Timeshare exchange company Resorts Condominium International (RCI) Southern Africa, has started to use powerful computer-based analytical tools to uncover business trends across the organisation. This will help RCI to meet its goal to be a customer-centric organization.
Following the introduction of a suite of Cognos business intelligence solutions, the first analysis reporting model RCI implemented is designed to provide information on local and international holiday exchange opportunities for its 170 000 Southern African members.
According to Fiorna Kroger, RCI Business Analyst, within weeks of implementing the tools and with no prior experience of them, the analyses are already uncovering trends that will help RCI provide a better service to its members and resort business partners.
"We are now able to analyse when holiday stock is deposited with RCI, the geographic spread of this stock, and other attributes such as size and grade of resort. By matching this against the requests for holiday space, we can intelligently target members and prompt them to spacebank their timeshare weeks with us to satisfy our demand patterns."
Through a better understanding of spacebanking trends and when members exchange for another holiday, as well as having access to current stock availability reports, RCI can make informed decisions about new business ventures they may want to diversify into.
Another recently implemented model provides analysts with a bird`s eye view of holiday trends at each resort affiliated to RCI. This information, which includes holiday trends in terms of season, region, etc., can be used to help developers plan future resort developments.
Future plans include the use of Cognos Impromptu for user-driven adhoc queries and reporting, `data-mining` the database, and using Cognos PowerPlay to improve the effectiveness of its marketing campaigns.
"Analysing members` lifestyle and demographic data is crucial. We are able to maximize the return of every marketing Rand spent by ensuring that smaller, better-defined target audiences are reached with an appropriate offer designed to increase customer interaction, loyalty and share of wallet" says Christa Smith, MIS specialist, responsible for deploying Cognos` business intelligence solutions at RCI.
These Cognos tools are initially being used with RCI`s exchange system, DEXT, which is a SQL database with a PowerBuilder front end. DEXT manages some 40 000 exchanges a month and is responsible for local and international destinations for South African members as well as some affiliated Clubs.
Cognos has proved very easy to get up and running and is being enthusiastically received by RCI`s Cognos users. With no previous experience with the Cognos tools, RCI`s Cognos development team has been able to convert from their old decision support system very quickly and the new Business Intelligence system is already being used extensively. RCI has five models running to date and these took only three weeks to develop.
An important feature of Cognos` business intelligence solution is its Web enablement as RCI plans to publish reports, charts and analyses on the Web for its own internal reference, its members and affiliates.
"Web delivery was important to us, but what has made Cognos a success to date is the enthusiasm with which the business has accepted it" says Christa Smith.
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