project_cairo_031022

Project CAIRO
Author – Michael Boyle 1/14 Printed on: 21/11/2003 - 08:07
Project Cairo – Enterprise Information Portal (EIP)
Technology Offers a Competitive Advantage In the
Business Travel Market

Project CAIRO
Abstract
This paper describes the process for the development and implementation of an EIP
by Carlson Wagonlit Travel. The objectives were established of providing a common
framework for e-commerce and client communication processes as well as the
generation of a competitive advantage using a technology not yet widespread in the
European Business travel market. A specification process including a GAP analysis
and a listing of the stakeholders motivation for this initiative is treated, and the EIP is
described with the features and the technology applied. A case study concerning
portal deployment is also included.
Keywords: Enterprise Information Portal, technical gap analysis, travel process
replication

Project CAIRO
Table of Contents
ABSTRACT 2
TABLE OF CONTENTS 3
1 INTRODUCTION 4
2. THEORY/ISSUES 6
2.1 PURCHASE VS. BUILD (GAP ANALYSIS) 6
2.2 STAKEHOLDERS 7
3.1 CAIRO FEATURES 8
3.1.1 AUTHORIZATION AND AUTHENTICATION (USER MANAGER) 8
3.1.2 CONTENT MANAGER 9
3.1.4 ADMINISTRATION TOOLS 9
3.2 CAIRO TECHNOLOGY 10
3.2.1 PLATFORM 11
4 RESULTS 11
CASE STUDY 12
5 CONCLUSIONS 13
REFERENCES 14

Project CAIRO
1 Introduction
In 2000, the EMEA (Europe Middle East and Africa) region of Carlson Wagonlit
Travel (CWT) was confronted with a rapidly changing marketplace. These
transformations pertained first and foremost to customer requirements for numerous
digital applications, and CWT was compelled to react quickly. The development and
implementation taking place at that time was either web-based but local (e.g. the
@visor web-based travel order application in Germany) or system wide but
proprietary (e.g. Customer Service Application complaint management system,
InterAct Cognos based Management Information tool). Carlson Wagonlit was
attempting to refine their operational efficiencies, receive exact data about their
customers and, most importantly, improve the ‘share of customer’ level with these
clients. The ‘share of customer’ refers to the percentage of a particular customer's
business a firm receives over the lifetime of patronage (http://www.1to1.com [03
October, 2002]). At the same time, CWT customers were expecting more accurate
and customized data, flexibility of additional service options and the economic fruits
of economies of scale. The delineation between ‘internal’ (i.e. within CWT) and
external (customer use) was becoming increasingly difficult to label. A definite
internal need had been established to tie the composite CWT electronic offerings
under the umbrella of a meta portal. “Such a vehicle allows for transaction
management comprising the search, selection, order, delivery, settlement and
accounting - providing complete customer care throughout the process.”
(http://www.webtravelnews.com [02 June, 2000]).
Specific patterns emerged throughout the process which, by nature, formed the basis
of what became ‘Project Cairo’. Study data showed that consumers would divide
each travel experience into the following stages: planning, mode of travel to a
destination, destination, mode of return travel, and post travel.
(http//www.cartondonofrio.com/study.cfm [03 October, 2002] and these users were
looking primarily for online options. Even though the European market was not seen
as being as developed as North America, Europeans using the Internet to plan and
book travel sharply increased in 1999 compared to 1998.
(http://www.webtravelnews.com [24 July, 2000]). The most important financial aspect
concerned Carlson Wagonlit customers and their request for help to move to one
self-serve model (http://www.eshare.com [05July, 2000]) that would encompass not
only the entire CWT offering, but to all of their travel suppliers.
(http://www.btnonline.com [13.04.1998]).

