INDUSTRY WATCH
SINCE THE
INTRODUCTION OF SV
INSIGHT THE AMOUNT
OF AVAILABLE
INFORMATION HAS
INCREASED ALMOST
TEN-FOLD IN LESS
THAN 18 MONTHS
AND WE ARE STILL
INTEGRATING
MORE AND MORE
INFORMATION
SOURCES AS WE GO
many of the airline’s divisions, creating
a competitive advantage and increased
certainty in decisions.
Can you give us the time scales
behind the project?
With Saudia Mobile application, it took
ten months of hard work to come up
with the first version. This period included
contracting, setting up the mobile
application infrastructure, building the
backend integration points and business
logic and all the supporting functions, like
push notifications.
Cost factors included mobile skills cost,
clear business requirements, efficient
project management and integrating
the methodology to ensure it was
systematically coherent with Saudia’s
acceptable way of work.
Saudia Connect, with clear requirements,
took eight weeks to develop the first version.
The cost factor for this project was not
as obvious as development was totally
in-house.
68
INTELLIGENTCIO
What would you say is
particularly innovative about this
project?
As regards the apps we have launched,
firstly, storing the guest’s information on the
device. This feature has aided in reducing
tedious time spent filling information during
the booking process and has made a typical
booking no more than two minutes on
average.
Secondly, the usage of the Hijri Calendar
has been received very well - most of Saudi
Arabia’s citizens use the Hijri calendar so it
was a logical choice. In addition to the basic
calendar, all the religious events are also
dated with the Hijri calendar. Overall, the
use of Hijri calendar made the mobile app
a friendly application that understands our
culture and language.
Thirdly, we are able to acquire the
customer’s credit card information by
visually scanning the credit card- again
this demonstrates another way to save
the guest’s time and im