Jeffrey A. Hoffer

Real-Time Business Intelligence: Best Practices at Continental Airlines

Abstract Data management for decision support has moved through three generations, with the latest being real-time data warehousing. This latest generation is significant because of its potential for affecting tactical decision making and business processes. Continental Airlines is a leader in real-time business intelligence, and much can be learned from how they have implemented it.

The effects of task complexity and time availability limitations on human performance in database query tasks

Prior research on human ability to write database queries has concentrated on the characteristics of query interfaces and the complexity of the query tasks. This paper reports the results of a laboratory experiment that investigated the relationship between task complexity and time availability, a characteristic of the task context not investigated in earlier database research, while controlling the query interface, data model, technology, and training. Contrary to expectations, when performance measures were adjusted by the time used to perform the task, time availability did not have any effects on task performance while task complexity had a strong influence on performance at all time availability levels. Finally, task complexity was found to be the main determinant of user confidence. The implications of these results for future research and practice are discussed.

Continental Airlines Continues to Soar with Business Intelligence

Abstract As the business intelligence industry matures, it is increasingly important to investigate and understand the nature of mature data warehouses. Although data warehouse research is prevalent, existing research primarily addresses new implementations and initial challenges. This case study of Continental Airlines describes how business intelligence at Continental has evolved over time. It identifies Continentals challenges with its mature data warehouse and provides suggestions for how companies can work to overcome these kinds of obstacles.

Flying High with Real-Time Business Intelligence

Real-time data warehousing and business intelligence (BI), supporting an aggressive Go Forward business plan, have helped Continental Airlines transform its industry position from worst to first and then from first to favorite. With a

Real-Time Business Intelligence: Best Practices at Continental Airlines 1

30 million investment in hardware and software over six years, Continental has realized conservatively over

Modern Systems Analysis and Design

500 million in increased revenues and cost savings in areas such as marketing, fraud detection, demand forecasting and tracking, and improved data center management. Continental is now recognized as a leader in real-time business intelligence based upon its scalable and extensible architecture, prudent decisions on what data are captured in real time, strong relationships with end users, a small and highly competent data warehouse staff, a careful balance of strategic and tactical decision-support requirements, and understanding of the synergies between decision support and operations, and new business processes that utilize real-time data.

Modern Database Management

The movement to real-time is the latest development in business intelligence (BI) and data warehousing. Real-time data warehousing provides the data that is required to implement real-time BI. By moving to real-time, firms can use BI to affect current decision making and business processes. This capability is especially important for customer-facing applications, such as those found in call centers and check-in processes, and helps firms become more customercentric. Terms such as ‘‘real-time enterprise’’ and ‘‘zero latency organization’’ are often used to describe firms that use real-time BI. The purpose of real-time BI is to increase revenues and decrease costs. Companies that successfully implement real-time BI can dramatically improve their profitability. For example, Continental Airlines, which is discussed later, has taken a

Managing Information Technology

30M investment in hardware, software, and personnel to generate more than

Continental Airlines Flies High with Real-Time Business Intelligence.

500M in revenue enhancements and cost savings, resulting in a return on investment (ROI) of greater than 1,000 percent. To be successful with real-time BI, organizations must overcome both organizational and technical challenges. On the organizational side, there must be executive sponsorship and support, initial and ongoing financial support, in-place governance processes, BI and data warehousing personnel with the requisite skills, changes in business processes, and acceptance of use of real-time data by organizational personnel. On the technical side, new hardware and software must be acquired and implemented, processes and procedures for supporting and managing real-time data feeds from source systems must be established, data must be quickly transformed and loaded into the warehouse, and the data must be analyzed and made available to operational systems and personnel. In this article, we provide frameworks and discuss key issues that are helpful in understanding real-time BI. We then use IN THIS ISSUE