<B> IBM Offering Web Tools</B>
By Lynn Woods
New Web technologies being developed for the Hertz Corp. and other travel companies by IBM e-business Services, the Atlanta-based technology and strategic business consulting division of IBM Global Services, will enable travel suppliers to better manage the increasingly complex Internet marketplace as well as expand into a variety of digital channels with greater ease and flexibility.
"When you get to managing Web sites with multilingual content, it's very difficult," said Alex Heublein, e-publishing middleware manager of e-business Services, at a recent press conference held in Atlanta. Hertz's Web site not only has a multilingual feature, but it also offers a multitude of products (for example, equipment rentals in addition to car rentals), a choice of currencies and even differences in graphics. "We have Gold service"--Hertz's express rental product--"all over the world, but in some countries, such as Japan, the color scheme of black and gold has negative connotations, requiring a different look," said Peter Budd, Hertz's director of electronic distribution.
Maintaining the multitude of Web sites needed to service the needs of customers around the globe is a dauntingly complex task. In its partnership with IBM, Hertz will be replacing the patchwork of different sites with a "dynamic Web system," as Budd puts it, where all the variables "are part of one solution."
The system will use a new technology called "travel objects," which will enable Hertz to deliver services to end-users more quickly, Heublein said.
How? While today most Web sites are not "scalable," meaning that in order to add new servers to cope with a tenfold increase in usage, the entire architecture of the site has to be rebuilt as a modular, scalable system, the travel-objects technology would be able to adapt to a huge increase in hits. With Web usage growing at a 300 percent clip each year, scalability will be crucial to a company's future success on the Internet, Heublein said.
Second, travel objects will enable Hertz to take content from its Web site and apply it to new digital channels without having to recreate the material from scratch. "Companies will be able to support new types of media more quickly," said Heublein, helping them market and service customers more effectively across a variety of digital channels.
As new digital media such as kiosks, personal digital assistants and interactive television proliferate, providing customers with more points of contact, this adaptability will become important. "Successful businesses will be able to contact their customers by whichever means the customer is most comfortable with, and exploiting these channels first will provide them with a powerful competitive advantage," Brian Hamel, IBM's Global Travel-Related Services executive, wrote in a recent supplement to Lodging magazine.
Finally, travel objects technology will result in more reliability, since the modular structure cuts down on errors in the code, Heublein said.
Basically, travel objects technology involves the building of a platform, independent of the Web site and other digital channels, that is scalable and portable. The code used to construct this "middle tier" is based on open standards, allowing for future modifications needed to support new development. This platform, which consists of modules of logic called Enterprise Java Beans, serves to de-couple the front-end system of the Web site from the back end--in essence, separating the business logic from the transaction.
Two other components of the technology are Java Server Pages and Java Servlets, which "are the pieces that manage how the Web presentation logic--the data from travel objects, functioning as the back end of the system--is presented onto the Web or other digital channel, which comprises the front end," Heublein explained.
In managing Hertz's Web site, IBM e-publishers will enable users to be automatically directed into the language-appropriate section of the site, said Heublein, adding that IBM had learned a lot about multilingual content management from its work developing a Web site for the French Open. "We learned how to manage content as a single idea," he said. "If you can manage it as a single document across all languages, you can reduce the cost of homepage management."
The big advantage of travel objects technology to corporations is that it will enable them to maintain brand consistency over the Web and other digital channels, noted David Dingley, IBM's e-business marketing manager for the travel and transportation industry--and not just in terms of the logo. "Your Web site is an integral part of your brand. It's not just imagery; Web sites must provide good service."
In the future, this means that Hertz's Web site--to cite a hypothetical example--not only might recognize a Hertz #1 Club Gold customer, but also identify that the person usually flies out of New York JFK Airport. This would enable Hertz to provide personalized promotions or upgrades right on the site.
Consistency of service levels also might take the form of providing an automated courtesy response to e-mail messages sent to the company's site. "A very small percentage of sites do that today, even within a 24-hour basis," said Dingley. "Travel companies should ask themselves, 'have you got a strategy for handling all the e-mails you'll get?' " Or they might enable the user to click on help and be instantly put into chat mode with a customer service rep. "For complex things like airfare purchases, a real-time help feature will become a necessity," Dingley said. Through synchronization of the customer's browser with a travel agent's, the agent also would have the ability to join the onsite discussion.
Corporate travel departments also could use their company Web sites as an advertising vehicle, he added. "If you've just negotiated a deal with an airline, you could publicize it to employees by using a banner ad on your site," he said.
IBM e-business Services also is working with Starwood Hotels and recently rebuilt the hotel company's Web site. One of the new features of the site is a personalized Web page in which members of Starwood's Preferred Guest frequency program can input their travel preferences, as well as redeem awards online for earned Starpoints, access program terms and conditions, and learn about current promotions.
Noting that a high percentage of people have filled out the page, Brian Pratt, Starwood's vice president of interactive marketing, said that one advantage of collecting data about customers from the page rather than relying on the past history of members is that "people tell us where they'd like to go"--information that is more helpful in targeting customers' future needs. The Web site has become Starwood's third largest source of enrollments for its frequency program, which is significant considering that there are a total of 150 enrollment sources.
Starwood also is developing travel objects technology applications, although Pratt declined to specify about what form they will take.
Dingley said that another client, Icelandair, was working with IBM in preparation for making its Web site the prime vehicle for reservations, expected to handle up to half its bookings.
IBM, in conjunction with Ensemble Solutions Inc., an e-commerce software company, also is working with WizCom International--the travel reservations and information management subsidiary of Cendant Corp.--to develop a distribution product that will bring together multiple distribution channels--including the global distribution systems, the Internet and corporate intranets--into one management tool with a single point of entry.