One of the ways in which an upcoming IT company can grow its business is by creating HR solutions for the aviation industry. It is a potentially lucrative business, and one that can grow the company’s profile in a huge way. Once you have such jobs in your portfolio, it is a huge boost to your company’s resume. And, due to the lucrative nature of this sort of venture, it can improve your company’s bottom-line considerably. Sometimes, you find that you only need to work on one such contract, and you get enough revenue to last you for the entire year.
Getting the contracts
Admittedly, it may not be very easy to get the contracts if yours is an upcoming IT company. The aviation industry seems to prefer to work with well established IT companies. It is therefore not always easy for upcoming enterprises to get the contracts to develop HR solutions for the aviation industry. All contracts seem to go to the ‘established’ IT players. But then (thankfully), we often have the cases where such established IT companies sub-contract their work to upcoming enterprises. So you may, at the very least, get an opportunity to work on one such sub-contract. Or you may be even luckier to come across a newly set up aviation company, which is looking for HR solutions at low rates. Such a company may be willing to give you a chance: notwithstanding the fact that yours is not a very well established IT company.
Sometimes, the aviation companies invite interested IT companies to bid for the contracts to supply the HR solutions. So you can take advantage of such invitations to bid, and you may be just lucky to be the one who clinches the contracts.
There is the other option of approaching the aviation companies directly with a proposal to offer them the HR solutions. You never know — they may buy the proposals, if what you are proposing is just what they were looking for.
It can also be a good idea to network with the people who run the aviation industry, and generally try to be on good terms with them. They would then be in a position to alert you when need for software solutions (like the HR solutions in question here) arises. Then you can go ahead to take advantage of such opportunities.
The scope of the aviation industry
It is important to point out that the aviation industry is broad. So when we make references to ‘creating HR solutions for the aviation industry’ we are not just referring to the airlines. There are, for instance, companies whose main line of business is that of supplying fuel to the aviation industry. Those are regarded as part of the aviation industry. There are others that are involved in repair of aircraft. Those, as well, are regarded as part of the aviation industry. Then we have others still that are involved in the supply or aircraft spare parts, or in marketing/advertising airlines – and all those are still considered to be part of the aviation industry. So the point we are trying to make here is that there are very many types of players in the aviation industry. It is a broad industry.
Therefore, if you want to start developing HR solutions for the aviation industry, you need to broaden your perspective. Don’t limit yourself to the airlines. Yes, it may be hard for you to get contracts from the airlines at the outset, if yours is a newly established IT company. But you can start by developing HR solutions for the other peripheral players in the industry. Your profile would grow with time — to a point where you would eventually start getting contracts from the main players, including the airlines.
Types of HR solutions you can create for the aviation industry
There are many types of HR solutions that you can create for the aviation industry. In this article, we will be looking at five key ones,namely:
Clocking solutions: it is usually necessary to track when employees report to work and when they leave the workplace. This is best done through clocking software. So one of the HR solutions you can offer to the aviation industry (and which companies in the aviation industry have great demand for) is that of clocking software.
Payroll solutions: making calculations for employee remuneration is not always easy. The hours worked and hourly rates have to be taken into considerations. Those alongside any applicable bonuses. Then the applicable deductions have to be considered… It can be very hard to keep track of all these manually. That makes it necessary for software to be used. And this means that one of the HR solutions you can offer to the aviation industry is that of payroll software.
Benefits administration solutions: like all other types of employees, people who work in the aviation industry are entitled to certain benefits. These include medical benefits, employee insurance and retirement benefits, among others. It can be very hard to keep track of these manually: hence the need for software. This is therefore yet another area where you can offer HR solutions to the aviation industry.
Workforce planning solutions: in an industry as complex as the aviation industry, it can be very hard to figure out how many employees are required at various times of the day for the various roles. If you are dealing with hundreds (or even thousands) of employees, spread in different parts of the world, and you are trying to do it manually, it becomes an arduous – nearly impossible — task. This makes it necessary for software to be used, and this therefore is yet another HR solution you can offer to the aviation industry.
Appraisal solutions: as with all other industries, the companies in the aviation industry always endeavor to gauge their employees’ productivity. So this is what necessitates employee appraisal. And whereas the appraisal can be done manually, it is a difficult task if you are dealing with hundreds or thousands of employees. To make the task easier, it becomes necessary to use software – hence the need for employee appraisal solutions.
Integrated HR solutions
One of the options available to you, when creating HR solutions for the aviation industry, is that of having different stand-alone software applications for different purposes. So you can have one application for clocking purposes,another application for payroll processing, yet another one for benefits administration…and so on. The other option is that of having integrated solutions. So this is where you have a single application that is has capabilities for clocking, payroll processing, benefits administration… and so on. You therefore need to be in a position to offer both the stand-alone and the integrated HR solutions for the aviation industry.