Objectives - On completion of this tutorial, you should be able to: 1. understand the importance of a data warehouse 2. identify strategic advantages that an organization can derive from a data warehouse
Case : Continental Airlines Flies High with its Real-time Data Warehouse
As Business Intelligence (BI) becomes a critical component of daily operations, real-time data warehouses (DW) that provide end users with rapid updates and alerts generated from transactional systems are increasingly being deployed. Real-time data warehousing and BI, supporting its aggressive Go Forward business plan, have helped Continental Airlines alter its industry status from “worst to first” and then from “first to favourite”. Continental Airlines is a leader in real-time BI. In 2004, Continental won the Data Warehousing Institute’s Best Practices and Leadership Award.
Big Problems
Continental Airlines was founded in 1934, with a single-engine Lockheed aircraft in the Southwestern U.S. As of 2006, Continental (Houston) is the fifth largest airline in the United States and the seventh largest in the world. Continental has the broadest global route network of any U.S. airline, with more than 2,300 daily departures to more than 227 destinations.
Back in 1994, Continental was in deep financial trouble. It had filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection twice and was heading for its third, and probably final, bankruptcy. Ticket sales were hurting because performance on factors that are important to customers was dismal, including a low percentage of on-time departures, frequent baggage arrival problems, and too many customers turned away due to overbooking.
Solution
The revival of Continental began in 1994, when Gordon Bethune became CEO and initiated the Go Forward plan, which consisted of four interrelated parts to be implemented simultaneously. Bethune targeted the need to improve customer-valued performance measures by