Strategies in Lean IT: their relevance to the travel business

This White Paper by James Woudhuysen looks at strategies in ‘Lean IT’ and their relevance to the travel business.

Foreword: Taking a lean approach to shaping the future of travel

by Wolfgang Krips
Executive Vice President, Global Operations, and General Manager, Amadeus Data Processing

It may be a cliché and date back to Heraclitus (around 535-475 BC), but the travel business knows better than most that the only thing that is constant is change.

In this most dynamic of sectors, familiar challenges always persist: of increased demand for travel services, rising customer expectations, new markets, shifting business models and cycles of innovation that just get quicker each year.

This means we continually need to think how we can reduce inefficiency, and, more importantly, how we can enhance our effectiveness. And this is where lean thinking comes in. But it is important to recognise that lean thinking, and this paper specifically, do not necessarily speak for the whole organization – it is instead a perspective from Global Operations within Amadeus.

Lean is about centering all thoughts and actions on the customer. That has meant a fundamental shift in our mindset. It requires us to build a culture that understands and responds to our customers’ increasingly complex and changing needs. By adopting a lean approach, we are able to detect and react to change quickly and well.

Within Global Operations, we have recognised that lean thinking involves a change in management style. Managers no longer direct people, as they did in the classical model for production – command and control. Instead, the role of each manager is to nurture proactivity and reactivity, and use the organisation’s brainpower to achieve scale, quickly. This way of working excites and inspires our Global Operations team.

Yet while we are fervent advocates of lean thinking, we do not claim to have all the answers. That’s why we have commissioned this paper: to shed light on what we believe is an important approach to managing global operations – the interconnected systems, processes and insights that underpin the global travel sector and enable the latest innovations to be deployed across all channels. I believe that this paper contains valuable insights for us, our partners and our customers, as all of us draw up plans for the future.

I hope that, as a concept, lean thinking will inspire you, the reader. I also hope that the specific analysis contained in this paper will help you realise new value for your organisation.

It is only by working together and sharing ideas that we will be able to shape the future of travel.

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To open the White Paper, click on this ‘Cleared for take-off: Strategies in Lean IT and how they’re relevant to the travel business‘.