Unified cargo revenue accounting system across operating companies
Overview.
The client is an Anglo-Spanish multinational airline holding company with operational headquarters in London. They were formed in 2011 by a merger between two major players in the airline industry. They are the sixth-largest airline company in the world, flying to over 200 destinations and serving approximately 112 million passengers per year. Since the merger, the client has expanded to include other airline subsidiaries.
Each partner before the merger had their systems and processes in place. After the merger, there was a need to build constructive collaboration in the business processes and IT landscape. Coforge achieved this transition seamlessly, with no major operational or IT-related issues, and within the project timelines.
Cargo Revenue Accounting (CAR) is an important cargo finance function for airline clients. It deals with cargo sales processing and control, sales audit, flown revenue and interline matching, multilateral proration and joint business agreements, billing, settlement, and cargo revenue accounting management. At the time of the merger, the two major operating companies had different tools and processes to perform Cargo Revenue Accounting.
As part of the IT consolidation process, a business case was established to build constructive collaboration in the business processes and IT landscape. This allowed efficient management of Cargo Revenue Accounting. A process study was conducted to streamline the Cargo Revenue Accounting processes and implement a group-wide CRA solution across all operating companies.
The client wanted a group-wide CRA system to:
Streamline the business process followed within the group
Consolidate IT systems and thus effect cost savings
Add newer features and functionality to the merged business processes
Reduce the time spent on resolving customer queries
Solution.
Coforge was entrusted with the implementation of CRA. Coforge had to capture and document the requirements, design, build, test, and implement all solutions.
Conducted workshops with the business users to identify which cargo systems were impacted
Crafted functional specification and the prioritized requirements were documented and signed off
Upgraded RAPID system from version 2.2 to version 4.0 to use its new features
As SI, implemented the RAPID’s multi-airline functionality as SAAS (Software as a Service) on the Cloud. This expedited the revenue sharing between group companies.
Defined the testing strategy for Business Process Testing, User Acceptance Testing, Testing for impacted systems and integrations
Conducted and supported UAT, SIT and BPT
Business processes were updated in the standard operating procedures (SOPs)
New CRA system users were trained to use the software efficiently
Cargo stations were informed about system changes and go-live dates
An ELS (Early Life Support) period was agreed upon amongst businesses, support teams, and the project team to ensure a smooth handover to the support team
The Impact.
In addition to IT changes, the implementation of CRA involved a lot of business process changes. Coforge achieved the following:
Prepared the client’s IT applications to process and handle CRA data smoothly
Supported the client in defining and implementing business processes,
Even as the nature of the change was complicated, there were no major operational or IT issues after the cutover of each phase, and the business was always operational.
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