Being Digital First

First Published on 21st November, 2016

What would it take for airlines to become passenger-centric organizations? Can IT lead transformation and be a source of competitive advantage?

Airlines are facing a barrage of questions, being challenged to drift away from their process-centric way of functioning. There is a call for digitalisation and the move to ‘digital-first’ delivery methods.  Airlines need to scale their digital business processes and enterprise models to align with the digital ecosystem.

Experienced airline executive Dean Dacko acknowledges that airlines across the world are keenly looking at a passenger-centric evolutionary process but are having difficulties in moving in that direction and implementing that kind of capability.

Most airline environments consist of a mix of technology vendors, but some of that technology is old, inflexible. As one executive points out, most airlines “are at the mercy of their PSS or CRS provider”.  And this hampers the aspiration of being customer-centric, since airlines tend not to own their own data and rather incur expenditure for accessing their own data. The combined impact of complexity in both technology and distribution leads to inconsistency for the passenger – and their overall experience. The passenger sees different products, different prices, different offers or bundles, all depending on which site they are visiting, or what device they are using. Be it for crafting an offer (dynamic merchandising, pricing, availability, and schedule building) or distribution of content, airlines need to evolve in order to be in control. 

But change isn’t easy in this industry considering so many tightly integrated processes.

“The main challenges lie in leveraging the legacy environment, that database environment through the PSS, that has for most part handcuffed majority of airlines for many years. It is being envisioned that customers need to be at the forefront when it comes to all the way they engage, they communicate and market them relevant offers/ services,” Dacko says.  

“Airlines need to take the quantum leap into the future, to recognize that time has come to continue to work on capabilities, build on technology that doesn’t necessary build on an existing PSS. One needs to gear up for digital first, customer first business environment,” said Dacko.  

Ritesh Gupta

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