Airlines With Accurate On-The-Fly Financial and Operational Planning Are Taking Off for Growth

Airlines operate in an unpredictable and fast-changing environment with legacy tools for planning

Airlines have multiple brands and a host of alliance partners that make planning complex. A small change can have a large impact on flight schedules, fuel costs, workforce availability, passenger safety, etc. Practically every function—from Human Resource to Finance, Sales & Distribution, Commercial & Planning, and Maintenance, Repair and Operations—is affected by change. But airlines are unable to control and mitigate the impact this has on customer experience and bottom lines. This is because each function is siloed and spreadsheets continue to be the most popular way to manage processes. The result is slow, error prone decision-making. This puts accurate financial and operational planning beyond the grasp of most airlines. 

Progressive airlines are using connected planning to drive accurate & precise financial & operational planning.

A connected planning platform ensures that teams across functions can collaborate in real time. These platforms help them get away from their spreadsheets that are incapable of drawing insights from the billions of data points that airlines generate. Instead, the connected platform uses analytics and forecasting models to drive accurate and precise financial and operational planning in real time. ITC Infotech, leverages its partnership with Anaplan, a leader in the connected planning space, to deliver cloud-based pre-built airline-specific solutions that improve visibility into operations, boost productivity and lower costs.

There are airlines like AirAsia Expedia that have greatly benefited from an Anaplan-based solution. The FP&A head of Expedia says they are now doing scenario planning and sensitivity analysis for the whole business across Asia and dynamically understand where the business is and where it’s going.

Effective planning by connecting applications and functions across the business using connected planning

Our experience shows that airlines recognize the urgent need for connected planning but are hesitant to adopt the solution. They feel they are already using other, more traditional systems that have been around for ages, which can eventually be leveraged to improve financial and operational planning. This is understandable, especially as the industry is cash strapped and going through an extremely challenging phase. There can be no doubt that traditional systems have served their purpose. But today, they impede speed and agility because of their siloed nature. Anaplan is the only platform that can bring about effective planning by connecting applications and functions across the business. 

ITC Infotech is a Strategic Partner for Our Clients on Connected Planning 

ITC Infotech with its domain expertise in airlines, CPG and manufacturing and its strategic partnership with Anaplan has built a Center of Excellence focused on Intelligent Planning and Execution with 50+ certified Anaplan consultants, 10+ solution architects & master Anaplanners, 60+ deployments across 22+ use cases. We offer services from strategy, implementation and managed services for the planning solutions and also help customers setup & scale their own Planning CoEs. 

Our 3*3*3 Approach to Jumpstart the Program and Scale With Additional Use Cases

ITC Infotech can use its expertise to identify potential use cases aligned to your airline’s business objectives and set up 3 day, 3-week and 3-month pilot programs. The pilots will demonstrate proof of value and define a future roadmap. In the next 3 to 9 months the implementation can be scaled based on use cases and target ROI. 

Our experience in creating Financial and Operational planning solutions across diverse industries has shown that starting cautiously works. It leads to a better understanding and appreciation of the potential that connected planning holds. If you want on-the-fly adaptability, improved decision-making, and accurate scenario planning to guide your airline business, a connected planning solution is an essential ingredient of success. For more information please read our Connected Planning Turbocharge the Airline Growth Powered by Anaplan

Author:

Amit Paul
GM, Intelligent Planning and Execution
ITC Infotech

Peeyush Goel
Industry Consulting Head – Travel
ITC Infotech