IT complexity compounds soaring travel transaction failures

Peter Dinham
Wednesday, 05 August 2009 16:58

Business IT - Technology

In his report, Foody also says that the survey demonstrated the hidden cost and impact on staff resources of dealing with increased transaction failures, and that 85 percent of companies surveyed had to deploy an average of eight staff to rectify lost or stalled transactions, with each transaction taking just under two hours to fix.

“This research clearly highlights the far-reaching effects of transaction failures within the travel industry. The trend of increasing IT complexity is further compounding revenue loss through increased lost transactions, customer churn and inefficient use of IT resources with 97% of respondents concluding that transaction failures were increasing operational costs.”

Foody suggests that companies should consider introducing a more streamlined approach to monitoring transaction flows across their IT environments, “delivering the ability to respond to changing conditions and customer interactions as they occur.

“This will enable business leaders to capitalize on opportunities, drive efficiencies and reduce the risk of impacting customer experience. The more responsive approach will provide visibility and increase understanding of the impact IT failures have on their own IT services and their customers.”

Progress Software commissioned Vanson Bourne to undertake the research. The survey, involving 210 interviews carried out in March this year with major companies in the USA, Europe (UK, France, Germany, The Netherlands and Sweden) and Asia/Pacific regions, covered companies with minimum annual sales of US$200 million and almost half with annual sales of more than US$1billion.