Real-time Business intelligence at Continental Airlines - Case Study Example

Real-time Business intelligence at Continental Airlines Describe active data warehousing as it is applied at Continental Airlines. Does Continental apply active or real-time warehousing differently than this concept is normally described? Active data warehousing is a method used for implementing data warehouse which greatly supports the process of decision making in either near-real-time or near-time. An organization or industry has to handle a huge deal of broad and in-depth coarse set of enterprise data. Active data warehousing is characterized by actions that are event driven and provoked by a constant flow of queries raised by any application or people working in such an organization. Continental Airlines is one such organization that deploys active data warehousing for its operational purposes like monitoring the organization’s performance, keeping in track with its progress every day, and many more. Based on the data collected by its active data warehousing program, the management team of Continental conducts a process meeting every day to discuss about the company’s progress. There exists a strong believe among the management team members that, a thing which cannot be measured, can never be managed. Therefore in order to keep in track with the experiences of their customers using the airlines, the management team members were solely dependent on the active data warehousing program. The company’s performance was analyzed by several factors such as their customer’s satisfaction regarding flight arrival and departure times, handling of baggage, and many more. Other areas were Continental Airlines used active data warehousing are airline security, operations of flight, revenue accounting and management, fraud detection, and others. In addition to traditional ways of using active data warehousing, Continental airlines used it differently for reconstructing their goals and making their airlines the most favorite choice for their customers. They made use of active data warehousing to the maximum possible extent to gain information regarding their customer’s experience as well as the company’s performance based on its implementation. The information gathered using the real-time warehousing program was interpreted in such a way that it helped the management team of Continental to make necessary changes to improve the experience of their customers and alter their entire business to match with the needs of their customers. 2) In what ways does real-time data warehousing fit with the Continental strategy and plans? Continental Airlines was once at the verge of bankruptcy but achieved a turnaround after implementing some optimal strategies. Continental revolutionized its functioning by adopting strategies relevant to Business Intelligence. ‘Go Forward’ was the earliest plan adopted by Continental for revolutionizing itself. The ‘Go Forward’ plan incorporated four elements and the real-time data warehousing fitted well with Continental’s strategies and plans. The first part of Go Forward plan was ‘Fly to Win’ by which Continental wanted to understand the real needs of their customers and their willingness to afford them. In this regard, real-time data warehousing aided to integrate all the available sources of data which included inventory, customer satisfaction, flight schedule, and others. This helped Continental management team by providing them all information related to flight journey hence they took better decisions regarding revenue management and pricing. This enabled Continental to raise its revenue. The next part of the plan was ‘Fund the Future’ by which Continental strived hard to continue its business by altering its cash flow pattern and costs. In this regard, the real-time data warehousing program establishes a demand-driven dispatch application. The demand-driven application helped Continental to maximize its profit by making the needed adjustments for the minimized impacts. The next part of the plan was ‘Make Reliability a Reality’ by which Continental sought to reach its customers safely to their desired destinations on time, without any chances of missing luggage. Real-time data warehousing aided for the attainment of best customer satisfaction. Real-time data warehousing provided Continental with extensive customer feedback information, which were used to analyze their valuable customers. It also provides other services like Elite upgrade monitoring, Elite Access, and others. The final part of the plan was ‘Working Together’ by which Continental wished all its workers a common working culture, where all its employees willingly wanted to come for work. When all necessary information and tools are available, employees find it much easier to execute their work. Real-time data warehousing provides such an opportunity to Continental’s employees so that their reluctant attitude towards work was washed away. 3) Describe the benefits of real-time data warehousing at Continental. In several performance metrics, Continental ranked first and became most profitable by deploying real-time data warehousing. Real-time data warehousing supported Continental in taking all kinds of real time decisions regarding weather related issues and air traffic patterns, logistics, flight security, alterations in capacity planning, delivery of cargo, ticket pricing, and many more. Real time data warehousing provided a dynamic link between business operations and decision support. Real time data warehousing provided Continental’s customers with swift updates and alerts issued from the transactional systems. It also helped Continental to effectively manage and increase its revenue and maintain best customer relationship by optimizing flight operations and reducing fraud. Benefits of real-time data warehousing would be much more evident from the cost savings and the resultant revenue increase Continental has achieved. Continental achieved a $5M dollar revenue increase through the ‘demand-driven dispatch’ application introduced by the real time data warehousing program. Real time data warehousing guided Continental to focus on getting an increased amount of revenue from high-value customers through services of excellent quality so that, they would gain greater loyalty from their customers that would eventually pave way for more business with additional revenue. Continental has saved much in data center management through the efficient utilization of the real time data warehousing program. The decision support services were effectively consolidated from the enterprise data warehouse which is another reason for cost savings. Altogether Continent has achieved a huge profit by adopting the real- time data warehousing program that is, $500 million hike in revenue and cost savings out of a $30 million investment. 4) What did the data warehousing group do right that has led to the successful deployment of (real-time) data warehousing and BI within Continental? The data warehousing group of Continental had played a commendable role which led to the successful deployment of real-time data warehousing and Business Intelligence within the company. In order to meet up with the emerging real-time functioning needs, a scalable architecture with a huge scope for growth is much essential. Such warehouse architecture was developed by the data warehousing group of Continental. The research and development team of Continental had an added responsibility of proving to the end users the concepts of real time data warehousing. In this regard, the data warehousing group framed prototypes and developed applications to demonstrate to the potential end users what all new applications could be built using the real time data warehousing program. This not only created a feeling of excitement among the end users but also made them aware of the incorporation of Business Intelligence into Continental. The data warehouse group created a link between the business strategy initiatives and their corresponding applications. They explained the sure revenue benefits associated with each and every application developed. The success of any newly introduced business strategic plan lies in its consistent operation with the organizational culture. The data warehouse group played a vital role in maintaining this consistency. The data warehouse team empowered the employees of Continental by providing them every piece of information needed for enriching their work knowledge and the tools required for enactment. The group facilitated Continental’s employees with better jobs so that they could gain confidence and develop an optimistic attitude towards their work. Reference: Anderson-Lehman, R., Watson, H. J., Wixom, B. H. & Hoffer, J. A. (2004, December). Continental Airlines flies high with real-time business intelligence. MIS Quarterly Executive 3 (4). Read More