Ironwood Something is changing above these fields, and it is not a distant prospect. New classes of aircraft are moving out of trials and into service. Small passenger aircraft built for short regional hops. Cargo aircraft flown with nobody on board, carrying freight that used to go by road. They are designed for frequent, short cycles rather than long sectors between major hubs, which means they will use the fields that big aviation has always passed over. Fields like yours.
An operation like that does not arrive once an hour. At peak it arrives every minute, and every one of those movements needs permission before it comes, a record when it lands, the right charge against the right operator, and an invoice that is correct the first time. No airport running on paper will manage that. Not slowly, and not by adding people. At all.
This is what makes the timing matter. The airports with a real digital platform in place will be the ones able to say yes when an operator asks who can take this traffic. The ones still keying movements into a spreadsheet will watch it go to a neighbour who can. Being ready early is not a technology achievement, it is a commercial position, and it is open to any airport willing to start now. It is also how a regional field holds on to the role it plays in the economy around it.
I have good news - embarking on a digital journey is comfortably within reach of even a budget-constrained airport. The trick is to start now by focusing on a few key areas.
These are not new concepts but are very relevant to aviation today, especially medium and smaller players.
Culture
Organisational culture truly does trump strategy. Your organisational culture and values must be geared toward empowered teams, customer centricity and innovation. Implemented with true servant leadership from senior executive, your organisation will come together in creatively solving business challenges and meeting the needs and wants of your customers. Airports taking steps to transform, must take care to ensure that employees are integral to the co-creation of the vision for the future. This is critical in ensuring that employees are regarded as key stakeholders, who are strongly positioned to enable or hamper success. Doing this helps allay the fears associated with transformation and places the control of employees’ destinies within their hands. When aircraft arrive a minute apart, nobody has time to ask upstairs. The team either has the authority and the information to act, or the operation stops at the person who has to ask.
Data
It is often said, that data is the new oil, the analogy is an intriguing one, it genuinely highlights the immense value your organisation’s data holds in supporting your business objectives. The democratisation of data means that data flows freely to people and functions within your business, on demand or even before they realise it was needed. In this new paradigm, data drives artificial intelligence algorithms, intelligent process automation and deep business and customer insights. It is fundamentally changing the way businesses engage with customers and enables the personalisation of their offerings in ways never seen before. No established business has a shortage of data – the question is - how will you leverage your data to create value for your customers? Then be deliberate in delivering that value. At a movement a minute, the data also has to be right at the moment it is captured, because nobody is going back afterwards to fix it.
So what about the tech?
Going digital neither requires massive investments in new tech, nor expensive consultants to be successful. Implementing shiny tech on outdated, legacy business practices will almost never deliver acceptable ROI. Attempting bolt-on technology approaches fail in most cases, usually owing to lagging organisational mindsets and legacy business practices. Technology should be strategically selected to support and enable your digital aspirations and changing needs. Ideally this selection process, results in existing technology assets being leveraged to deliver greater business benefit, bolstered by new investment - only where necessary. Airports with the tightest budgets will benefit the most from this approach. They should begin by having initial transformation activities focused on reducing the cost of doing business and increasing profitability, to build the monetary momentum and accelerate success. It is also why the answer is not a bigger version of what you have today. A process built around somebody keying entries does not get faster by buying a faster computer.
How to go about it
There is a palpable urgency for airports to act proactively and shape their own digital future, rather than reacting to market pressures. Many airports don’t act, as they feel that they do not possess the needed skills and experience, to help with this, choose a digital transformation partner with the right mindset and which you believe values the sustainable success of your business. The two-year horizon in step one below is no longer hypothetical. It is roughly the window before this new traffic starts asking which fields can take it.
The key in this journey is to think big, then act incrementally. Here’s a recommend 5 step approach to begin your journey, one which ensures that your team are integral to the co-creation and execution of the vision for the future:
- Understand your business context and environment - as a starting point, it is important to understand your opportunities and threats, what does the competitive landscape look like and what might it look like 2 years from now. Gain a deep understanding of what your present and potential customer segments are signalling in as their desires in your areas of business. Analyse how your partners and suppliers are performing in the value chain and what might be needed to pivot in this space.
- The art of the possible - given your business context and environment, together with your team, begin to formulate a vision for the future success of your business and define specific objectives for your planning horizon.
- Prioritisation - now start the process of prioritisation of key transformation initiatives. Planning for short delivery cycles, ideally no more than 90 days per set of prioritised initiatives. Using an agile approach to realise rapid customer satisfaction improvements, measured through your NPS tracking and business benefits.
- Deliver - this is where the rubber hits the road, keep the team focused on delivery objectives and ensuring quality as you go. Host frequent face to face status updates and ensure that everyone has a voice in raising challenges, concerns and in celebrating successes. This is an exciting time, where energy and momentum is built and sustained.
- Measure success - always ensure that the success of delivery is thoroughly tested in meeting customer and business measures. This is critical in making sure that your approach and process is appropriately structured and calibrated to deliver the results needed to meet your business transformation objectives.
So you can start on the journey right now, simply by shifting your organisational mindset and focusing on making those small incremental changes to build momentum. In the spirit of being agile and dynamic in this new world, transformation success hinges on being able to dream big, then take purposeful incremental strides in building future success.
A new class of aircraft is already arriving. The only question left is which fields will be ready to land it.