Information Technology in the Aviation Industry: A Qantas Case Study

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INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY FOR BUSINESS
QANTAS

Contents
Introduction...............................................................................................................................................3
Need for Information Technology in Aviation Industry...........................................................................3
Why IT is importance for business survival?............................................................................................4
Benefits and advantages of IT..................................................................................................................6
How does your chosen business use IT?..................................................................................................7
Risk of Information Technology...............................................................................................................7
How can your chosen business maintain and monitor IT?......................................................................8
Conclusion..................................................................................................................................................9
References...................................................................................................................................................9
Introduction
In Today’s competitive business environment the companies are utilizing tools and
techniques to gain a competitive advantage over their other companies. Information
Technology has a lot of advantages Technology is becoming very important for the
business. IT has impacted the daily life of common people. Information Technology is
helpful for an individual, community and business. Information technology has made
management, manufacturing, and marketing simple and easy for businesses. A company
can utilize the opportunity that IT brings to them. The aviation industry is a very
competitive business. To attract new customers and retain their old customers the
companies have to provide the best customer service. If they will not focus on customer
satisfaction the customers will find another service. Information technology has
transformed many businesses (Coltman et al., 2011). Technological advancement brings
opportunities organizations should understand the importance of IT for their business. The
aviation industry is fully digitalized. Airline operations, management of airports, customer
service, ticket booking are possible only through IT.
Need for Information Technology in Aviation Industry
The airline business is a tough business, operations cost is in more and profits margin are
low. The business is depended on fuel. If there is an increase in fuel price then profits as to

come down. In this competitive environment, the company needs to adopt effective ways to
differentiate from their competitor. To lower the cost and increase the brand loyalty the
companies have to use technology. They have to transform their business into a digital
business. Many companies like British Airways and Ryanair have used IT in driving their
business growth. IT has been a success factor for British Airways and Ryanair. Qantas
should also plan its IT strategy a try to implement it. The chief executive of Qantas also
believes that Information Technology has transformed the company business. Adopting
new technology has resulted in business growth (Luftman, 2017). Qantas just announced
that the company has returned to profits and business is doing well. Investment in
Information Technology has helped the company to out from a loss-making an airline to the
profitable airline business. The company has reported a profit of $975 million. The
company has suffered a loss of $646 million last year. The CEO decided to use IT technology
in business has given fruitful results. According to the Qantas CEO, the driving force behind
the company success goes to IT. The company has invested $2 billion for Qantas
transformation. If Qantas has not adopted IT in its business company would never become
profitable.
What is required to apply IT into your chosen business?
Customers are most important for Qantas, therefore, the company has invested in new
aircraft, lounges, training and technology. The company is regularly launching new
technology such as SMS check-in. the company has installed a new system for handling
flight delay and a new mobile travel app.
The company will re-launch its website. The company full-year results have a constant
reference to the important role of information technology. The company is constantly
improving the frontend systems, customer-facing systems, airline loyalty program. The
digital transformation has helped the company in improving the speed and ease of travel.
The company is using a mobile app for domestic and online retailing and boarding (Pavitt,
2012.). The company improvement in performance has resulted in generating $38 million
in benefits from the transformation program. Introduction of new technology has improved
the productivity and customer experience. The airline has invested in the facility such as

automated bags drops, kiosk check-in is helping the company in improving the customer
experience, booking engine and retailing capability will drive the revenue growth.
Qantas is using various techniques for promoting its products and service. It is offering
loyalty points for frequent flyers. The company is using a computer system to analyze the
behaviour of customers. Qantas airline is using the personal data of the customers and
offering personalized product recommendations. Qantas is planning to heavily invest in IT
and digital technology. The company is also investing in online mobile technology and
PROS revenue management system. As mentioned earlier the aviation industry is a tough
business but investment in technology will take Qantas to new heights (Luftman, 2017).
Why IT is importance for business survival?
IT has played a crucial role in the growth of the aviation industry. In today’s technological
and competitive world the businesses are using IT for achieving the business objective. The
company business strategies should be aligned to achieve business goals. Qantas believes
that the companies IT strategy derive business growth. Information technology is
important for the survival of the Qantas business.
Safety of passengers: The safety of passengers is utmost important for the company
business. IT helps Qantas to track down the flyers that might pose a threat to others flyers.
The company use sophisticated computer systems and algorithms to identify threats.
Passenger’s bags and luggage also need to be checked. Qantas uses high-quality scanners
and for scanning the bags and luggage of the passengers. Using a high-quality scanner helps
the company in identifying the threats (Maurino et al., 2017).
Routes Selection: Airline use computers for deciding the most efficient route for flying.
This helps the company in saving a lot of fuels cost. It also saves the time of the passengers.
The company use scanners for scanning the boarding pass. This also saves a lot of time.
Customer Service: Qantas believe in providing the best customer service. Excellent
customer’s service helps the company in retaining its customers. IT makes it possible to
provide yearlong customers service. Online flight booking system helps the customers to

