In part 1 of this blog, we discussed with Francesco Mari the different approaches companies have to adopt SAP HANA, and how it enables them to identify and tackle complex business problems, so they can redefine the customer experience they provide.
How Airline companies can better adapt to severe weather conditions?
Are airlines able today to change the course of a storm? Not yet. They may be able however to tremendously reduce the impact cancellations have on their customers’ experience.
Over the past years, airline companies, like many other organizations, had to “streamline” their costs to become “more operationally efficient”. In other terms, they have to use fewer resources to accomplish more. On the same time, their customers became more demanding and less tolerant to changes.
The consequences of a bad weather in Chicago, for example, have a ripple effect that can have tremendous impact for the company, leaving thousands of people waiting to get re-routed to the right locations.
For the airline companies, the re-scheduling of the flight is a very complex mathematical problem that cannot be easily solved. Today, they either spend a lot of resources to do it manually, or have systems in place that can perform the rescheduling taking many hours. In the meantime, their customers receive most of the time little update on what is up for them and become frustrated, blaming the airline companies for the lack of information.
What would happen if the rescheduling process would take minutes instead, with automatic notifications sent directly to the customers’ phones as it is being processed? That’s the kind of value that custom built applications using a large amount of data can bring.
Your journey ahead
If you think data can improve your processes or help you innovate, you are at the right place. The first step is to identify your goals and the challenges you are trying to solve. This can be done in one or two days-sessions using the Design Thinking methodology. Most of the time, you will get your inspiration by listening to how other companies have developed data-driven custom applications to improve their service or operations.
You will need to make sure to have the right people at the table, from IT to business people, ensuring that inputs are coming from different and complementary angles.
Once the problem you’d like to solve has been properly identified, there are two possible paths available:
- Maybe you have all the data required and it’s “just” a matter of building the right application to achieve your desired result.
- You don’t have all the data required to solve it. Together with the SAP team, you will need to identify what is the missing data and how to acquire it.
In both cases, a more solid business concept is being defined with proper requirements, so you are ready to build the right application that can create a big advantage for your organization.
To get more information on this topic and discuss with our experts, make sure to attend Francesco’s session at SAPPHIRE NOW in Orlando: TE 13981 “Solve Your Biggest Business Challenge with a Platform for Innovation”.
Please visit us also online to get access to additional resources and learn more about SAP’s Custom Development offering.
