Tokyo International Airport to operate on IBS' Cargo Management Solution
IBS has signed a deal with Tokyo International Air Cargo Terminal Ltd (TIACT Ltd.) for the implementation of the Cargo Terminal Operations (CTO) module of iCargo, a new-generation Cargo Management System. The system will manage the new cargo terminal at Tokyo International Airport, also known as Haneda Airport. Haneda, ranked among the world's busiest passenger airports, will be the first neutral ground handler to use iCargo’s CTO module.

IBS’ CTO system will provide Haneda with an integrated system that will optimize operations, enhance profitability and provide the airport the scalability to manage the increasing volumes of cargo as well as the growth of its business. It will efficiently manage the ground handling and warehousing of all cargo processed through the airport, and provide the tools to significantly improve service levels and productivity. The airport is undergoing an expansion, and is scheduled to be fully functional by October 2010.

TIACT is the first neutral ground handler to use the iCargo CTO module. The system will handle the entire Cargo terminal operations of TIACT. With this, IBS now can also offer a solution to manage the Cargo Terminal Operations at Airports. This deal is indicative of a growing acceptance of new-generation solutions globally and IBS’ new-generation cargo solutions in Japan, one of the principal markets for the global air cargo industry.

IBS acquires US-based VISaer; forays into Airline Maintenance, Repair and Overhaul Business
IBS acquires US-based VISaer Inc., a leader in aviation maintenance and engineering (M&E) software solutions. This marks IBS’ entry into Airline Maintenance, Repair and Overhaul (MRO) business. The acquisition involves the operating assets of VISaer in the US and UK markets, its employees, its global customer base and its web-based Maintenance Repair and Overhaul (MRO) Software System known as ‘VISaer’. The product VISaer will now be one of IBS' products that cater to Airline Operations - the other products being AvientCrew (airline crew management), AvientFleet (airline fleet management), and TopAir (integrated flight operations).

VISaer provides a single, integrated business environment to control the core activities of fleet maintenance, repair and overhaul covering airframes, engines and components. Over the years, VISaer has successfully built a clientele that includes leading airlines and MRO organizations such as China Southern Airlines Limited, Jordan Aeronautical Systems Company, Wood Group Gas Turbine Services, Copa Airlines and Qantas Airways Limited catering to their needs extensively. VISaer provides a platform for a unique suite of modules that completely fits the contract and project-oriented aircraft MRO industry.

IBS plans to add rich functionality to the existing “VISaer” product, and take the product to a much wider audience through its global network while integrating the current business with IBS’ operations. This is IBS' 5th acquisition globally, having previously acquired TopAir from EDS (Switzerland, 2002), Avient Technologies from Honeywell Corporation (UK, 2003), Discovery Travel Systems (USA, 2006) and Hotel Booking Solutions Inc. (March, 2008).

Commoditized FFPs to find their value in data
Airline loyalty schemes have become commoditized, and are now a 'must have' defensive strategy that no longer differentiates the airline. The true power of the FFP lies in the airline’s vast customer database.

Through their loyalty programmes, airlines have compiled databases of valuable customer information on millions, sometimes tens of millions, of their best customers. Many airlines now seek to capitalize on these information assets by pursuing a strategy of customer intimacy - using customer knowledge to differentiate and personalize services, and maintain a targeted and relevant communications dialogue, with a view to reinforcing customer loyalty.

Lack of data access
But customer information is often difficult to access and poorly integrated. Loyalty and marketing managers lack the tools to gain insight, and are stuck in the age of mass marketing communications due to processes and systems which require too much IT involvement. Those airlines trying to implement customer data warehouses and marketing automation systems have been forced to assemble solutions from disjointed components, few of which are tailored to the airline industry: the result has been expensive integration projects often running to tens of millions of dollars.

Customer information garnered over years, can be clearly useful in understanding customer behavior, measuring customer value, and targeting relevant communications to each individual. However, customer profiles and loyalty activity tend to reside in the loyalty system; purchase behavior is captured in the reservations systems; ticket revenue is held in revenue accounting; and customer service history is generally scattered across a multitude of systems (DCS, baggage tracing and others). None of these systems is designed to support flexible, ad-hoc query and analysis. The role of a data warehouse is to bring all these different types of data together into a single, 360o view of customer behavior, supporting different types of analysis, data mining and list extraction, with good performance, and without interfering with normal operational tasks.

Static reporting no longer sufficient?
When asked how a programme is performing, most loyalty managers will turn to paper reports that provide top-level summaries of membership figures, activity levels and other Key Performance Indicators (KPIs). These reports are static, often out of date, and provide little insight into underlying trends and patterns.

Membership eo loyalty programs may be growing, but which markets are driving the growth? Which partners are generating the most enrolments, and what is the demographic profile of new members? Is overall membership growth disguising a churn problem? It is a lucky loyalty manager indeed who has a graphical "dashboard" of programme performance, and can drill down and analyze the figures.

Customer analytics increasing
Customer analytics, including customer value models, attrition models, and various types of customer segmentation, play an important role in relationship marketing, yet they remain out of reach for many airline loyalty managers.

The development of these models has required teams of consultants armed with expensive data mining tools, and often the resulting models are too complex to be trusted or used. What is needed is a hands-on toolkit that allows loyalty managers to define and test analytical models themselves, using all of the available customer information.

More personalized marketing
More knowledge about customers drives more variety and personalization of marketing communications. Typically, once airlines have assembled a customer data warehouse with complete customer information, and have implemented customer analytics, they seek to introduce many different communications types (campaigns, offers, incentives, rewards, recognition), which reflect the most appropriate message for each (smaller and smaller) group of customers.

Traditionally, each campaign has required significant IT development work to extract the customer list, detect the responses, and credit bonuses: clearly this cottage industry approach cannot scale to 'mass customization', where hundreds of finely targeted campaigns run simultaneously. Coordinating so many different campaigns, and ensuring that customers are not bombarded with overlapping or conflicting messages, requires sophisticated campaign management software. These tools, again, are expensive, and do not specifically address the unique requirements of the airline industry, such as detecting campaign response which is implied by customer travel behavior.

Identifying fraud and malpractice
Fraud and malpractice on the part of members, staff and partners, can be a serious problem and most airlines simply don't have the manpower to search for suspicious patterns, chase down every possible loophole and investigate every dubious transaction. Strangely, the tools to automate this process simply do not exist.

Overall, airlines' requirements for analytics, including management insight, customer analytics, fraud detection, and relationship marketing are simply not met by today's offerings. Some airlines have beaten an expensive path to customized solutions; others are stuck, unable to build a business case, which justifies the high costs of software and integration work.
Authored article by Steve Arsenault, Senior Vice President, who heads IBS' Airline Passenger Services Line of Business worldwide.

IBS adds an Ocean Transportation line of business - opens office at Rotterdam
IBS adds an Ocean Transportation Line of Business (LoB) to its six other lines of business, and sets up an office at Rotterdam, the Netherlands, to facilitate the development of new products in this LoB. The dynamic and supportive environment of the seaport of Rotterdam and the local expertise in marine logistics and transportation will help IBS build this Line of Business. IBS already has a fully integrated seaport operation management solution iPort™, implemented at three ports under the Sharjah Ports Authority as well as at the Port of Male in the Maldives.

The Rotterdam office is IBS' second in Europe after London and its fourteenth office office worldwide. Martin Debel, who comes to IBS with over 27 years of experience in this domain, will head the new line of business, and operate out of the Rotterdam office.