Interview with Jörg Hauschild, Managing Director Midoco GmbH

Interview about process automation in travel organizations

05.03.2020 Wetzikon, Switzerland

Jörg Hauschild is one of the founders and Managing Director of Umbrella’s partner company, Midoco GmbH.

In this interview, we find out:

• what exactly Midoco does,
• which advantages the interface between Umbrella and Midoco offers, and
• where Heidi Klum attended school.

Jörg, Midoco stands for “Mid Office Company”. Can you briefly explain the role this system plays for travel agencies?
Midoco is the central tool for order processing and invoice automation in a travel agency. The system also collects extensive data about customers, and this data is extremely important for our travel agencies.

Midoco quickly captured the German market and has become the undisputed market leader there. What is the most important factor in your success?
Automation! Midoco customers can automatically create invoices from each PNR or order, which saves a lot of work and eliminates sources of error. Then add in the stability of the system – with nearly 100% availability in 2019.

Invoice automation is Midoco’s greatest strength. The topic is also gaining importance with NDC and ONE Order. Have you noticed an increase in demand?
Yes, absolutely. Travel agencies have to be able to process their orders efficiently, even with increasingly fragmented content. With Midoco, that is really easy to do. We work closely together with all GDS, as well as other aggregators such as Atriis, BridgeIT and AirGateway.

You have a very wide client base – leisure travel agencies, TMCs, online TAs and even tour operators. Besides Germany, in which countries does Midoco currently work?
We have been international for quite a long time, and are well on our way to becoming a global player. Midoco has clients in the UK, Austria, Switzerland, Bulgaria, the Czech Republic and Luxembourg. Our clients include Lufthansa City Center, DER, DERPART Travel Services, TUI, LMX and Fello from London.

There is also of course an interface for profile data between Umbrella and Midoco. What advantages does this interface have for TMCs?
Profile data includes essential information for invoicing, such as customer number and cost center. This information is necessary to clearly identify and classify orders in the mid-office. The interface ensures that this data is correct and up-to-date in all systems.

How long has Midoco been around and how big is the company?
We founded Midoco on January 1, 2005. We now have nearly 60 employees, most of whom work from our office in Hilden (near Dusseldorf). The Midoco Group also includes the 16 members of the Umbrella team, of course.

Jörg outside of work: where did you grow up and where do you live now?
I grew up in beautiful Bergisch Gladbach and still live there. Heidi Klum is from here, too, actually – we even went to the same school.

Does Heidi still have your phone number?
Good question. Probably not, back then we only had land lines...

What has been your most impressive travel experience so far?
That was a 12-day fam trip to the west coast of the US back in 2012. We had so much fun that we now repeat parts of the trip every two years. I still remember a “100 tequila bar” somewhere in Nevada, the incredible Bryce Canyon and our helicopter flight over the Grand Canyon.

Thank you so much for the interview!

Here you will find out more about MIDOCO Mid-office.