What Chief Data Officers can learn from Southwest Airlines Technology Vulnerabilities

We saw a never-like-before record bitter cold storm in the United States, impacting many in the transportation industry. Amid the 2022 holiday season, Southwest Airlines came to the spotlight for its record cancelations stranding several passengers scrambling to connect with the airline staff seeking help. In speaking with CNN , Pete Buttigieg, the US Secretary of Transportation, reported,

The airline was unable to locate its staff members, let alone their passenger’s baggage.

As reported by Ruiqi Chen and according to FlightAware data on airline cancelations, Southwest Airlines recorded 2500+ flight cancellations, the highest among its peers. This tragedy has brought to light the impact of operational efficiency on Southwest Airlines business outcomes, severely impacting its brand reputation, exposing technology vulnerabilities, and impacting the airline’s ability to scale and resume normal business operations.

Running a successful airline business requires a concerted effort from all parts of the organization. The role of Chief Data Officers is far more critical when responding to such adverse events, especially winter storms that can halt an airline’s operations in their tracks. Many in the transportation industry face numerous data challenges covering:

1. Ad-hoc business processes to collect and protect customer data and coordinate information with local authorities to comply with safety standards.
2. Internal alignment to appropriately store customer data, fleet management, and reporting on operational metrics to measure system performance, trends, and remediation plans in case of technology failures (for Southwest, effectively managing flight cancelations and rebooking so passengers can reach their destination without much delay).
3. Lack of standards around internal and external data-sharing practices to avoid operational failures.
4. Lack of shared understanding of data to enable predictive analytics.
5. Use of poor data quality and privacy standards in customer-focused initiatives.

The availability of clean and trusted data can unlock many benefits for the transportation industry. It’s not just Southwest Airlines that desperately needs operational efficiency; many in the industry are plagued with such data challenges.

In favor of Southwest Airlines , they are one of the leading carriers in the industry. They have made strides in building a business around communities and not hubs, providing affordable airline tickets for passengers from all walks of life. While affordability is crucial to find a mindshare with customers and capturing market share, there are other variables to retain a top stop in the industry, especially amid growing competition taking swift action and potentially impacting monetary gains. Many of Southwest Airlines competitors, including American Airlines , Delta Air Lines , and United Airlines , introduced fare caps in some cities where the airline operated.

Customer experience and acquisition remain the top driver for most customer-facing businesses. Organizations need access to reliable data to make data-driven business decisions, which is precisely the value the Chief Data Officer role brings to the table. There are many ways in which companies can unlock competitive advantage and deliver fit-for-purpose customer experience by effectively governing data. Most data governance initiatives’ ultimate goal is to support business outcomes. However, many such data initiatives don’t survive due to a lack of business, user, and technology adoption. The role of technology becomes more critical in driving data user productivity when managing business activities to predict growing customer demands and action to create meaningful solutions for the business.

DataGalaxy ’s data intelligence platform can change that by bringing business and technology teams like never before. It offers rich user experiences that Chief Data Officers can operationalize to help stakeholders understand how the entire business runs on data and build back a better future of scale and organizational readiness to respond to adverse events, be it a pandemic like COVID-19, macroeconomics, or even climate-change-related events.

As a value-add to the transportation industry, DataGalaxy offers many valuable capabilities empowering the Chief Data Officers. Combining industry best practices and practical customer experiences, DataGalaxy enables organizations to easily Share, Manage and Scan data needs to smoothen their data governance journey:

While not limited to the above set of valuable capabilities, culture and change management aspects are essential for any given organization, irrespective of the industry. One key question comes to mind as we navigate current affairs: As a Chief Data Officer, have you realized the full potential of your data governance initiative? Only a few Chief Data Officers can say that for certain, and many still face user adoption and change management challenges.

About the Author:

Kash Mehdi is an experienced Growth Ops and Strategy Leader with a proven track record in driving revenue growth and leading Go-To-Market strategies across North America, Europe, the Middle East, Africa, and South America. He has successfully contributed to three major enterprise software companies, securing significant wins and market share.

?? As the Founder of the CDO Masterclass and CDO Academy programs, Kash has been recognized for his thought leadership, earning a spot on the 2024 DataIQ Data and AI Leader Award shortlist.

?? He played a pivotal role in launching DataGalaxy in the U.S., securing its first double-digit customers and driving seven-figure net new business.

?? Previously, Kash led Informatica's expansion into the Data Governance space, generating $40 million in annual recurring revenue and $84 million in total contract value in four years.

?? At Collibra, he played an integral role in the company's growth from a startup to a $5 billion valuation, managing a $56 million portfolio and driving 25% renewal growth.

With deep expertise in data and AI governance, privacy, and digital transformation, Kash continues to influence the industry, contributing thought leadership to platforms like Data Stash by Kash, Medium and CDO Magazine.