www.niit-tech.com Building Next-Gen Enterprise Using Digital Transformation NIIT Technologies White Paper
CONTENTS Enabling you to etch out a new strategy 4 Key components 4 Defining a framework 5 Digital possibilities 5 Conclusion 6 Imperatives of digital strategy 6
GUIDE TRANSPORTATION TOUR GUIDE TRANSPORTATION TRANSPORTATION LOGISTICS JOURNEY TRANSPORTATION GUIDE LOGISTICS PACKAGING JOURNEY Organizations understand the importance of digital influence in improving customer service and corporate efficiency. Travel industry is not far behind in acknowledging the fact that technology can play a significant role in today s digitally empowered world. However, companies lack clarityon how to apply and deliver this digitization. High expectations of digitally aware travelers and the large amount of information available pose a unique challenge. As we move into an era of the hyper connected world, businesses can no longer see technology in isolation. Companies need to analyze if they have really been able to derive maximum potential from this digital surge, and turn it into a competitive advantage in their favor. Gone are the days when online channels were used as mere travel booking tools. Today s customers demand more. They want to make informed decisions, on devices of their choice. With the advent of new devices and technologies, modern customers are well connected, more informed and technologically empowered. Alternate channels such as kiosks, in flight entertainment and social channels are also picking up, compelling airlines to provide cross-channel integration and channel synchronization. The airline industry is at an important crossroad as the need to provide better customer experience is leading to the convergence of physical and digital technologies. The challenge of planning for a post-digital reality is already upon it. Airlines wish to stay in control and take advantage of direct connect with customers in order to stay ahead of the competition. Product un-bundling and extension continue to be the way forward for the e-commerce industry. Airlines have also started to realize the additional revenue opportunities emerging from ancillary sales and merchandizing, and will continue to derive revenues in future too. Commercial and marketing departments are striving to increase share of sales through direct channels to reduce distribution costs. 10 Minutes Planning The Day Before Airlines and travel companies are trying hard to reach out to the customers to provide context sensitive information throughout their travel lifecycle. The immediate pressure is to deliver information and support engagement on multiple channels. The emphasis is increasingly on refining customers travel experience, in the context of their complete journey; how to engage with them throughout the journey at relevant touch points, to provide a better experience. The Internet and mobile channels are the closest to customers and they used igital technologies to contextually locate restaurants, friends, jobs, and even plan and manage travels. Airlines digital channels are creating fresh opportunities and are a fundamental source of inspiration for new travels. Search remains vital to leisure and business travelers as they seek a variety of content and information. An interesting idea, from the initial awareness phase to consideration and booking, can stay on top of the mind of travelers. A superior customer experience with rich functionality will lead to brand stickiness and ultimately help in building customer confidence. Airlines need to start engaging customers at this point and keep them enticed with the brand by extending services and products that suit their preferences, context and past history. Organizations need to analyze customers and segment them so that they can offer services and products relevant to the respective segments. This increases the probability of customers buying more services. Making it a two-way affair is important to engage customers and enable the industry to develop better products and services. 3
Advent of mobility and social media are acting as catalyst in this direction. Selling products is gradually, but definitely turning into an emotional affair. Studies reveal that social influence has substantially picked up when it comes to travel inspiration and planning. Source of Inspiration Family, friends or colleagues 62 % Internet TV 39 % 61 % Source: Google - The 2013 Traveler These factors, coupled with the need for airlines to invest in a multi-channel approach to offer a homogenous interface to access information through various simple and easy-to-use touch points, call for a holistic approach to handle the digital aspects of interfacing with customers. Digital transformation convenes organizations to change more than just technology. With changing business needs, economic uncertainty, poor business-it alignment, mergers and acquisitions, and compliance pressures, organizations turn into a hub of hundreds of legacy, sub-optimal and sometimes redundant processes and supporting applications, information silos, and incompatible technologies. Business agility and the need to stay abreast with competition call for immediate changes to such systems. These changes when done in an unplanned and unstandardized manner, lead to redundancies, duplication of effort and at times, business failures. It ultimately affects the bottom line and results in dissatisfied customers. Organizations need to continuously analyze their applications portfolio for business value, delivery potential and reduced cost of ownership. To help airlines in their journey from digital presence to digital excellence, NIIT Technologies has developed a unique Digital Strategy Consulting Solution. Our solution is a multi-dimensional model that can be used as a framework to assess your 12 organization s objectives, goals, current state of maturity of business processes and IT systems, identify gaps and help you to plan and implement essential capabilities in a staged manner. Our Current state assessment model will focus on key airline functions and business processes in the area of the ecommerce and distribution and benchmark the organization s current maturity level within those business areas. We have included key airline industry trends for future and coupled it with our experience of having worked with several airlines in the area of improving their B2C and B2B distribution in formation of this model. The model would be tailored for based on the organization s business objectives and drivers. Key components Actionable nalytics Distribution Channel Compatibility Channel Maturity Digital Strategy Social Media & Gamification Merchandizing Personalized Interaction Enabling you to etch out a new strategy With our experience of working with clients in airlines and travel, insights from research across multiple industries, and engagement with air transport industry bodies and vendors, we believe that a digital transformation strategy that seeks to exploit unique opportunities in digital domain while integrating the physical with the digital, will help airlines to come up with newer and better value propositions, revenue models, and operating models. Key components of Digital Strategy Model Channel Maturity: This would evaluate the maturity of your website, mobile, social, kiosk, IFE, and other channels in terms of functionalities and if they are in line with the industry and futuristic vision of your organization. 4