Project CAIRO
An analysis was conducted in order to determine which portion of this initiative was
driven by tactical needs (cost reductions, response to mandatory demands) vs.
strategic objectives (drive revenue growth, develop competitive advantage). This
exercise was critical in order to allocate resources and align the business objectives.
Project CAIRO (Customized Applications and Internet Related Operations) might
have been influenced by the events mentioned, but the business case was rooted in
very specific developments at that time. Travel portals were not new to the Business
to Consumer (B2C) market, but an integrated tourism Business to Business (B2B)
portal solution had not been yet been established in Europe. A development of such
a portal would allow Carlson Wagonlit Travel to be a leader in this field. Furthermore,
in defining the CWT core competencies as changing from supplier-driven travel
services towards consultancy, the basic tenet involved the development of a traveler
support platform for these ‘self-serve’ applications with a continued emphasis in
offering Carlson Wagonlit’s know-how and expertise. This strategy combined with
menu pricing became the precept. ( http://www.forbes.com/global [07 August,
2000]).
Internal and external advantages were already apparent. At the time, Carlson
Wagonlit felt the need to encourage their employees to be more Internet savvy. CWT
travel agents were regularly being challenged by their clients to enquire on offers
found in the Internet (Self Booking Tools, Hotel, Car and Tour Operator websites
primarily), and the employees did not fully have the experience to answer and
execute all such requests. The Carlson Wagonlit stakeholders knew the true
advantage of a customer Enterprise Information Portal (EIP) was to improve the
efficiency at CWT. ( http://www.forbes.com/global [07 August, 2000]). In addition,
the creation of an EIP would give Carlson Wagonlit a revenue-enhancing opportunity.
Straight travel B2C enterprises were following exactly this approach of upselling to a
captive audience (http://www.webtravelnews.com [28 April, 2000]). Lastly, the user
data collected via a Portal could eventually be used for routing sales in a particular
direction. The airline Global Distribution Systems used by travel agencies give
examples of such a practice (Peppers and Rogers, 2000; The One to One Manager.
2000).

Project CAIRO
2. Theory/Issues
2.1 Purchase vs. Build (GAP analysis)
In evaluating the portal requirements, the following prerequisites were established
based on customer and stakeholder feedback; The portal had to be business travel
specific, the architecture must be scalable, access to the portal must be very secure,
the operation and implementation had to be cost-efficient in order to reach critical
mass, and the individual portal configuration needed to be open and flexible to meet
the customers and end-users expectations.
Carlson Wagonlit had established the following internal requirements for the
application; a control of the software development and its lifecycle was necessary, a
prototype was to be developed for review by both the customer base and the
stakeholders and , after buy in, a final version of the product would be completed. A
strict limit was placed for the initial and fixed costs, and incremental development
would be supported based on specific business requirements, provided it could
benefit other customers. These costs would then be absorbed either by the business
unit or the customer requesting the enhancement.
The decision to build the portal instead of purchasing an off the shelf solution was
made based on specific recognized assumptions. As the project was divided into two
phases - prototype and final product after buy in - the initial costs of a purchased
system could not be justified. The buy in would be based on the reaction to the
prototype. Due to market pressures, the full project would then take place under
severe time constraints. CWT scheduled the entire process of specification, design,
prototyping, deployment and testing of the final version to take place within a time
period of six months. In addition, Carlson Wagonlit could not afford to limit itself to a
product based on a standard life cycle of 3 to 4 years, defined primarily on the level
of support one can expect for a proprietary system and how far the support can be
extended (e.g. http://www.microsoft.com/ [03 June, 2002]). In addition, there was a
certain lack of transparency in existing portal applications at that time. Carlson
Wagonlit was looking for a very specific solution which would allow for 3rd
party
content, CWT content and customer content to be managed and developed at
various ‘touchpoints’.

