Interview with Eric Ye, Senior Vice President of Technology at Ctrip: CTO Challenges, Technology Transformation, and Private Cloud Platform

Accompanying rapid business growth, cloud computing and big data technologies are spreading beyond internet companies, reshaping traditional IT architectures and creating value through data. The new technological revolution starts with the daily work of CTOs, who, as technical decision‑makers in software, hardware, development or internet firms, steer product innovation, user experience, market impact, and bear responsibility for end users and partners. CTOs must balance speed and cost while anticipating future trends and leading teams to rebuild IT.

Breakthroughs in computing, storage, and bandwidth, combined with the rise of smart mobile terminals, bring opportunities and challenges to the commercial world. Technology has become the driving force behind enterprise evolution beyond business models, making the CTO’s value more critical than ever. Cloud, SaaS, freemium, and user‑experience thinking are disrupting traditional hardware‑software delivery, allowing companies to focus resources on business models. The old IT world is collapsing, and the reshaping of business models through internet technology gives CTOs a new mission.

CSDN and ITValue jointly launched the first "Most Valuable CTO" award to uncover the technological value behind industry transformation.

Eric Ye, Senior Vice President of Technology at Ctrip, entered the final selection, and today he shares his interview with CSDN.

Eric Ye Company: Ctrip Position: Senior Vice President of Technology Personal Profile: Eric Ye joined Ctrip in 2011 and, over three years, led the technology team through transformation, focused on wireless, technology‑driven business, and talent acquisition, enabling rapid iteration and high‑quality product delivery while driving overall business growth. From June 2002 to August 2011 he held roles such as Chief Engineer, Senior Manager, Global Development Manager, and Platform Director at eBay, and previously worked at Yahoo and Netscape in Silicon Valley, accumulating over 20 years of internet technology and leadership experience. Company Overview: Ctrip was founded in 1999; by November 2014 it had branches in 39 Chinese cities, operating a hybrid model of internet and traditional tourism to provide comprehensive travel services. By integrating online and offline resources, it creates a full‑stack service chain covering pre‑travel, travel, and post‑travel phases. Ctrip (CTRIP) was listed on NASDAQ in 2003. Reason for Nomination: He led the technology team to achieve rapid iteration and high‑quality product delivery through transformation, wireless focus, technology‑driven business, and talent acquisition.

Eric Ye, Senior Vice President of Technology at Ctrip

Eric Ye joined Ctrip in 2011 and, over three years, led the technology team through transformation, wireless focus, technology‑driven business, and talent acquisition, enabling rapid iteration, high‑quality product delivery, and accelerated overall business growth.

CTO Club: What do you think is the biggest challenge for a CTO? Why?

Eric explains that three years ago Ctrip was shifting from an offline call‑center model to online and then to wireless. The challenges were weak online and wireless capabilities, requiring talent reserves, a stronger architecture, and a mindset shift from traditional call‑center thinking to internet‑centric thinking.

Online talent needed to be built; the existing architecture was thin, prompting a new architectural concept; and developers, engineers, and business staff had to adopt an online mindset—a lengthy process that demanded extensive effort.

CTO Club: What qualities do you think a distinguished CTO should possess?

Eric lists six essential qualities that are applicable to Ctrip and other internet companies.

First, a CTO must be able to identify, diagnose, and solve real problems, leading the team to “battle” rather than staying theoretical.

Second, talent acquisition is not just HR’s job; a CTO must use personal influence to attract the right people and sustain the effort over time.

Third, a CTO needs strong business acumen to communicate with CEOs and business teams in business language rather than purely technical terms.

Fourth, awareness of technical debt is crucial; as technology matures, debt accumulates and must be repaid promptly.

Fifth, a CTO must bring new innovations, avoiding merely “re‑cooking” existing technology, to create a positive virtuous cycle for the company.

Sixth, optimizing and adjusting organizational structure is challenging but necessary as business and market conditions evolve; outdated structures become growth bottlenecks.

CTO Club: Please describe the three‑year technology transformation you led at Ctrip.

Three years ago, offline business accounted for about 70% of volume, with online under 30%. After transformation, offline dropped to 20%, wireless rose above 45%, and online reached 35%, representing an 80% shift toward wireless and online. Business volume grew 3.5‑fold.

Key strategic actions included:

1. The “Open API Everywhere” strategy to provide public APIs and create a one‑stop platform.

2. Setting a “ten‑fold growth” target, which raised expectations for talent, architecture, technology accumulation, and business support, driving rapid team growth.

3. Emphasizing talent acquisition, recognizing that transformation stalls without skilled personnel.

4. Optimizing architecture with advanced distributed designs to improve scalability, decouple business from architecture, reduce complexity, and enable fast iteration.

5. Accumulating technology assets, including adopting many open‑source solutions in the big‑data platform.

These measures turned Ctrip from a call‑center‑centric company into one with strong internet competitiveness.

CTO Club: You and your team have notable achievements in technology patents. How do you foster continuous innovation?

Eric notes that in the U.S., patents are highly valued, and he has written many patents himself. He promotes a patent culture at Ctrip by:

1. Leading by example, having written nearly 30 patents in the past two and a half years, and mentoring team members on patent writing.

2. Implementing internal reward mechanisms, including project and technology awards, especially for technologies with high technical value but unclear immediate business impact.

3. Encouraging an engineering culture where engineers take ownership, proactively solve problems, and share knowledge, linking product success to engineer satisfaction.

CTO Club: The award’s “Best Project” you submitted is Ctrip’s private cloud platform. Could you detail its background and development?

The Ctrip cloud platform is built on OpenStack, enabling automated virtual server provisioning and virtual desktop services for the call center.

Background: Ctrip’s business model has become increasingly complex with rapidly expanding application scale and fast‑changing market demands, requiring an efficient, flexible, dynamically scalable, high‑availability infrastructure. Ctrip operates the industry’s largest OTA call‑center network with over ten thousand staff, and continuous business growth demands ongoing call‑center expansion.

To meet this, Ctrip adopted the widely used open‑source IaaS framework OpenStack and performed secondary development to create a private cloud. The virtual desktop cloud replaces traditional PC desktops, offering Desktop‑as‑a‑Service, reducing call‑center operating costs, and accelerating deployment.

The private cloud’s launch dramatically shortened the time from idea to user delivery, boosting Ctrip’s competitiveness. The virtual desktop product accelerated call‑center scaling, cut operating expenses, saved 70% of energy consumption, and enabled automated operations management.

CTO Club: About the platform

CSDN CTO Club is the most influential and largest domestic platform for technology leaders, founded by CSDN, offering free membership with real‑name verification. It now has over 13,000 registered members, covering CTOs, senior technology executives, chief architects, and engineering directors from thousands of Chinese IT companies and enterprises.