CASE STUDY
Evaluating Marketing Data Consolidation strategy as a result of United and Continental airlines
merger. Focus was to build a unified contact strategy across the United and Continental customer
base.
Situation
The second largest airline United was created a merger between United and Continental airlines. The
marketing Data Marts of United and Continental were modelled very differently. To add to complexity,
the database United had was oracle vs Continental using Teradata. Decision was made to retire Oracle
and continue using Teradata. Fusion Systems evaluated data models and identified gaps and proposed
SAS plus Unica solution as a way to build marketing operations core framework. In the meantime IT
worked on data migration project that would migrate data from United to Continental platform.
Approach
Success is determined by the customer... it’s that simple. It was not possible to consolidate United’s
Data Mart into Continental Data Warehouse quickly. Fusion Systems performed gap analysis and
proposed a solution that not only facilitated integration of data quickly from both platforms, but also
helped the marketing team to continue their marketing efforts which otherwise would have come to
stand still. Fusion Systems introduced a blended model where relevant data from Continental Teradata
DW would be extracted into SAS datasets and then exported out to flat files that Unica can then
consume. Flight Trigger and partner campaigns such as “Hotel and Car” trigger campaigns were created
using the same architecture. It was a great success and management was amazed that there was
minimal impact on marketing effort and seamless execution. As a one brand United now started
marketing their customers effectively, and built the strong relationship with customers to take an edge
over their competitors.
We are very mindful of the fact that our consultants carry a very broad scope of technology background
and can really understand and implement variety of complex integrated solutions that cater to client
needs based on best cost and efficiency value proposition.
Solution
The success of this project was due to broad scope of understanding of our consultants to implement
processes and solutions that best fit in the complex distributed environment. In this case a SAS+Unica
solved complex data integration problem and facilitated analysis and execution of United’s marketing
operations.
Results
Consolidating United and Continental marketing efforts as one unified effort and execute effective
trigger based campaigns across customer base and facilitate new contact strategy for United Airlines.
Fusion Systems And Services Inc
anwar@fusionsystemsinc.com
1111 Plaza Dr, Suite 103, Schaumburg, IL - 60173
(847) 567-7248