The entire project took over ten months to complete, with a soft launch of the new Web site in April 2003. During that time, the biggest challenge for AirMiles was the steep learning curve involved in using such new technologies. "There were things we could have done more quickly and more cheaply, but we wanted to build a real platform we could build new services on in the future," says Young. "That meant coming to grips with a lot of new products and making sure we weren't just integrating, we were integrating in a way we could work with going forward."
There are no short cuts to this type of project, says Young: "There's just a lot of really hard graft." But AirMiles did get the support of vendors, whom Young believes are keen to gain experience themselves in enterprise integration. "We couldn't have done it without the help of Logica, Broadvision, Computer Associates and everyone else," he says. "They were great at coming in and each providing us with a little bit of expertise to solve a problem."
Steering commitee keeps project on course
The second major challenge was simply keeping track of all the people involved in the project. From the outset, Young insisted on rigorous project management and created a steering committee with representatives from all parties. The role of the committee was to set the scope of the project, and to ensure it remained on time and on budget.
The airmiles.co.uk site went fully live on July 1, 2003 and has exceeded AirMiles' predictions, says Young. The company had hoped to process 10 percent of its business online within a year, but was handling 25 percent of transactions online within just four months. "Clearly this is something the customers are completely up for, we should have done it a long time ago," says Young.
