline suppliers was a major bottleneck, hindering their ability to expand their product offerings and react to market changes.

Solution

A strategic “Grow” and “Product Modernization” engagement. Indexnine architected and built a modern, event-driven, microservices-based integration hub to streamline supplier onboarding. In parallel, we developed their new flagship B2B2C platform, enabling them to enter the direct-to-consumer market for the first time.

Key Outcomes

75% Faster Time-to-Market
The new integration hub reduced the time to onboard new airline suppliers using the modern NDC protocol from over 3 months to just 3 weeks.
New B2B2C Revenue Channel Launched
Successfully architected and delivered a scalable, user-centric B2C platform, opening up a significant new revenue stream for the business.
Massively Improved Operational Efficiency
Replaced a brittle, manual integration process with a streamlined, automated, and scalable architecture, freeing up valuable engineering resources to focus on innovation.
Future-Proofed for Industry Evolution
The modern, API-first architecture positions the client to rapidly adapt to future changes in travel technology standards and onboard new partners with unprecedented speed.

Modern Architecture

Challenge

The Growing Pains of a Market Leader

The client had firmly established itself as a dominant force in India’s B2B travel market. Their platform served as the critical technology backbone for thousands of travel agents, providing them with real-time access to a vast inventory of flights, hotels, and other travel products. They had successfully navigated the “Launch” and “Pivot” phases and were in a period of rapid growth.

However, this very success was exposing critical weaknesses in their underlying technology. Their platform, built on a traditional monolithic architecture, was struggling to keep pace with their business ambitions. They faced two primary challenges that were hindering their ability to execute on the “Grow” phase of their lifecycle:

The Integration Bottleneck: The travel industry is a complex web of integrations with Global Distribution Systems (GDS) and, increasingly, direct connections to airlines via the New Distribution Capability (NDC) protocol. For the client, onboarding a new NDC airline was a painful, manual, and time-consuming process, often taking three to four months of dedicated engineering effort. This slow pace meant they were slow to add new products to their platform and were at risk of falling behind more agile competitors.
The B2C Ambition: The client’s leadership had a clear strategic vision for growth: to expand beyond their B2B roots and launch a direct-to-consumer (B2C) platform. This would allow them to capture higher margins and build a direct relationship with travelers. However, their existing B2B-focused platform was not architected to handle the user experience demands, scalability requirements, or payment processing complexities of a consumer-facing product.

They needed a technology partner who could solve their immediate integration problem while simultaneously building the foundation for their future B2C business. This required a deep understanding of both complex, enterprise-grade integration and modern, user-centric product development.

Our Solution

A Dual-Pronged Strategy for Growth and Efficiency

This engagement was a perfect showcase for Indexnine’s ability to execute on multiple strategic fronts simultaneously. We deployed our engineering pods to tackle both challenges in parallel, architecting solutions that were not only effective but also interconnected.

Phase 1: Modernizing the Core with an Event-Driven Integration Hub

To solve the integration bottleneck, our Engineering Studio recognized that a series of one-off fixes would not suffice. The problem was architectural. We designed and built a new, modern integration hub based on a microservices and event-driven architecture.

From a technical perspective, this new hub fundamentally changed how the client interacts with its airline partners:

Decoupled Supplier-Specific Microservices: Instead of a single, monolithic block of code trying to handle dozens of different airline APIs, we built a collection of small, independent microservices. Each microservice was responsible for communicating with a single airline’s NDC API. This meant that the complexities and unique quirks of one airline’s integration were completely isolated from all others, dramatically reducing system fragility.
A Canonical Data Model for Travel: We worked with the client to define a single, standardized “canonical” data model for all core travel concepts (e.g., a “flight segment,” a “passenger record,” a “fare”). The job of each microservice was to translate the airline’s unique API response into this standard format.
Asynchronous Processing with Message Queues: The hub was built on an asynchronous message queue. When a travel agent searches for a flight, the request is published as an event. Multiple airline microservices can then pick up this event, process the request in parallel, and publish their results back to the queue. This asynchronous, parallel processing model is far more scalable and performant than a traditional, synchronous request-response model, especially when dealing with dozens of slow, third-party APIs.

The Business Impact of this Architecture: The new integration hub was a game-changer for the client’s operational efficiency. By creating a standardized, plug-and-play model for integrations, we reduced the time to onboard a new NDC airline from over three months to just three weeks. This 75% reduction in time-to-market gave them a massive competitive advantage, allowing them to expand their flight inventory and product offerings faster than ever before.

Phase 2: Building the B2B2C Platform for a New Revenue Stream

While one team was modernizing the core, another was focused on building the future. Our product engineering pod worked to develop the client’s new B2C travel booking platform. This was a classic “Grow” initiative, designed to create an entirely new revenue channel.

Our team handled the end-to-end development, focusing on the key requirements for a successful consumer product:

A Modern, User-Centric UI/UX:

Our Design Studio created an intuitive, responsive, and engaging user interface designed to make the complex process of booking travel simple and seamless for consumers.

Scalable Cloud-Native Architecture:

The platform was built on a scalable, cloud-native architecture designed to handle the unpredictable traffic patterns of a consumer-facing website.

Secure and Reliable Payment Gateway Integration:

We integrated multiple secure payment gateways, ensuring a smooth and trustworthy checkout experience for customers.

Crucially, the new B2C platform was designed to consume data from the new, modern integration hub. This created a powerful synergy: the modernization work being done to improve the B2B business was simultaneously providing the clean, standardized data needed to power the new B2C growth engine.

Phase 3: Accelerating Growth and Unlocking New Markets

Our multi-faceted partnership with the client delivered significant, measurable results that directly impacted both their top and bottom lines.

Dramatically Accelerated Product Expansion:

By slashing the supplier integration timeline by 75%, we gave the client the ability to rapidly expand its product offerings and respond to market opportunities with unprecedented agility.

Successful Launch of a New Revenue Engine:

We successfully delivered a robust and scalable B2C platform, enabling the client to enter the high-margin direct-to-consumer market and diversify its revenue streams.

Foundation for Future Innovation:

The modern, microservices-based architecture we implemented has not only solved their immediate problems but has also provided them with a flexible and future-proof platform. They are now positioned to easily add new types of travel products, integrate with new partners, and continue to innovate at speed.

Accelerated B2B2C Market Expansion

Results & Impact

75%

Time-to-Market Reduction

50+

New B2B2C Partners

300%

Platform Scalability

NDC

Protocol Ready

For any established e-commerce or travel technology company looking to break through growth plateaus, this story provides a clear roadmap. It demonstrates that by partnering with Indexnine to modernize core technology and streamline operations, companies can unlock new efficiencies and create powerful new engines for revenue growth.

Why It Worked

This engagement is a powerful example of how Indexnine helps successful companies navigate the complex “Grow” phase of their lifecycle.

Deep Domain and Technical Expertise:
This project required a deep understanding of the travel technology domain (NDC, GDS) combined with elite expertise in modern software architecture (microservices, event-driven systems). Our ability to bring both to the table was a key differentiator.
Strategic, Outcome-Centric Approach:
We didn't just focus on the tactical request ('build a B2C app'). We understood the client's broader strategic goals and recognized that solving their core integration bottleneck was a prerequisite for successful growth.
Parallel Execution for Maximum Velocity:
Our ability to deploy multiple, coordinated engineering pods allowed us to tackle both the core modernization and the new product development in parallel, delivering value on multiple fronts simultaneously and maximizing the client's speed to market.

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