Hi, my name is Ameer Jumabhoy and I am the co-founder and head of Consumer Experience at UTU, the world’s first VAT refund and cross-border rewards app.

Today I am here to talk about the importance of collaboration within an organization, as I believe it is pivotal in enabling employees to brainstorm, innovate, work efficiently and effectively and make unified decisions. Being co-founder, my role at UTU is multi-faceted and involves me interacting with a variety of people throughout the day. Within the Consumer Experience department, my team and I work closely together when curating digital properties that are public facing such as our website and various apps, thus ensuring that we are on the same page and moving towards a common goal. This process ensures that we can identify potential problems earlier on and encounter fewer bumps down the road.

Collaboration is the driving force behind our greatest projects and is essential in ensuring all innovation is on the right track. Since I often have to consider how users interact and engage with our products, I work closely with the team that runs our social media accounts to brainstorm creative and novel ways to engage our customers. A collaborative environment also establishes better team relationships by creating more opportunities for our team members to feel comfortable in pitching fresh and unique ideas. For example, our Singapore team spontaneously came up with a UTU travel playlist on Spotify featuring music from countries all over the world and I truly believe it has been a fun and creative way to engage a wider consumer base.

Having offices in Singapore, Italy, Thailand and India means that we have an extremely diverse company culture with varied experiences, ideas and perspectives. When contemplating new ideas, the synergy between various international offices allows us to view suggestions through a different lens and come up with constructive feedback that supports our product development. I am particularly proud of our 100% refund initiative which restores tourists’ rights in claiming the full value of their refund as this is something that has not been done before and I truly believe it was a collaborative process that brought this product to life.

The travel tech industry is highly dynamic and is consistently evolving to accommodate new changes and develop products that save users time and money. I feel being a start-up is particularly advantageous as our small size allows us to coordinate and collaborate effectively across departments to develop solutions at a faster pace. This gives us the flexibility we need when times change, and products need to be adapted or developed. A good example of this is how we are responding to the Covid-19 pandemic by providing greater digitization and fewer physical touch points for tourists claiming their tax refunds in several European countries.

Collaboration in the workplace is critical in maximizing success. This process has pioneered our best ideas and has effectively fostered efficiency, innovation and growth which are essential factors in our growth as a company.

Thank you, Ameer, for sharing such wonderful insights.

I agree, and I believe that collaboration is ever most crucial today – how we engage in teams and as part of larger organizations greatly shape the development of, not only our common goals, but also of the relationships and people involved. I think the increasing desires for innovation and efficiency also further heightens our need for effective collaboration to make beneficial progress. 

Collaboration is often taught at school from a young age. We learn how to work with others – teamwork, collaboration. However, I think that more and more of it is lost as we grow older and more competitive through later years of school and into our careers. Your remarks on collaboration as the crux of a company’s growth and success reminds us that we should all strive for better collaboration to reach higher goals.