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It always seem to be pot luck when I log into the BA website as to whether it will show me my bookings of if I will have to dig out my booking reference to search and view.
It never fails to know what searches I have made in order to facilitate a new booking though…Not excusing this, but if I were a BA Product Manager I would certainly be telling my IT people to focus on the selling bit first, after-sales later 🙂
Why is BA IT so bad?
A long term attitude of seeing customer-facing digital systems as a cost to be reduced, not part of the service.
Weak stewardship of the online product — I doubt they even have Product Owners leading empowered teams.
No inside info, just my best guess as a customer.
Why is BA IT so bad?
A long term attitude of seeing customer-facing digital systems as a cost to be reduced, not part of the service.
Weak stewardship of the online product — I doubt they even have Product Owners leading empowered teams.
No inside info, just my best guess as a customer.
There’s a really interesting thread/posts on Flyertalk written by people with inside knowledge. I can’t find it now, but it’s basically been outsourced year ago, the people with full knowledge/experience of how things work have been made redundant, the outsource company didn’t do a good job (could be argued that their brief had holes in it) and now they are many years behind with huge costs to rewrite/replatform stuff.
Not excusing this, but if I were a BA Product Manager I would certainly be telling my IT people to focus on the selling bit first, after-sales later 🙂
In this type business, selling never ends. So when does the after-sales get sorted?
Part of it is that it’s down to the 1960/70 architecture of the likes of the GDS systems such as Amadeus and Saber and there are very few people around these days that know all its ins and outs.
All those fancy apps and graphics still have to access the basic system and that’s where it mainly goes wrong.
Why does the IT of the LCCs work? It’s because they don’t have the GDS to deal with because they started from scratch And they don’t have to ‘talk’ to other airlines like BAs does.
Sometimes it’s so bad it’s good though …
Always makes me laugh when doing a search and those three poor resolution images from the 1990s pop up
Sometimes it’s so bad it’s good though …
Agreed, have had a couple of extremely profitable “errors” recently 😍
Part of it is that it’s down to the 1960/70 architecture of the likes of the GDS systems such as Amadeus and Saber and there are very few people around these days that know all its ins and outs.
All legacy airlines have this to deal with (and I’ve worked in a firm that integrated with two GDSes, yes they are inflexible and clunky). However many, many other airlines seem to handle things much better than BA (eg Singapore).
In this type business, selling never ends. So when does the after-sales get sorted?
Precisely. These days, for almost all travellers, the post-sales IT is part of the product.
There’s a really interesting thread/posts on Flyertalk written by people with inside knowledge. I can’t find it now, but it’s basically been outsourced year ago, the people with full knowledge/experience of how things work have been made redundant, the outsource company didn’t do a good job (could be argued that their brief had holes in it) and now they are many years behind with huge costs to rewrite/replatform stuff.
Did they outsource because they lacked skills in-house, didn’t feel it was a core competency, and needed help from a more experienced and focussed partner? Or to save money?
I bet it was the latter, and if so, well, quel surprise on the outcome. Outsourcing can be all-round positive. Scrimping on essentials is never positive.
The beauty is, though, it doesn’t matter. We all keep giving them money. They operate from one of the richest and most mobile parts of the country/world. They have a near-monopoly on many routes. Lots of people will not even consider flying anyone else. They have been terrible on many levels for years and it’s made limited difference to their success. Why try harder? Why spend more money on IT?
They outsouced to Tata to save money, always seeing IT as a cost that can be cut and it’s come back to bite them hard over the past 5 years. Sainsburys outsourced to the same bunch.
The problems date back long before outsourcing to Tata. BA and most legacy airlines suffer from exactly the same issues as legacy banks and it is for now unfixable. As well as Amadeus issues (where BA was late to the party) BA has, alongside BABS, multiple systems following acquisitions, very old unsupported operating systems, very complex inter airlines requirements etc. It isn’t really about money; look how bad Qatar IT is. The banks have the money but following the TSB debacle, no bank is going to risk a full switchover any more than BA will. It’s a matter of holding the whole thing together until a new product comes along for all sorts of legacy business and this is being worked on.
I understand that BA are dealing with the same sort of legacy issues that banks do, however…
I have not had such an issue with a bank where I cannot see my account details/transactions but can have other products sold to me (at least not as an ongoing issue).
