0:00 - on approach to large projects • 6:42 - on digital transformation • 8:40 - advice to companies embarking on projects • 10:25 - magic wand • 1:47 - advice to younger self
GLO
0:00 – on approach to large projects
6:42 – on digital transformation
8:40 – advice to companies embarking on projects
10:25 – magic wand
11:47 – advice to younger self
Read full transcript below:
00:00
GLO: I had the opportunity to listen to your previous panel about digitalisation and how technology could help. You mentioned that the era of large projects and long projects is dead and that you would recommend to the large airlines with the legacy systems that they do it step by step—little projects and little improvements.
Massimo Morin, Global Head of Travel/Passenger Airlines, AWS: Absolutely. Start with the problem, work backwards and see what you can get from a small sprint. Why? I’ve seen it many times; the challenge is that analysis paralysis. You start analysing constantly, and then you start putting in place contingency plans and focusing on all kinds of noise, and you’ll never get out of it. This is number one. Number two is that if some priorities change or some emergency happens (think about COVID or think about the fuel price—the fuel price is now getting to $100 a barrel), you stop everything because there is a risk of recession and the cost of flying is going higher, etc. So, when priorities change, everything stops. I have seen projects that were in planning for three, four or five years. The lifespan of a CIO is around three years, less than four years. So, people change as well. The question is, how do you insulate the project from that? You insulate by having what we call a grand vision, and you start small and scale fast. Identify a small problem, make incremental changes and motivate people through those successes. We see this happening a lot with large migration projects that last a year or two years: The CEO comes to the CIO and says, “What have you done?” CIO: “We migrated.” CEO:” What’s the benefit?” CIO: “Oh, we do the same things that we have done before.” I think it will be a fairly uncomfortable conversation to have. What you want to do is innovate, modernise and migrate at the same time. Migration and modernisation go hand in hand so that one supports the other, and you see successes along the way. It is the journey, not the destination, that counts. It’s the learning, how you evolve your organisation, and how you deliver value and benefit for your customer through picking a project—be it contact centre, revenue management, chatbot, digital asset, marketing, customer communication, single view of customers, or irregular operation—there are countless opportunities out there that can be addressed.
02:38
GLO: This is great advice. A lot of projects never happen because people just get scared that projects just get bigger and bigger, and you never start. As you say, the lifespan of a CIO is very, very short nowadays. By the time you want to start, you get somebody else in, and then they say, “Oh, I don’t like this project; go and change it, and then you’re back at the drawing board.”
Massimo Morin, Global Head of Travel/Passenger Airlines, AWS: I was on stage with John Hurley, the CTO of Ryanair, and Dara Brady, the CMO of Ryanair. And he said, “A project either generates revenue, reduces the cost or eliminates the risk and improves the customer experience. If it doesn’t do that and you can’t prove it quickly, don’t even come to me. I have no time. I have an airline to run, I have a bottom line to meet, I have planes coming in, and I have emergencies to deal with.” So, if the project doesn’t meet those three targets and you prove it relatively quickly, then there is no point in starting. And the only way to do that is in very short sprints. You try it out, you create multiple teams, and then you actually pick a problem. I was talking to Jason Birnbaum (CIO of United Airlines). We have this interesting video about innovation leaders in the US—the story of United Airlines. He said, “Where do we start? At a certain point, I gave up. I got everybody in the room and said, pick a problem, any problem, start working on it, and show me what you can do.” That was a success story that changed the whole organisation, and now they are one of the fastest innovators.
There is a learning experience. It’s a muscle that you need to train because the more you know, the more you realise how much you don’t know. Don’t get paralysed by fear. Feel the fear and do it. Try something simple and see how it works. I am having my team of 70+ sales leaders come to London next week. And they have a variety of customers. Some are travel and hospitality customers. I am teaching them about the latest trends in the industry. A colleague of mine said, “Look, GenAI is big”. “Of course, it’s big; everybody knows, but did you try it out?” I said, “try it out.” I went to Bedrock, to our system internally, and started asking questions. Very simple questions like, tell me a joke, but what kind of joke? etc. Then I asked, “Tell me, what are the trends in the travel industry, specifically in aviation? I’m an analyst who would like to write about that.” System answer: The trends are digital transformation, legacy systems, sustainability, and opening up a new market. I thought, “That’s interesting. That’s good”. Next, I asked, “If I am a CEO, where should I invest?” The system’s answer: “You should invest in the following technology trends…, you should invest in customer care, etc.” I wanted to be sure that the answers were accurate, so I asked the system which studies it was basing its recommendation on. System answer: “Skift Report, the Focus Right Report, TripAdvisor Report, etc.” I thought, “That is mind-blowing. The system actually recreated my presentation in those five minutes of interaction.“ I showed this to the people and said that this will accelerate my job so much and that I’m seeing that apply to any type of job. But you have to learn how it works. You have to try it yourself. Until you do it, you won’t know what it is. For me, it was an eye-opener. And honestly, there are countless studies now showing, for example, that a consultant using GenAI is much more productive. They produce much faster reports with much higher quality most of the time. So, it’s something that we have to get acquainted with. You don’t want to be that professor who is teaching math and is saying to his students, “Don’t use the calculator,” because, you know, they will end up using it, and you will be at a disadvantage if you don’t.
