Companies across the globe are constantly working to balance their commercial objectives

with corporate social responsibility practices. With a growing demand on the world’s precious resources, international companies have never been under more pressure to enhance their green credentials.

Sustainable Opportunity Solutions (SOS) is a business that understands the increasing demand on companies to adopt strong environmental practices. It works in partnership with clients to seek long-term solutions to enable organisations to operate on an increasingly sustainable basis.

The company develops sustainable decision support systems to help businesses to tackle the sustainable travel challenges they face when operting in a global marketplace.

SOS developed a prototype software tool called TravelHUBTM. The tool is designed to help companies efficiently evaluate travel options against objectives that matter most to them, such as cost control, carbon management, productivity, and traveller wellbeing for a complete door to door journey. TravelHUBTM guides companies to

define their corporate, operational, and employee goals and maintains real time carbon and cost budgets to keep on track.

The Business Challenge

In order to further enhance the capacity of the tool to develop an industrial strength prototype, SOS approached Interface - The knowledge connection for business, to find an academic partner to further enhance the technology and get the product ready for market.

The Solution

Interface initiated a collaborative project between SOS and Dr Michael Rovatsos from the School of Informatics at the University of Edinburgh. The company was awarded a Scottish Funding Council Innovation Voucher, which was used to identify improvements to the current

SOS Collaborates with Academia to Seek Sustainable Solutions for Business

Case studyIndustry: Business Travel

Expertise sought: ICT

Solution: Innovation voucher

“The dedicated and committed team at Interface ensured we found the right expert; an expert who not only added value to our business strategy, but also had a genuine interest in the technology we are developing.”PAUL ADDERLAy, MAnAgIng DIRECTOR, SUSTAInABLE OPPORTUnITy SOLUTIOnS

0131 651 4791www.interface-online.org.ukinfo@interface-online.org.uk

TravelHUBTM system; share knowledge between the partners to enable SOS to implement these improvements; and to identify potential future developments to the core technology for new applications to help SOS demonstrate the long-term viability of the technology.

The initial collaborative project proved to be successful, meeting all objectives. The School of Informatics introduced the business partner to state-or-the-art scientific techniques; suitable technologies for future use in the products of the business were identified, and a technology roadmap for the long-term business strategy was developed.

The project is the first in a series of planned collaborations and the long-term aims are to build a mutually beneficial partnership to develop functionality enhancements to TravelHUBTM. SOS plans to develop additional functionalities for its products using novel techniques to achieve a competitive advantage in the market and to demonstrate the core technology to new markets, such as the sustainable tourism management sector which closely aligns to the Scottish government’s policy ambitions. The School of Informatics will explore the application area as a promising tested for research outcomes.

Partnership Benefits

Company enhanced its product and demonstrated the long term viability of its product.

A technology roadmap for the long-term business strategy was developed

Developed additional functionalities for its products using novel techniques to achieve a competitive advantage in the market

Interface Fast Facts We match businesses

with academics - making available the world class expertise and facilities in Scotland’s Universities and Research Institutes

We have initiated over 400 company and university collaborations

We can help identify suitable funding options to off-set the cost of the collaboration

“With sustainable travel of extreme importance to business practices, it was exciting to work with an organisation dedicated to helping businesses create a sustainable ethos.”LOUISE ARnOLD, InTERFACE

© Interface – The knowledge connection for business 2011To find out more visit www.sos-travelhub.com