Project CAIRO
2.2 Stakeholders
The stakeholders within Carlson Wagonlit were made up of the decision makers
within four departments of the company: Sales and Marketing, Account Management,
Operations and Information Technology. Each department was represented
throughout the entire process and had an input into the framework of the application.
Sales and Marketing (SAM): The central motivation for this department was to have a
tool that could be used as a way to acquire more customers. As there was no similar
product being offered by the competition, this left SAM with a strategic advantage
from their Travel Management competition. If done correctly, such a portal could very
well help in defining a positive Corporate Identity (CI) for Carlson Wagonlit. In
addition, a clear association between the customer and CWT would appear for the
end-user through the use of joint logos on the individual index pages. Through the
nature of the medium, Carlson Wagonlit would also have a product that could
immediately be used globally, complementing CWT’s strength as a multinational
Travel Management Company.
Account Management: This department felt that Project CAIRO would help to establish
customer dependence. AM’s felt that once a customer had their own CAIRO and it
was being used daily by their employees, the application could play a important role
in extending patronage and measuring customer satisfaction.
Operations: This department clearly saw the development of CAIRO as being a way to
bring additional efficiency into the distribution process. The intent was to use the
application for internal workflow and communication improvement on a intra-country,
regional and global level while allowing for development of a user self-serve model
previously mentioned.
Information Technology: Apart from being the ‘driver’ of this initiative, IT felt they had
the opportunity to ensure standardization of all digital products offered within Carlson
Wagonlit EMEA as well as a chance to demonstrate again their commitment to the
business through its active involvement in the planning, designing and
implementation of the CAIRO portal. It is only through recent cost cutting that IT
departments have been forced to become more business-centric
(http://www.gartner.com [29 November, 2001]), a trend Carlson Wagonlit was able to
recognize earlier that the competition.

Project CAIRO
3. Methods/Procedures
The composition of CAIRO (Customized Applications and Internet Related
Operations) involved a standardized platform with a scalable hierarchy based on
customer and end user identification. Carlson Wagonlit did not want to offer one large
portal to all its customers, but rather an individual portal to every customer and the
possibility of an individual menu set for every end-user. CWT wanted to provide the
content and service framework and additionally to control the software, but many
administration tasks should belong to the customer. Using this structure, Carlson
Wagonlit could provide information, services and tools to all customers using the
portal, but the customers obtain additional value by being able to enhance the CWT
services with their own applications and services. A unified structure for all customers
was imperative and was based on menu items clustered into groups that could
partially be limited to user role types. As the individual requirements of the customers
could never be standardized, two group levels were established - standard groups
and individual groups. This hierarchy allowed for the customer to establish
information filtering by deciding which data is to be provided to its employees; even
to differentiate what individual employees see .
3.1 Cairo Features
The categories for CAIRO were defined under the following four classifications -
Authorization and Authentication (User Manager), Content Manager and
Administrative Tools.
3.1.1 Authorization and Authentication (User Manager)
A valid combination of a customer identifier, user identification and password is
required to enter the system, providing three types of user validation; CAIRO based,
external based (CWT internal, customer based) and individual registration. The
system would allow for the display of different content based on the type of
authentication for the same customer. Every user can be authenticated via five
different user levels and with a set of menu items and functionalities which together
are defined as the user rights. The menu items and functions define what the user
can see and the user level defines the type of usage for the end-user. CAIRO has
three criteria to determine which menu items the end-user may access: groups,
group exceptions and user exceptions. It is important to note that the group selection
is made at the customer level and is not predefined from Carlson Wagonlit.

Project CAIRO
3.1.2 Content Manager
The Content Manager implements the processes that are to be executed before and
after every application or content is retrieved by the portal. CAIRO handles all content
based on retrieval type and uses a recursive menu item structure. The hierarchy
could be extended by adding sub menu items. The order, name and content of every
menu item could be different for each customer. Each customer could have an
individual index page, could manage applications under a CSM (customer specific
menu item) structure and could place a company logo within the portal.
3.1.4 Administration Tools
Statistics: Each ‘click’ within the portal is logged for analysis and quantification. The
three access levels established are: Customer Administrator, CWT Administrator,
System Administrator.
CWT Message: Such a tool allows Carlson Wagonlit to broadcast a message either
to all of its customers, individual customers or groups of customers.
Content Error Message: The possibility exists to post an informative message for one
or more customers who would have access to the application in question.
Content Administration: This interface handles the various system applications,
establish the retrieval type and configuration parameters.
Menu Item Administration: This tool is used for managing the system menu items as
well as assigning and validating menu item content.
Group Administration: This application manages the groups of the system and their
properties.
User Administration: This interface allows for the system administrator to perform all
configuration actions for various users concurrently through standardized entries.
Customer Setup: CAIRO provides for a three-step process for customer setup within
the system.

