Real-Time Business Intelligence at Continental Airlines

In our case analysis, we will discuss ways that Continental Airlines uses real-time BI and data warehousing to reach the top of the airline industry in a matter of ten years. Pioneering the way the data and technology was used to give Continental Airlines the ability to recognize cost savings and revenue generating activities of more than $500 million dollars from a mere $30 million dollar investment.

What is real-time BI?

Real-time Business Intelligence technologies reduce the amount of time it takes to collect and store data, the time taken to analyze the data and turn into actionable information, and reduce the time it takes to react to any particular situation.

Before integrating these technologies Continental Airlines was outsourcing most of its operational systems such as payroll, reservations, and billing which gave its employees very limited access to data. Continental decided to invest in enterprise data warehousing and allow its employees to access information about the company and its customers.

The first application for the real-time BI technology was to use the data for revenue management and return the company into a profitable status. Once they had reached that goal they wanted to give customers exceptional service by knowing more about their customers, their loyalty to the company, and identifying different cross-selling opportunities.

Using the Intranet, which is a private computer network that uses Internet Protocol technology to securely share any part of an organization's information or network operating system within that organization with real-time data gave the employees of Continental access to many cost cutting and profit generating tools. Some of these tools included the ability to design fares at a competitive price, access to airline reservations, perform customer value analysis, access to information that could lead to improved flight operations, the ability to recover