In downturn, KM uplifts travel industry

The addition of CRM, loyalty and other information, along with normal growth, led to fast expansion in the amount of data in the system. In only 18 months, the information on the data warehouse more than doubled from 6 TB to 13 TB. Yet the time needed to generate reports shrunk from 14 to 18 hours to only two to three minutes, according to Grigorian. The reporting capabilities are more comprehensive as well.

“People [IHG managers and executives] who are consumers of the data are now able to do more work based on the analysis and outcome of the reports,” Grigorian says. The reports allow the company to adjust pricing on an as-needed basis, maximizing revenue when rooms are in high demand. That occurs at points even during economic downturns.

Grigorian adds that IHG chose to invest in the KM technology during the economic downturn to be more strongly positioned for when the economy rebounds. He figures the company has reached about 50 percent capacity on the current data warehouse, and expects to have to go to a bigger system in about three years.

Just as IHG found Teradata’s warehouse appliance to be the right solution for better internal knowledge management, Sabre Holdings, which provides customer and travel content and other solutions for the travel industry, wanted to offer better products for its travel industry customers so that they could in turn improve their own business.

Already using other Teradata solutions, Sabre expanded its relationship with the company by adding the Teradata Active Enterprise Data Warehouse, along with Teradata Relationship Manager and Teradata Warehouse Miner for externally facing solutions. The goal is to create data-driven reporting tools for airlines, including a travel value calculator and SabreSonic Customer Sales & Service Solution.

Those solutions help airlines determine the customer value at each and every touch point, according to Dale Hazel, senior VP of customer data and travel content for Sabre Holdings. With that information, anyone facing the customer—such as the call center agent, gate agent or other airline employee—has the information to determine if a passenger should receive an upgrade, or if he or she should get a pass to the airline “club” room or other incentives, particularly if the passenger has been inconvenienced (e.g., baggage mishandled, flight delayed, etc.)

The solutions are relatively new, so Hazel doesn’t have any quantifiable information about how well they were working. But he sees this knowledge as critical for airlines as they battle for customer loyalty.