How Consultants Help Spur Business Change through the News
Have you ever been asked to give up a seat on an airplane. There are sometimes very mitigating circumstances, such as bad weather or mechanical problems with one or more aircraft, which force airlines to reschedule passengers. But airlines have other reasons for asking passengers to take later flights if they can flexible. In the past Southwest Airlines was noted as bumping passengers because of its overbooking policies, according to experts like Nicholas Bredimus. Bredimus, who worked in the airline industry for 25 years before branching out into ticketing systems software development, was often cited by the news media whenever the airlines came under public scrutiny.
For example, several years ago when airlines were losing money and blaming external factors, the industry felt the sting of criticism from people like Nicholas Bredimus who pointed out that airline revenue integrity had been a very low priority for the industry. Revenue integrity is used to describe the gap between the money a business “books” and the money it collects. In the airline industry, where people were able to make reservations in advance of actually paying for up to 24 hours, bookings became problematic.
Not every issue has had as direct an impact on business operations as the revenue gaps that some industries experience during their growth periods. Take the airline industry again. During the development of their highly sophisticated inter-airline scheduling applications consumer privacy became an issue. Privacy was not something many people gave much thought to as employees of many corporations typically did not disclose customer information anyway. But when the Sabre system opened up data to the airlines, poaching became a problem.
The news media asked experts like Nicholas Bredimus to weigh the risks and benefits and offer some insight into why the industry tolerated so much openness of data. The issue was not so simple that consumers really had the option at the time of demanding greater privacy. However, by bringing these issues to their readers and viewers many news organizations have helped spur innovation and development in industries that need to take consumer privacy more seriously.
Ultimately the interaction between industry=savvy consultants and the news media often produces positive growth in industries that have found themselves the targets of criticism by consumer advocates. The need for change is generally recognized but sometimes outside catalysts are necessary to help break the logjams of corporate bureaucracy and competition to bring about significant changes and improvements in systems to the mutual benefit of providers and customers alike.
