Customer Success Story
SCANDINAVIAN LEISURE GROUP
BT Infonet Provides a Peace of Mind to Scandinavian Leisure Group
Picture this, you arrive at your holiday destination ready for two weeks of fun and enjoyment. Then, horror. The hotel has no record of your booking and no rooms available. Your tour representative looks panic-stricken. Suddenly, a relaxing two weeks is looking like a nightmare. Happily, this is not a common experience. But when on holiday we rarely think of the people and paperwork necessary to ensure our holiday well-being.
For a major leisure company such as the Scandinavian Leisure Group (SLG), the client's well-being is the only thing on their mind. SLG, with an annual turnover of more than 12 billion Swedish kronor, is the largest travel and tour group in Sweden and Scandinavia. In the market, SLG is represented through its different operators like Ving, Spies and Always, all well-known brands in the Scandinavian market. Today SLG handles 2.5 million passengers a year, supported by a team of 5,000 staff at their head office and in the resorts.
Moving two and a half million people to destinations across three continents is a massive undertaking and nothing can go wrong. "Travel is an industry where the clients have a lot of expectations and it is up to us to provide the best weeks of their year," says Elin Brundin, Group Manager for PC/LAN at SLG in Stockholm. "Client retention is a big part of our business and we know that one slip-up can lead to one less client the following year."
The relationship between BT Infonet and SLG began 10 years ago. By the beginning of 1990, SLG found that conventional telex and fax were no longer enough to give them the necessary links with their representatives and hotels around Europe and the rest of the world. It was becoming an ever-increasing problem to ensure that reservations were downloaded in time to let hotels know who was arriving, and from where. SLG turned to BT Infonet to help and BT Infonet introduced an X.25 system to solve the problem. "We needed a provider with global coverage," says Brundin, "And at that time there were not many organisations which could do this. BT Infonet proved to be the best choice."
The relationship continues to be a success. Brundin enjoys BT Infonet's technology and attitude. "During my time here," she says, "it has been stable to work with BT Infonet. We do not run up against difficulties, there have been very few breaks in the network, and when these have occurred BT Infonet has kept us informed and fixed them quickly."
Ten years on, SLG's requirements had increased. Reservations continued to be all-important but now there was also a need for an external e-mail system using the Internet and access to the company's intranet for personnel, even in the farthest locations. "In effect," said Brundin, "we needed to make all our destinations look and feel like Head Office."
Against an international tender BT Infonet's bid again won the day. "There is no doubt," said Brundin, "that our past experience with BT Infonet played a part in our decision. We felt we could rely on BT Infonet as a supplier. It is not a newcomer; it has been around and has the experience. That is important. With the responsibilities we have to our public, the idea of using an unknown supplier is a little scary."
SLG needed a reliable, cost-effective solution to cover their minor sites where the use of frame relay or dedicated access cannot be economically justified. Many of SLG's locations are only open for part of a year and can only afford a limited budget. Fixed monthly charges are not the answer. At the same time, the reservations information accessed by SLG personnel is critical to the success of the business and needs to be protected.
The BT Infonet solution was to use BT Infonet's DialXpress complete with support via RSA's SecurID product. The latter is important with so many of SLG's personnel recruited for only a few months or moving between resorts. For the same reason, SLG will use BT Infonet's network structure but will retain the necessary control to add or delete users as required. Finally, to help SLG's financial planning, BT Infonet is providing specified billing reports, allowing SLG to split all charges on a per unit basis.
Cost-Effective Solution
The BT Infonet solution covers some 50 resorts worldwide. Already it is bringing results. SLG staff can now access and interrogate the booking systems at head office. The introduction of Internet e-mail provides instant communications regardless of time zones. And the capability to log on to the company intranet system, wherever and whenever, provides an added bonus for staff. As SLG has to prove every day, peace of mind does not come easy. Nevertheless, services such as BT Infonet's DialXpress can go a long way to ensuring that SLG can enjoy the same peace of mind that the tour operators within SLG try to give to their clients.