Merchandizing: This focuses on the ability of your organization to sell ancillaries and non-air products through various channels and identifies opportunities to up-sell and cross-sell products so as to expedite your revenue generation goals. Our assessment will help you identify potential business processes that can be enhanced for merchandizing capabilities. Personalized Interaction: It checks for personalization of various business processes, so as to offer specific products and services that have greater potential of being purchased by customers. This can be achieved by displaying context relevant content with better customer analytics capabilities. Social Media and Gamification: Social analysis will lead to social integration capabilities within your business processes, for better customer understanding and servicing them through a medium that is most comfortable to them. Channel Compatibility: Channel compatibility evaluates interoperability of channels, in terms of seamless shift between channels to complete transactions, like creating a booking via agency on GDS and managing the booking via airline website. It further encompasses latest in technological advances like Responsive design and integrated content management. Distribution: Distribution caters to ability of the organization to B2B agency, corporate and OTA distribution capabilities and organization s focus on new industry trends like NDC Actionable Analytics: Analytics is one of the key decision making input in all business processes and evaluates Airline s capabilities in analyzing and predicting on personal, sales and channel specific quadrants. Defining a framework Business Framework & Current State Analysis Study of Business Framework and Current State Analysis: This includes defining your digital strategy aligned with business objectives and drivers, and digital assessment of your business and IT systems. Gap Analysis, Assessment and Target State Definition: This includes defining your to-be business and technical architecture landscape and performing gap analysis. Further, our experts will evaluate candidate solutions to close the gaps. Roadmap and Recommendations: Based on your business imperatives, our consultants will devise a Solution & Vendor Strategy and Execution Approach along with High Level Plan to implement your digital strategy. We will also help you develop a tailored roadmap for your digital initiatives, based on your priorities and current competencies. In this journey, NIIT Technologies is willing to participate as an accountable partner and help you with both, consulting and delivery of Digital Services for your strategy. Digital possibilities Digital Transformation will provide the following benefits: Unlocking customer value by providing personalized offers and merchandizing, resulting in increased revenues and ancillary sales. Increased direct distribution share leading to higher profits Superior customer experience and functionality leading to brand stickiness and domination over competition. These may include increased leads to business (L2B), increased active customer profiles, and year-on-year growth in digital distribution share. Optimized business processes and efficient medium and long term strategy for IT modernization resulting in scalability and agility to change according to business and market requirements, and advances in technology. Gap Analysis, Digital and IT Assessment Target State Definition Roadmap and Recommendations 5
Conclusion Digital Strategy is not an overnight success mantra; it involves a continuous learning and implementation process. Imperatives of digital strategy Alignment of digital strategy with business objectives: Identify valid stakeholders from business, marketing and IT to manage innovation and efficiency. Understand what you want Ownership: Airlines need to identify correct stakeholders who would continually drive digital strategy initiates within he enterprise Organizational agility to radical approaches and experimentation ability: Leverage partnerships with airline industry experts. Identify and choose right technologies that can help in transformation. Continuous improvement approach: Need quick response and partners who are willing to take the plunge with you. to achieve. 6
About NIIT Technologies NIIT Technologies is a leading IT solutions organization, servicing customers in North America, Europe, Asia and Australia. It offers services in Application Development and Maintenance, Enterprise Solutions including Managed Services and Business Process Outsourcing to organizations in the Financial Services, Travel & Transportation, Manufacturing/Distribution, and Government sectors. With employees over 8,000 professionals, NIIT Technologies follows global standards of software development processes. Over the years the Company has forged extremely rewarding relationships with global majors, a testimony to mutual commitment and its ability to retain marquee clients, drawing repeat business from them. NIIT Technologies has been able to scale its interactions with marquee clients in the BFSI sector, the Travel Transport & Logistics and Manufacturing & Distribution, into extremely meaningful, multi-year "collaborations. NIIT Technologies follows global standards of development, which include ISO 9001:2000 Certification, assessment at Level 5 for SEI-CMMi version 1.2 and ISO 27001 information security management certification. Its data center operations are assessed at the international ISO 20000 IT management standards. India NIIT Technologies Ltd. Corporate Heights (Tapasya) Plot No. 5, EFGH, Sector 126 Noida-Greater Noida Expressway Noida 201301, U.P., India Ph: + 91 120 7119100 Fax: + 91 120 7119150 Americas NIIT Technologies Inc., 1050 Crown Pointe Parkway 5 th Floor, Atlanta, GA 30338, USA Ph: +1 770 551 9494 Toll Free: +1 888 454 NIIT Fax: +1 770 551 9229 Europe NIIT Technologies Limited 2 nd Floor, 47 Mark Lane London - EC3R 7QQ, U.K. Ph: +44 20 70020700 Fax: +44 20 70020701 Singapore NIIT Technologies Pte. Limited 31 Kaki Bukit Road 3 #05-13 Techlink Singapore 417818 Ph: +65 68488300 Fax: +65 68488322 A leading IT solutions organization 21 locations and 16 countries 8000 professionals Level 5 of SEI-CMMi, ver1.2 ISO 27001 certified Level 5 of People CMM Framework Write to us at marketing@niit-tech.com www.niit-tech.com D_58_060214