Project CAIRO
3.2 Cairo Technology
As the portal content would come from various sources, it was important to develop
an EAI (enterprise application integration) for all external sources to adhere to in
order to ensure content robustness. For the communication between the various
applications and the CAIRO portal, XML-RPC (published by UserLand Software,
http://www.xmlrpc.org) was chosen as the protocol. XML-RPC is a set of
implementations that allow software running on disparate operating systems, running
in different environments to make procedure calls over the Internet in a simple
fashion while allowing complex data structures to be transmitted, processed and
returned. Procedure parameters can be scalars, numbers, strings, dates, etc.; and
complex record and list structures could also be included. From this standard, the
CA_API was created by InterConcept to allow for such transactions to take place
within the portal.
This decision was based on the status of Remote Procedure Calls in Spring, 2000.
The development of various alternatives were not as advanced at the time of the
CAIRO design and deployment. The original specifications for SOAP date back to
May, 2000 (http://www.w3.org [September, 2000]), whereas the first implementation
of XML-RPC took place in April, 1998 (http://www.xmlrpc.org). Another important
factor in the selection pertained to the ability to establish a rapid deployment of the
portal. The call chosen had to be easy to comprehend, implement and execute, and
one can find various evidence of these attributes pertaining quite clearly to XML-
RPC. ( http://www.infoworld.com [07 September, 2001])
The primary functionality of the CA_API is to manage the authentication of users
between CAIRO and other applications with the basic requirement of the usage of
the authentication process and the security management located within the portal. In
addition, basic user and customer data can also be passed along in the RPC.
Depending on the data required, the CA_API can provide for user creation within
external applications with a synchronous update of the data located within the portal.
The establishment and implementation of user levels is also supported by the API.

Project CAIRO
3.2.1 Platform
Cairo is based on a mySQL database running under a Linux operating system (OS).
The first obvious advantage for CWT in this arrangement was the absence of a
license fee for the OS. Carlson Wagonlit needed to ensure that the solution was non-
proprietary in nature due to the various IT configuration within their client base, and
the Linux platform could guarantee an open solution with a certain guarantee for
support over a long term period.
4 Results
Taking into account all the issues mentioned above, CWT decided to program an
individual portal solution middle of 2000. InterConcept GmbH
(http://www.interconcept.de) was chosen as a solution provider based on a proven
record of various Internet solutions for Carlson Wagonlit and its expertise in portal
and content management technology. Specifications were organized by a project
group comprised of members from both CWT and InterConcept. A prototype of the
portal was finished within 3 months and was presented to the Carlson Wagonlit
customers in October 2000. A beta application was launched 01 January, 2001 and
the portal was officially released on the 28th
June, 2001.
Out of the intention to establish an application that fulfilled regional needs, a global
product was established, one which has been implemented in EMEA and
Asia/Pacific. In addition, internal uses for the portal have also been found.
Customized B2E (user groups, knowledge base) and PRM (partner relationship
management) solutions have been established using the same platform (entry point,
database). Individual country operations have also opted to use the individual
customer portals to create customized B2C messages for the end-users. Currently,
the portal is being retrofitted to additionally handle B2B2C relationships with the
transactions to result thereof.
In November, 2001, the application was rebranded as CWT Connect
(http://www.cwtconnect.com). Over 100 versions of the portal have been customized
since the application was put into production.

Project CAIRO
Case Study
In conjunction with a global knowledge base initiative within Carlson Wagonlit in
June, 2001, the CAIRO development team was commissioned to develop an
application to store, access and classify enterprise documentation. In September of
that year, the tool was completed and released into a quality assurance environment
with productive upload taking place on October 25, 2001 under the name Document
Manager. Due to the necessary restrictions placed on e-mail attachments due to the
increasing internal computer virus threat, it was no longer possible for a particular
Account Manager to pass on special MS Access reports to a customer. At this point
in time, it was suggested by the CAIRO Development Team to implement the
Document Manager as a menu item within CAIRO in order to alleviate this problem.
As the above implementation was such a success for both this particular Account
Manager and the customer in question, news spread quickly within Carlson Wagonlit
about the application. The CWT Management Information (MI) department found
themselves in a similar situation and quickly realized they could very well use the
Document Manager for their own means. Talks were concluded between the CAIRO
development team and the MI department to not only implement the Document
Manager, but also to attach their own application server to the application in order to
increase capacity. With this action, the Document Manager became a multi-purpose
tool with specified customer indexes, various server sources, and one point of entry
for all end-users. Installation for Carlson Wagonlit MI department was completed with
these specifications in July, 2002.

