VFS Global
VFS Global is the world’s largest outsource provider of visa processing services, acting for over sixty client governments. Ahead of the rebidding of its most valuable contract, the UK, VFS asked Tarsh to help with creative ideas on alternative locations where visa applicants could go to submit their biometrics.
Tarsh suggested seeking a strategic partnership with a global hotel chain. The essence of a collaboration would involve VFS embarking on a roadshow, using hotels in second and third tier cities, where prospective travellers could pay a fee to submit their applications in person and so avoid a long and costly journey to an application centre in a major city.
The initiative would create an opportunity for the hotel chain simultaneously to rent out a small meeting room and to recruit high-net-worth travellers to its loyalty programme, at a highly opportune moment, just before they travel. Such a scheme would also offer convenience to travellers, a new income stream for VFS and a potential mix of revenue and kudos for the pioneering client government.
VFS liked the idea and commissioned Tarsh to help implement it. A pilot programme with Radisson in the Middle East and Marriott in the USA proved profitable and popular with all parties; so much so that VFS made it a central plank of its rebid.
The rebid was extremely successful, as VFS was not just reappointed, but was awarded an extended mandate to cover all five world regions, up from three for which it was previously responsible.