In rising to the challenges brought about by the pandemic, the oil and gas industry has responded with extraordinary resilience and responsiveness. With the impact of pandemic forecasted to continue for a more extended period, most upstream energy companies are now in constant pursuit for proven, sustainable, cost optimization strategies and best practices to reduce logistics cost per barrel without adversely affecting the efficiencies in the long run. For most supply chain functions, this calls for responding to the following challenges that need strategies beyond tactical cost reduction measures:

Digitization is the way forward for Airline Operations!

Airline experts hypothesize that technology adoption at airlines will leap forward in the aftermath of COVID-19. Around 70% of attendees from IBS Software’s VOPS’20 - Virtual Operations meetings with airlines across regions agreed that the time is right for large-scale transformations. These digitally-driven transformations will embed themselves into operations and drive long-term sustained efficiency.

Although contact centers are a critical part of airline customer experience, most operate as an extension to the core business today. Typically operated on some combination of rudimentary self-service features and outsourced agent-based call centers to reduce costs, these often lead to a disjointed customer experience for passengers.

In today’s digital world, personalization is omnipresent and customers expect every business to offer truly personalized services. Travel & hospitality businesses are no exception. Being predominantly experience-centric, travel and hospitality products, offer a broad range of personalization possibilities as compared to physical goods offered by the e-commerce world. If implemented accurately, personalization can deliver an excellent experience beyond the customers' expectations, delight them, drive loyalty, and, consequently, revenues, both in improving revenue share per customer and new revenue streams.

Air cargo is a highly volatile business. External factors such as trade policy, consumer sentiment, global events like economic recessions, spreading of communicable diseases, and socio-political situations have an immediate impact on air cargo.

As the COVID-19 crisis continues, airline loyalty programs have become a survival lifeline for airlines. Airlines can harness the power of loyalty programs to generate non-travel related revenue and retain cash by maintaining meaningful engagement through non-air activities and demonstrating compassion for their customers' circumstances.