view information about flight operations. Information technology also helps in getting
important feedback from customers. Mobile and websites can be used for getting
customers to review the company service. Qantas can utilize that information to improve
its service (Sabatini,2010).
Operational efficiency: The Company has invested in IT. These IT projects will help the
company in increasing productivity. Services such as private email service will help in
communicating with the employee. It can be utilized for better communication of different
company departments. Efficient communication with customers will develop an innovative
culture at the organization. All these factors combined together will increase the
operational efficiency of the organization.
Benefits and advantages of IT
Qantas main aim is to become the best low-cost airline in the world. The company needs to
provide the best customer service in order to achieve a business objective. The company
understands the importance of its customers. The only aim of the company is to achieve the
best customer satisfaction. Every flyer prefers safety. The company has adopted measures
the will ensure the best safety standards. IT has a more positive impact on customers. The
customers are satisfied with the service of the company. Qantas investment in IT has
helped the company in achieving better customer satisfaction. Company has benefited for
the information technology (Nakamura et al., 2013). Qantas is able to survive in the
business due to It. IT has helped the company in improving its operations. This has resulted
in attracting new customers. Attracting new customers has will lead to higher revenue
growth. The higher growth rate will attract new investors. The company will have more
capital for its operations. The company can use that capital to provide better services to its
customers. The investment will also help the organization in adopting innovation culture at
the organization. Innovation will help the company in achieving critical goals. Information
technology helps the aviation company saves time. The customers are experiencing better
service (Luftman et al., 2017).
Customers can use mobile phone for booking the tickets and getting important information
about their flights. The customers also get information about their timings. Use of

technology has made it possible to avoid long queues. Mobile phones also used forgetting
important notification about flight status. A smartphone can also be used for cancelling
tickets. Information technology has made it possible for the company to use the latest
technology for its operations. The airline industry has a lot of information that has to be
displayed to the flyers. Information such as flight timings, it's status, delay etc needs to be
displayed so that the users can view that information. The airline industry uses dynamic
signalling. Advancement in technology has made the aviation industry using the latest
technology. The dynamic signalling is the perfect way through which the company can
display information. The same system can be utilized for displaying advertisements. The
system is an effective way of displaying information (Maurino, 2017). It provides flexibility
as contents can be updated at any time. The use of dynamic display system has made the
company in generating revenue from advertisements. Customers nowadays demand the
best customer service. The company should make sure that the customers get what they
are demanding. Using IT has enabled customers to use the internet to check-in online.
Technology has become an integral part of company customers. They are faced with IT
service before they even reach the airports. Qantas customers can use the company
paperless boarding facility. The use of IT system for handling the luggage of the customers
has helped the company in cutting cost. The Company is using the latest technology for
scanning luggage. Automatic systems have installed that scan all the bags in order to make
sure that it does not contain any illegal items. The use of Wi-Fi technology has helped the
company in making the life of its customers comfortable.
How does your chosen business use IT?
Social media has helped the organization by enhancing communication with customers. It
has provided the means to increase interactions. Through the use of social media
companies can directly interact with their customers. They can provide better-
personalized experience through social media. Using digital media for communication can
help the company in reaching a large number of customers. The company can use these
modern platforms to promote its products and services.
Online Booking: Qantas provide an online facility for booking tickets. Use of IT has made it
possible to book tickets online. Online booking facility also saves the customers from

reaching the airport early. Proper notifications about the flight's timings, delay and current
flight status can be accessed online. Customers can cancel tickets to their mobile phone
(Subsorn and Limwiriyakul, 2011).
Risk of Information Technology
Strategic IT risk: For implementing IT at Qantas the company has to analyze its risk. The
company has to overcome various challenges in implementing IT strategy at the
organization. Proper planning is required. As IT equipment are costly Qantas must
employee IT expert for handling the IT resource.
Cyber Security Risk: Nowadays the cybercrime is on the rise. Unethical hackers are
constantly targeting the IT infrastructure of the organization. The company must use safe
and secure computer systems for handling and managing the important data of its
customers. Organizations must understand the importance of their data. Personal data of
its employee and customers should be stored in secure database servers (Taneja, 2011).
Technology Vendor Risk: For implementing the information technology at the organization
a lot of IT equipment are required. The company should have to buy equipment from a
technology vendor. Qantas must use standard equipment sourced from best companies
(Javaid, 2013).
Data management risk: Information technology main aim is to manage the company data
efficiently and effectively.
IT program execution risk: Proper execution of IT program is required at Qantas. The
company cab gives training to its employee that will make them efficient in using the IT
equipment. The company can hire IT experts for managing the IT resource.
Technology Operations Risk: IT is difficult to manage. The operation of the Airline is
totally depended on the IT. The employee needs to understand how to manage IT
infrastructure.
How can your chosen business maintain and monitor IT?
Management and Monitoring of IT infrastructure are important for the organization.
Monitoring of company IT resource can be done by utilizing sophisticated software. The

company can use Agent-based monitoring and Agentless monitoring. In agent-based
monitoring, the computer system runs special software. This software is known as agents.
The agent collect performance related information. In agentless monitoring, there is no
special software. Performance data is collected directly from the Operating System. Every
device is regularly checked by the IT admin. If there is any fault in the system the
equipment is changed and a new device is installed. To save important data the company
use the latest backup tools. Qantas should ensure that it protects its data (Taneja, 2011).
Conclusion
Information technology has transformed many industries. Companies know the importance
of IT for their business. The aviation industry is totally depended on IT. IT has provided a
new opportunity for business growth. Use of Information Technology has resulted in
improved performance. There are many benefits of IT for business but it also comes as a
risk to organizations. Cybersecurity risk poses threats to the business of Qantas
(Broadhurst, 2017). Qantas has to adopt a measure to secure its IT infrastructure.
Employing a cyber-expert can help the company in securing its important customer's data.
Providing better customer’s service is also important. Qantas uses a lot of communications
tools that help the company effective communications with its employees and customers.
Overall it can be concluded that information technology is important for the business.
References
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management and firm performance. Journal of Information Technology, 26(3), pp.205-
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 Javaid, A., 2013. Cyber Security: Challenges Ahead. Available at SSRN 3281086.

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