19 February 2004
Saudi Arabian Airlines has announced the launch of its eBusiness centre.
The announcement is the first phase of a series of programs aimed at supporting the airlines e-business strategies and boosting its internal capabilities to leverage Internet technologies.
The eBusiness centre uses IBM's WebSphere technology to allow the development, deployment and hosting of the airline's e-business solutions, while providing integration with its existing core enterprise systems and applications.
Jointly, a technical Saudia team supported by IBM and Saudi Business Machines (SBM), its general marketing and services representative for the Kingdom, successfully completed this phase.
The eBusiness Centre is a key milestone in driving Saudi Arabian Airline's long-term corporate e-business strategy as directed by Dr Khaled A Ben-Bakr, director-general of Saudi Arabian Airlines, to improve corporate IT capabilities, reduce costs and improve services to Saudi Arabian Airlines customers.
"IBM and SBM are the ideal strategic partners in this large-scale project as they are able to meet our high-end technology requirements with the WebSphere e-business platform, as well as having the expertise and resources to implement such large-scale systems in our timescale," said Mowafaq M Jelaidan, VP of Information Technology at Saudia Airlines.
"IBM's WebSphere platform is open and is supported by a large number of third party vendors, which was crucial in our decision-making process.
"It provides us with new capabilities and opportunities to serve our customers, partners and employees in an integrated manner while leveraging our existing investments."
The decision to use IBM's software and middleware technology was a result of a research that started by Saudi Airlines two and a half years ago on finding the partner that could provide an open, portable and scalable solution that would best integrate with its existing enterprise IT environment.
Abdullah M Alharbi, general manager Systems Development at Saudi Arabian Airlines and the chairman of the steering committee for the project, indicated that in pursuing this project, Saudi Arabian Airlines had to address issues of acquiring technologies components, knowledge & competencies transfer, and more importantly adopting a proven process and methodology for operating the eBusiness Centre.
These issues are key pillars and pivotal for a successful implementation of such a large scale IT project.
The joined partnership between Saudi Arabian Airlines, IBM and SBM ensured a timely, successful completion of the project while sticking to the boundaries of the original allocated budgets.
"Saudi Arabian Airlines has taken a unique approach in the way that it has decided to move forwards with its IT environment and that is the importance it has given to integration.
"Many organizations in the region are introducing similar technologies without giving much consideration to integration which in the long term can result in complications and unnecessary costs," said the head of IBM's Software Group in the Middle East, Bashar Kilani.
Saudi Arabian Airlines has announced the launch of its eBusiness centre.
The announcement is the first phase of a series of programs aimed at supporting the airlines e-business strategies and boosting its internal capabilities to leverage Internet technologies.
The eBusiness centre uses IBM's WebSphere technology to allow the development, deployment and hosting of the airline's e-business solutions, while providing integration with its existing core enterprise systems and applications.
Jointly, a technical Saudia team supported by IBM and Saudi Business Machines (SBM), its general marketing and services representative for the Kingdom, successfully completed this phase.
The eBusiness Centre is a key milestone in driving Saudi Arabian Airline's long-term corporate e-business strategy as directed by Dr Khaled A Ben-Bakr, director-general of Saudi Arabian Airlines, to improve corporate IT capabilities, reduce costs and improve services to Saudi Arabian Airlines customers.
"IBM and SBM are the ideal strategic partners in this large-scale project as they are able to meet our high-end technology requirements with the WebSphere e-business platform, as well as having the expertise and resources to implement such large-scale systems in our timescale," said Mowafaq M Jelaidan, VP of Information Technology at Saudia Airlines.
"IBM's WebSphere platform is open and is supported by a large number of third party vendors, which was crucial in our decision-making process.
"It provides us with new capabilities and opportunities to serve our customers, partners and employees in an integrated manner while leveraging our existing investments."
The decision to use IBM's software and middleware technology was a result of a research that started by Saudi Airlines two and a half years ago on finding the partner that could provide an open, portable and scalable solution that would best integrate with its existing enterprise IT environment.
Abdullah M Alharbi, general manager Systems Development at Saudi Arabian Airlines and the chairman of the steering committee for the project, indicated that in pursuing this project, Saudi Arabian Airlines had to address issues of acquiring technologies components, knowledge & competencies transfer, and more importantly adopting a proven process and methodology for operating the eBusiness Centre.
These issues are key pillars and pivotal for a successful implementation of such a large scale IT project.
The joined partnership between Saudi Arabian Airlines, IBM and SBM ensured a timely, successful completion of the project while sticking to the boundaries of the original allocated budgets.
"Saudi Arabian Airlines has taken a unique approach in the way that it has decided to move forwards with its IT environment and that is the importance it has given to integration.
"Many organizations in the region are introducing similar technologies without giving much consideration to integration which in the long term can result in complications and unnecessary costs," said the head of IBM's Software Group in the Middle East, Bashar Kilani.
© Saudi Economic Survey 2004
