Respond To The Following: Pretend You Are A Board Member For

Respond To The Followingpretend You Are A Board Member For A L

Please respond to the following; Pretend you are a board member for a low cost airline. In an upcoming meeting, the agenda will include this topic: Investing in BI or keeping the recent major investment in CRM? Airline management considers investing in BI to be critical to business success. Platform-as-a-service and analytic-application-as-a-service capabilities for building, deploying and managing BI analytics and analytic applications in the cloud, based on data both in the cloud and on-premises is attractive. But you know that other board members favor keeping the newly purchased CRM.

The system has already shown it can do a lot for better understanding the airline's customers. The debate motion is — BI is more effective than CRM in growing the business. In preparation for the meeting, you hire an outside consultant experienced in BI and CRM to give you an idea of what position you should take.

Paper For Above instruction

As a board member of a low-cost airline facing a strategic decision between investing further in Business Intelligence (BI) or maintaining the recent investment in Customer Relationship Management (CRM), it is essential to evaluate the contributions of each system to the growth and sustainability of the business. The debate centers around whether BI offers a more effective avenue than CRM for expanding the airline’s market share, enhancing customer satisfaction, and improving operational efficiency. Analyzing the core functions, benefits, and strategic value of both systems will inform a balanced and strategic decision that supports the airline's long-term objectives.

Introduction

In the highly competitive airline industry, data-driven decision-making is crucial. Airlines generate vast quantities of data from operational, customer, and financial sources. Leveraging this data effectively can lead to personalized customer experiences, optimized routes, improved safety, and increased profitability. The recent investments in CRM and emerging interests in BI reflect this digital transformation, aiming to harness data for business growth. This paper evaluates whether continued investment in BI, especially cloud-based platform-as-a-service (PaaS) solutions, provides a greater advantage over the ongoing benefits derived from the CRM system.

Understanding CRM and BI: Core Functions and Strategic Roles

Customer Relationship Management systems primarily focus on managing customer interactions, capturing customer data, and fostering loyalty. CRM solutions enable airlines to personalize marketing, streamline loyalty programs, and enhance customer service interactions. The recent CRM investment has already demonstrated tangible improvements in understanding customer preferences, managing booking histories, and building loyalty programs.

Conversely, Business Intelligence encompasses a broader set of tools and processes for analyzing data from multiple sources to inform strategic decisions. BI integrates data across various operations—revenue management, flight operations, maintenance, staffing, and customer interactions—to generate insights that optimize performance. Cloud-based BI platforms facilitate real-time analytics, predictive modeling, and scenario planning, all crucial for dynamic decision-making in an industry characterized by fluctuating fuel prices, seasonal demand, and regulatory changes.

The Strategic Value of BI in Growing the Business

The airline industry benefits significantly from BI's capacity to analyze operational and customer data simultaneously. For instance, BI can identify revenue leakages, optimize pricing strategies, and forecast demand with higher accuracy. The cloud-based nature of modern BI solutions offers scalability, flexibility, and real-time insights essential for responding swiftly to market changes. Moreover, BI can enhance revenue management by integrating external data such as weather patterns and economic indicators, enabling proactive adjustments to schedules and pricing.

Investing in BI further supports strategic initiatives like fleet optimization, maintenance scheduling, and efficiency improvements. These insights reduce costs and improve customer satisfaction by minimizing delays and cancellations. Additionally, BI enables targeted marketing campaigns based on data-driven customer segmentation, a capability that complements the existing CRM efforts.

Complementarity of CRM and BI

It is critical to recognize that CRM and BI are not mutually exclusive but are interdependent tools in a comprehensive data strategy. CRM provides detailed customer insights which, when integrated into BI platforms, can yield advanced analytics such as lifetime value prediction and individualized offers. While CRM enhances customer engagement, BI provides the strategic oversight to allocate resources efficiently and identify new business opportunities.

The recent CRM investment has already yielded benefits, but its focus remains primarily on customer interactions and retention. To maximize growth, BI offers a broader analytical scope that can inform growth strategies beyond retention, including market expansion, operational cost reductions, and revenue maximization.

Conclusion and Recommendation

Given the arguments, the case for prioritizing investment in BI is compelling. A cloud-based BI platform, with capabilities for analytics and application deployment across the organization, supports the airline’s strategic objectives of operational excellence, revenue growth, and competitive advantage. While CRM remains vital for customer retention and loyalty, BI has the potential to unlock insights that drive new revenue streams and cost efficiencies, thereby making it more effective than CRM in fostering overall business growth.

Therefore, based on the evidence and strategic considerations, it is advisable to advocate for continued and increased investment in BI, integrating it with existing CRM data to develop a comprehensive, data-driven decision-making ecosystem. This approach will ensure the airline remains agile, customer-focused, and competitively positioned in a rapidly changing industry landscape.

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