Session Seven :

Customer Focused Enterprise: The Airline of the future

The seventh business session of the day – Customer Focused Enterprise: The Airline of the future had Rahul Sharma, Partner, IBM Global Business Services addressing the audience on the right type of approach, strategies and also some research-based information on achieving the right Customer Relationship Management (CRM) in the bid to become the airline of the future. This session identified the need for an apt model to achieve CRM. The right model for an airline to achieve CRM will be an appropriate business strategy, the right approach taken by the organisation to implement the strategy, the process with which it is implemented and the technology used.

The first issue addressed was that 70 per cent of cost of the airlines goes into operations after which, there is barely any attention paid to the passenger experience. The airline of the future needs to be customer -oriented. Not too many airlines believe in customer satisfaction, however in the recent times, there have been some airlines that have been practicing customer satisfaction. "The point is how long can airlines go on like this?" questioned Sharma, adding that, customer satisfaction is the key issue that needs to be addressed by all the leading airlines.

As per the Global CEO Study in 2008 conducted by IBM where 1100 CEOs were interviewed, organisations are bombarded by change and many are struggling to cope with increasingly demanding customers, more companies adapting business models, where two thirds are implementing extensive innovation, companies moving aggressively towards global business and financial performance getting bolder.

Sharma added, "The core traits of the enterprise of the future which is hungry for change include innovation beyond customer imagination, globally integrated, disruptive by nature, genuine not just generous." The enterprise of the future is to find ways to make offerings relevant to new markets, understand timing, connect everyone to customers, using technology to anticipate shift in customer behaviour. Consumer remains at the core of such an enterprise.

"Airlines need to look at the entire travel process as a single stream rather than as discrete events to help better align initiatives with a desired customer experience," stated Sharma. He added that, to make the transition, airlines need to strategise, innovate and change, operate and sustain. To achieve CRM, customer data integration is very important. The crux of the problem is that there is various representation of the customer’s information.

Transformation to a CFE has significant bearing on the way an airline perceives CRM