How would you present Fairjungle?
Samir Idris - The start-up was created just over a year ago and our service has been available since January. Fairjungle is a B2B platform that enables its customers to make savings on their business trips and rewards thrifty employees. To do this, we define an evolving budget for each trip based on several criteria: the real-time fare, the number of journeys and the number of passengers. travel policy of the company negotiated ratesas well as the average purchasing behaviour of employees. Our algorithm The owner allows us to evaluate this behaviour over a period of 10 days. After this calibration phase, our service is available to the customer. We do not replace the customer's travel agency, we complement it.
In practical terms, how does this work for the employee?
S. I. - They log on to our platform and simulate their trip by filling in various details: their departure city, destination, travel dates and preferred times. Our algorithms will calculate a travel budget including transport - train or flight - and accommodation. We also plan to add car hire. Next, our platform shows the business traveller a "budget to beat. We then offer them several transport and hotel options and challenge them to choose one that is less expensive. If they manage to do so, part of the savings will be returned to them. This can take the form of vouchers which can be used in over 500 stores in France or in other countries. donations to charities. To make the user experience as smooth and fast as possible, we recommend three travel options: "pro', 'eco' or 'smart. The "pro" offer is made up of the transport that the traveller would surely have chosen if they hadn't used Fairjungle. They are not making any savings by choosing it. Next, the "eco" offer represents the other end of the spectrum: a flight that is generally low cost with flexible working hours. Finally, there's the 'smart' offer, which strikes the right balance between the 'smart' and the 'smart'. comfortthe proximity of schedules desired by the traveller and the creation ofsavings. Nearly 85 % of users choose one of the three recommended options. Employees find what they are looking for much more quickly than on an endless interface. However, if they want to have access to all the flights and hotels available, that's also possible.
And what about the employer?
S. I. - It offers its employees a pleasant interface, on which we have put a lot of work, particularly in terms of simplicity. We wanted the average session to last less than one minute and thirty seconds. When the employee validates their trip, thetravel agency or the SBT working with the company takes over the booking. This is a win-win situation for the employer, as the employee has changed his or her buying behaviour economically. The employer must also determine how much of the savings will be passed on to frugal employees. On this point, we generally recommend a share of 30 %.
Can business travellers choose their reward?
S. I. - When travellers make savings, we credit them with Fairjungle points 1 point is equivalent to 1 euro of "purchasing power". They can then exchange their points for dematerialised vouchers and use them as they wish, in e-commerce in the form of promotional codes, or in shop with a Flashcode.
Is Fairjungle welcomed in the same way by all categories of employee?
Samir Idris - Our utilisation rate exceeds 80 %This is very satisfactory for an optional tool. Generally speaking, it's the highest-paid employees who are least interested in the challenge we offer. They're not particularly interested in getting vouchers. What's more, although the platform is very intuitive, these employees are generally more resistant to change and continue to make their bookings directly via their agency or SBT. For other business travellers, the adoption rate is almost 100 %. People are used to booking trips for themselves, which is why SBTs are gaining in importance. So we've taken the codes from sites like Booking.com to design our platform. According to some travellers, they would use our tool even without the reward system, because of the quality of the recommendations from our algorithm and the speed of the booking.
What is your business model?
S. I. - We operate on a performance basis as we charge a fee for our services. commission on savings. So there's an immediate return on investment for the company: if they don't make savings, they don't pay for our service. We also invoice the savings, which are paid back to the employee in the form of points. We undertake to pay back all these savings at the request of employees when they want to convert their points into vouchers.
How many people work at Fairjungle?
S. I. - Today there are six of us. With the fund-raising, the idea is to double our workforce within eight months and reach a fifteen people by the end of 2019. We are based at Station F, the start-up incubator created by Xavier Niel.
How many companies are you working with today?
S. I. - We began with a 'proof of concept' with a company of 1,200 people, and then our activity gradually accelerated. We sign a new contract every 4 weeks or so, but the fund-raising we've just launched should enable us to accelerate our pace of development.
Who are your competitors?
S. I. - Rocketrip and TripActions are two American start-ups whose activities are very similar to those of Fairjungle. They have enjoyed real success over the last 8 months: 80 million have been raised. In France, Fairjungle has had a certain amount of visibility, but we have seen the birth of two start-ups in the same field as us with a time lag of 6 to 9 months. These two start-ups also operate on the basis of employee rewards, but on a slightly different spectrum, since they donate part of their employees' savings to NGOs or environmental protection initiatives. The pie is big, so the existence of several similar start-ups is not a problem. We've grown fairly quickly thanks to a previous round of funding, and we're a bit ahead of them: for example, we offer train travel, and their products were launched a month ago, whereas ours was launched in December. The idea is to keep that lead and, why not, move forward with them.
What are your development ambitions over the longer term?
Samir Idris - Firstly, we would like to improve the experience within our platform. This will involve the launch - by the end of the year - of our hotel recommendationsas well as improving our mobile platform. We chose to focus on our web platform because most business travellers still use their laptop to book.
Secondly, we want to offer our users a high-performance end-to-end experience. To do this, we need to go all the way through to the actual booking of the journey. This could be achieved through partnerships with TMCs and integration with SBTs. We are already in discussions, some of them very advanced, with a number of players in the market.
Finally, we are going to accelerate our commercial development. Firstly through internationalisation of our business, particularly in the UK, but also by activating channels other than the Internet. direct selling. For example, we are currently in advanced discussions with certain travel agencies. They could use Fairjungle with customers for whom they have difficulty finding travel solutions, particularly companies with 100 to 500 employees.