Project CAIRO
5 Conclusions
Although it was the assumption that primarily SME’s would be interested in CAIRO,
Carlson Wagonlit was surprised to see an interest from many of its global clients.
Some of these larger enterprises saw an opportunity to outsource an activity that did
not meet their core competencies and could never be as effective as a specialist in
this field. CAIRO had taken over the travel-related section of their clients Intranet,
which has solidified the relationship between CWT and their clientele.
Since the inception of the CAIRO project plan in Spring, 2000, there have been
various developments, primarily external, which have influenced the original
methodology of the project and have had an effect on the development of the portal.
The concept of ‘self-serve’ proceeded at a much faster pace than originally expected.
The main influence of this development could be traced to the elimination of travel
agent commissions by British Airways in April, 2001. This action spurred other
carriers throughout Europe to see this action as a way to contain their distribution
costs and followed accordingly. In addition, as travel agent customer rebates were
being slowly eliminated, corporate travel costs became more transparent. The
economic conditions made a ‘self-serve’ option more interesting for travel agencies
and their customers alike.
In retrospect, it was proven to be a wise maneuver for Carlson Wagonlit not to have
purchased a standard solution as the many of the EIP providers from the Spring of
2000 had either merged with other companies, changed their business model, or had
ceased operations. The support for an ‘off the shelf’ product would have been 2
years at best. In addition, the model chosen by Carlson Wagonlit to enable the
establishment of an infinite amount of individual portals, including customization and
administrative applications, can still be labeled as being unique in the travel
marketplace. With the capability of customers establishing for themselves an
individual portal which can be different for each individual user based on
authentication type, user status, geographic location or other possible criteria chosen,
the success generated by the CAIRO portal has exceeded all estimations made with
the original plans established in the Spring of 2000.
An internal Carlson Wagonlit audit was performed in September, 2002 where it was
shown that the original costs for the project have been recouped one year ahead of
original projections. Based on measurements calculating the additional business
obtained, current business retained, and additional efficiency accrued due the portal
offering, enough tangible proof is evident to substantiate the accomplishments of
Project CAIRO.

Project CAIRO
References
Peppers and Rodgers Group, www.1to1.com
Carton Donofrio Partners, Travel Today - A Brand Experience Design Study,
http://www.cartondonofrio.com
http://www.webtravelnews.com , 24 July, 2000, More Europeans using Net to plan
and buy travel
eShare Interaction Newsletter, 05th July, 2000, http://www.eshare.com
http://www.btnonline.com, 13 April,1998, Carlson Reengineers Itself
http://www.webtravelnews.com, 02nd June, 2000, Full Service: The next generation
of B2Bs
Elizabeth Corcoran, http://www.forbes.com/global, 07 August, 2000, The E-Gang
http://www.webtravelnews.com, 28 April, 2000,Profile Briefs on 15 Public Online
Travel Firms
Peppers and Rogers (2000), The One to One Manager, Capstone Ltd, (May 2000)
pp. 236
http://www.microsoft.com/windows/lifecycle.mspx , 03 June, 2002 ,Windows Desktop
Product Life-Cycle Guidelines for Businesses,
Erika Morphy, http://www.CRMDaily.com, 10 September, 2002, Portal Framework:
The Sleeper CRM Application
http://www.gartner.com, 29 November 2001, Gartner Predicts 2002: Business
Management of IT
Dan Oliver, http://www.techrepublic.com, 30 May 2002, Identifying core business
processes is first step toward customer satisfaction
http://www.w3.org/2000/09/XML-Protocol-Charter#schedule, September 2000, XML
Protocol Working Group Charter, Deliverables and Schedule.

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