Innovative IT enables business to soar

Behind every successful company there is a successful IT shop serving the needs of that business, adapting to change and keeping abreast of new technology developments.

This thought was brought home to me by a new report from Amadeus, a leading IT vendor specialising in the travel sector. Traveller Tribes 2020 explores how new technology can help airlines provide a better experience for their customers. It was commissioned with the aim of starting "a dialogue within the travel industry ", but it could apply equally well to other fiercely competitive, customer-centric industries.

According to Frédéric Spagnou, vice-president of Amadeus' Airline Business Group, one of the report's key themes is the "humanisation of technology", or the idea of using IT to provide customers with a personalised service that improves their experience and encourages them to remain loyal.

For example, if back-office and payment systems were fully integrated, a passenger's business expenses could be recorded and reimbursed before they've even got off the plane, the report speculates. And improvements in identity management and biometrics systems may eventually enable less obtrusive and time-consuming security and check-in procedures.

Another idea is that RFID and GPS technologies could be used by airlines to track travellers and their baggage, enabling them to anticipate peak times or passengers with special needs, or even pick up luggage from a traveller's home and deliver it to their destination.

All right, so this Holy Grail of the luggage-free journey may be some way off, but in other areas the technologies are already there and are being implemented to good effect by some early adopters.

BA's online check-in has saved my bacon on numerous occasions when I've been perilously late for a flight. BA was also one of the first to record customer information, such as meal preferences, onward connections and other data, at the point of booking, which can then be used at various stages of the passenger's journey to help make the whole process feel more personalised.

The infrastructure to enable all of this, of course, comes at a huge cost, both financially and in IT labour, but the firms that reap the benefits will be the ones who make that early investment. IT should be paddling furiously under the water to ensure businesses can actually deliver on their promises to their customers.