It is not like this is a new issue of bookings not being displayed, it has been an issue for a substantial amount of time. Strangely it does not appear to be an issue in the appStrangely it does not appear to be an issue in the app
I’d say this probably happens to me more often on the app than the website.
I have not had such an issue with a bank where I cannot see my account details/transactions but can have other products sold to me (at least not as an ongoing issue).
Because when Bank IT systems fail, the regulator gives them such a kicking that they rarely make the same mistake again.
As mentioned above by memesweeper, outsourcing IT is not necessarily a problem. Tata can be excellent. However, if the sole purpose of IT outsourcing is to drive down costs… then that is what will happen. If you identify your IT infrastructure as a key differentiator and a driver of shareholder value… then you start to see an IT outsource in a completely different way. It should be about creating a collaborative relationship, where the client sets strategic direction, the vendor brings greater depth and breadth of expertise and experiences than an in-house function can afford to maintain, and then the parties collectively operate towards mutually beneficial outcomes. This doesn’t happen by accident but requires and extensive and detailed selection process and collaborative approach to building the relationship.
Given BA struggles to have this collaborative and open-minded approach to how it treats it’s most loyal customers… it shouldn’t be a surprise that this is not reflected in their critical supplier relationships.
Having worked in Procurement for bmi in 00s, I can tell you I had one target… save money at all costs. All of the legacy airlines were the same, and it became a race to the bottom… the results of which we all suffer now.
and I try to log into my On Business account, and bang on cue…
We are experiencing ongoing issues with the availability of our On Business platform. Our teams are working hard to resolve this and we apologise for any inconvenience caused.
My question is: how come BA does not understand this, if we all, more or less, experience this and easily characterise the problem.
Is this how they plan to increase revenue?Too many experienced professionals replaced with outsourced resource (typically crap), of youthful individuals who are out of their depth.
It’s not just BA, its pretty much every large business who see IT as an expense, and not a revenue engine.They outsouced to Tata to save money, always seeing IT as a cost that can be cut and it’s come back to bite them hard over the past 5 years. Sainsburys outsourced to the same bunch.
I agree with this cost reduction approach. “Your mess for less” – without any plan to improve the product.
and I try to log into my On Business account, and bang on cue…
We are experiencing ongoing issues with the availability of our On Business platform. Our teams are working hard to resolve this and we apologise for any inconvenience caused.
“We are working hard to resolve this…”
I’ve become absolutely tired of seeing that phrase everywhere in the past few years.
Superseded by the other phrase “Your call is important to us”. Oh, really? Then why have you not resourced to fix these things…
rgds
[Mrs Victoria Meldrew]They outsouced to Tata to save money, always seeing IT as a cost that can be cut and it’s come back to bite them hard over the past 5 years. Sainsburys outsourced to the same bunch.
I agree with this cost reduction approach. “Your mess for less” – without any plan to improve the product.
I’ve worked with all the main outsourcers in some kind of capacity over the last 30 years. At the moment I work as a supplier of a particular infrastructure product to some of them. They’re all wthout exception utterly hopeless and clueless whilst giving the worst possible value to their customers. I can cite dozens of examples where the end customer has been royally screwed.
Just like franchising the railways or privatising “insert service here” you’re adding a layer of management and consultancy cost which brings no benefit to the end users of the service as the ultimate aim of the outsource provider is to make a profit for their own shareholders.
You can apply the same logic to cloud services, managed service providers or whatever label you wish to apply.
Too many experienced professionals replaced with outsourced resource (typically crap), of youthful individuals who are out of their depth
It’s not just BA, its pretty much every large business who see IT as an expense, and not a revenue engine.Don’t get me started. Just because a person has a degree in an IT subject and is physically located in a country that pays lower wages doesn’t mean they’re capable of doing 10% of a job that someone with 10 years experience can do.
The company I work for was taken over a year ago and previously had legendary levels of tech support within our sector. The responses that I see now to our customers after our experienced staff drifted away and were replaced by lower cost overseas staff just make me cry. We are hemorrhaging customers but it’s just a numbers game.
Pure economics. If we reduce the wage bill by X, and the customer renewals drop by Y. If X is greater than Y it’s ok with management.
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