Airline Revenue Management Case

What was the issue?

Sharpening focus often builds excellence.

This software product company was proud of its product development capabilities which allowed the company to build industry-leading airline revenue management software. Despite this impressive achievement, the company felt constrained for growth given that the airline market is a finite universe and they were tapping a very limited part of their software requirements.

The company had embarked on diversifying their offerings to the airline industry to establish strong presence in this vertical as a source of all manner of software solutions.

However, product rollouts were delayed, faced quality issues and revenue generation was still elusive with profits below average. The management felt the need to revisit their business strategy.

What did we do?

First, we engaged with the senior management to develop a set of strategic objectives for the business vis-à-vis the opportunities they had and their internal competencies. We realized that the differential advantage the company enjoyed while developing software solutions stemmed from their deep understanding of customer processes.

Broadening their solutions package would not provide this advantage as there were a plethora of competitors in other domains and processes like frequent flyer programs, web interfaces, mobility solutions, MRO services, etc.

Alternately, the company could also build on their existing understanding of revenue management to deepen their offerings in the commercial function with solutions for direct cost management, improving revenue opportunities, providing analytics for optimising revenue. These would lead to greater focus, higher brand salience and sustainable differentiation.

What was the outcome?

The company also reorganized itself to address these markets and has powered itself to strong growth with industry-leading financial performance today.