6:42
GLO: You mentioned earlier about big data, data analytics and generative AI. So is this your focus going forward? Is this what you’re most excited about?
Massimo Morin, Global Head of Travel/Passenger Airlines, AWS: There are a lot of things that I am excited about. I think that, especially in digital transformation technology, we move forward in phases. I think that the phase of the digital assets—the website, the mobile app, even the contact centre, and the chatbot—has been proven. It does work. It works beautifully. We have done it multiple times. We have a variety of customers, such as Delta, United, Southwest Airlines, Air Canada, Ryanair, and EasyJet. Currently, there is a focus on customer care, but specifically on operations. Now we’re talking about how to save fuel, how to reduce air pollution, how to improve time performance, and how to make my mechanics more efficient. These are the kinds of challenges we are currently focusing on. I was talking with TUI fly about a use case that Ryanair has published about air rotation and how to locate the right plane for the right rotation to reduce fuel consumption. They have all the same aircraft. They are all 737s, but they have different configurations of engine and airframe performance. Now you know that during take-off, you consume most of the fuel. Knowing what the planes are and knowing the rotation is the combination that makes me save fuel. Add to this the flight restrictions—these are difficult problems to solve. This is where it starts to become really fascinating. This is all done with ML/AI. Think if you could compound the same functionality for mechanics using GenAI, or the contact centre agent, the gate agent, or the planner. Those are the kinds of things that are happening today, and we are seeing that more and more.
08:40
GLO: Could you highlight what technologies you are focusing on and any advice you can give our members? Our members are large airlines as well as hospitality groups.
Massimo Morin, Global Head of Travel/Passenger Airlines, AWS: The sky is the limit; it is so easy today to try it out at this kind of functionality. We have a lot of examples and a lot of use cases. We have a dedicated team that can help our customers in travel and hospitality, not only airlines but also car rental companies, rail operators, and digital companies like OTAs. There are a lot of things that we are doing, and we have plenty of experience. I have a team of people who were previously CIOs and CMOs at airlines who can actually help and understand the challenge. So my take is: Try it out. Don’t be afraid. Be open-minded. And if you see that something works, then you can scale. Literally, the sky’s the limit. We have the resources, know-how, and experience that can really help you. Because if you don’t do it now, I’m not sure when you can do it. We are always in situations where, when things go well, you don’t want to tinker because they can go bad, and when things go bad, you don’t want to tinker because they can get worse. Analysis is paralysis. This is what is holding back the industry. We can break that cycle. We’ve seen it done over and over.
10:25
GLO: Thank you. Great advice for our members. We have a little tradition at the Global Loyalty Organisation where we finish our interviews with two personal questions. The first one is: Imagine you had a magic wand and could create any feature to help your customers achieve their targets, improving the customer experience. What would you invent?
Massimo Morin, Global Head of Travel/Passenger Airlines, AWS: I’m already doing it. So the first thing that I am actually doing is called the single view of the customer. That, I believe, is particularly important. It connects the end-to-end customer experience. The other thing, which I would love to see happen, is actually a modularised kind of PSS system or PMS system that enables our customers to pick and choose the best in class for the various systems. We talked a lot about personalization. And I would like to have a real bed on a plane. If I had a magic wand, that would actually be something that I would really appreciate.
11:47
GLO: If you were able to give your younger self, starting out in the industry, one piece of advice, knowing what you know now, what would it be?
Massimo Morin, Global Head of Travel/Passenger Airlines, AWS: It’s hard, because if you look at all the challenges that you have in front of you, you’ll never start. But you have to go where your passion is and where your heart is. I have made a lot of mistakes in the past. But you survive, and you learn from it. I like what I’m doing. I’m very passionate. I see the impact of what we do on travelers and everybody. And that actually fills my heart with joy to think that we are making a difference for the people. I think I made the right choice. There are other things you could have done differently, but who doesn’t? The thing is that we learn from it, and we grow.
