REDMOND, Wash., Aug. 14, 2014 /PRNewswire/ -- Saudi
Airlines, among the largest airlines in the Middle East, has implemented a business
intelligence (BI) solution with Microsoft Corp. that includes
Microsoft SQL Server 2012, Power BI for Office 365, Windows Server
2012 and Microsoft SharePoint Server 2013 to analyze, visualize and
share data in a unified way, which allows the company to have
better business visibility, more engaged employees, and projected
savings of millions of dollars per year in the process. This
deployment is helping the company gain insight to better manage
different aspects of the global aviation operations, and once
totally completed, it will also provide management with the
necessary consolidated insights into subsidiaries such as Saudi
Cargo, Saudi Catering and Saudi Ground Services, and is uniting
business information spanning across multiple systems at the
airline.
"Before we worked with Microsoft, we had scattered information
everywhere. We had many different business intelligence and
incentive solutions, separate training and no standard platform to
run all the environments," said Muhammad
Albakri, executive vice president of Finance, Saudi
Airlines. "The new BI solution from Microsoft maximizes the value
of information coming from multiple systems. We've started to run
analyses and provide results to executives to help them track
trends and react quickly and proactively."
Beginning in 2007, Saudi Airlines spent five years on a major
overhaul of its IT infrastructure to automate and integrate the
airline's core planning, scheduling, marketing and sales —
including e-commerce, operations and back-office functions. It
needed a business intelligence solution that could provide an
integrated view of its data across its growing and expanding
operations. By working with Microsoft Consulting Services, Saudi
Airlines was able to implement the foundation of its business
intelligence solution in just 90 days, which provided fast payback
time to recoup the investment. The solution is able to pull
disparate data together for multiple sources for analysis, and
provides dynamic dashboards, enterprise reports and customer
reports that allow executives to view any subset of information and
any level of detail they require. In addition, the airline is using
a Windows 8.1 app to give a consolidated view of the data for its
highly mobile workforce.
Since the implementation, the airline is seeing improved
operational functions, such as passengers sales, revenue
accounting, customer service, marketing and fraud prevention, which
has increased Saudi Airline's overall efficiencies globally and
saved millions of dollars annually.
With highly flexible, rich information now readily available
through its business intelligence solution, Saudi Airlines has
clear visibility into everything going on within its business, with
its customers and in the marketplace, giving the airline a strong
advantage over competitors.
"For us, the new BI solution is like turning on the headlights
of a car on a curvy, dark road," Albakri said. "Without it, it
really would be a sort of guessing game for how to tone our
marketing or determine our pricing strategy or our service
offering. So for Saudi Airlines it is a competitive advantage; it
is a valuable tool."
More information about how organizations are turning to
Microsoft technology is available on the Microsoft Customer
Spotlight newsroom.
Founded in 1975, Microsoft (Nasdaq "MSFT") is the worldwide
leader in software, services, devices and solutions that help
people and businesses realize their full potential.
Logo - http://photos.prnewswire.com/prnh/20000822/MSFTLOGO
SOURCE Microsoft Corp.