The Corporate Travel Maven:  ITILITE CEO Mayank Kukreja

Marketing Darwinism:  Mayank, ITILITE is on a fast track of late.  Can you tell us what is going on?

Mayank:  Paul, thanks.  We are growing rapidly- in fact we’ve grown 5X, but want to remain focused and humble and not let the success get to us.  The world of corporate travel is back with a vengeance as latent demand built during the pandemic and is expressing itself now.  Commerce, trade, travel- they are all back!  With travel comes expense management and with all of that comes a decision – whether organizations want to make it easy or complex.  We help them make it easy and generate ROI simultaneously and as a result, they have cottoned on.

Marketing Darwinism:  Everyone has experienced issues with corporate travel booking and with filing expenses related to travel.  What are the main problems to solve?

Mayank:  You spotted the issue correctly.  Very few users are happy with their organization’s travel and expense management systems.  They are often disconnected and unwieldy.  They lead to a dearth of choices, sub-optimal travel, locked-in routes, and piecemeal and error-prone expense management.  Further, they create a burden on the entire company.  Offering choices to users within a framework that can be managed, offering integration, and one-stop shopping to users is proven to generate efficiency and ROI from day one.  We identified the issue and corrected it and our customers are very happy right now.

Marketing Darwinism: You managed to grow even during the pandemic years.  What is your secret sauce?

Mayank:  To be honest, our team held strong and believed that as the world recovered, we’d be there supporting that recovery. It is testament to our customers, our team, our investors, and our own belief in what we’re doing. That is what got us through the “tough years” with high marks and growth.

Marketing Darwinism: Travel is a global concept.  Did you set out to build a global company?

Mayank:  We are lucky to have hundreds of customers from all reaches of the globe.  Cloud-native solutions are easy to use from anywhere and the phenomenon of corporate travel and expense management is a universal need.  We are proud of our team’s focus and innovation and are grateful for all of our world-wide customers and partners.  We did set out to build a global brand and we feel we’ve executed well on that proposition.

Marketing Darwinism:  What are your predictions for 2022-2025?

Mayank:  We see companies employing a great deal of ingenuity in how they manage corporate travel.  We know that face to face interactions fuel commerce, that events are still hot, and that businesses are budgeting for an upswing in travel.  There are always going to be glitches and temporary issues but we see a secular path upward.  We will continue to innovate, to try to win markets, and to delight customers, and partners.