Customer Case Study

AeroplanNext-Gen Loyalty Marketing

Business ChallengeDiversify mileage and reward partnerships to expand the loyalty program byappealing to a broader range of consumer preferences.

SolutionSOA built on BEA WebLogic Integration provides an open, scalable and reliablebusiness platform for growth. BEA AquaLogic Commerce Services facilitatesinnovative partnerships and helps provide a compelling customer experience.

Results

Aeroplan is growing rapidly. The company has five million active members andrelationships with over 60 business partners. During peak periods, Aeroplan’sconsumer portal supports nearly 4000 concurrent sessions.

Customer brief

Aeroplan is Canada's premier loyalty marketing company, dedicated to developing and

executing programs that engage the loyalty of its prestigious membership. Aeroplan’s

millions of members earn Aeroplan Miles through a network of more than 60 world-class

partners, representing more than 100 brands in the financial, retail and travel sectors.

Miles may be redeemed for flight and non-flight rewards. Flight rewards can be used with

dozens of airlines serving more than 850 destinations worldwide. In 2006, more than

1.4 million round-trip flight rewards were issued. Aeroplan's roster of non-flight rewards

includes over 400 exciting specialty, merchandise and experiential rewards, as well as

hotel stays and car rentals.

Business process challenge

Aeroplan was established by Air Canada as a loyalty program for the airline’s frequent flyers

in 1984. Over the next two decades, Aeroplan evolved into much more than a program for

earning and redeeming reward travel. In 2002, Aeroplan was spun off from Air Canada and

became an autonomous company with a business model that focused on diversification.

Solution:Internet Commerce

Product: BEA WebLogic IntegrationBEA AquaLogic CommerceServices

Industry:Loyalty Marketing

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The company wanted to attract a broader range of consumers, offer more ways

to earn miles, and expand its business partnerships to provide a greater variety

of rewards.

To execute this strategy, Aeroplan needed a technology infrastructure with the flexibility,

scalability and robust commerce capability to support countless consumer preferences,

a diverse range of products and services, and a transaction volume that is orders of

magnitude larger than when Aeroplan was solely a frequent flyer program.

“Our business was changing dramatically and we needed a business platform that

would allow us to turn all of our creative ideas into reality,” said Rémi Lafrance, Director

of Technology—Architecture, Strategy & Operations at Aeroplan. “Loyalty programs

have become so sophisticated and competitive. The keys to success are being

innovative, responding quickly to consumer preferences, and continually adding value

so that customers have a reason to remain loyal.”

Solution

Aeroplan considered a number of options and ultimately selected BEA WebLogic

Integration as the backbone for a revamped infrastructure and BEA AquaLogic

Commerce Services for storefront and back-office operations. The infrastructure is

based on a service-oriented architecture (SOA).

“We evaluated platforms based on robustness, price, and a real-world proof of

concept,” said Lafrance. “BEA demonstrated to us that it was the right choice to

address our business requirements. The feature set, reliability and support for open

standards were very impressive. It is truly a business enabler. In addition, BEA

consultants took the time to understand our business. They provided smart ideas

and helped us craft a solution that aligned with our specific needs.”

Within the SOA, WebLogic Integration brings together transactional applications,

multiple data sources, applications from mileage and rewards partners, and over

50 Web services. WebLogic Integration orchestrates the interaction between these

systems and applications, facilitates the timely and reliable movement of messages

across the infrastructure, and ensures that Web services can be invoked and

consumed as necessary to support customer queries and transactions. Examples

of Web services supported by WebLogic Integration include “mileage balance” and

“product detail.”

Another business-critical component of the new infrastructure is BEA AquaLogic

Commerce Services, which supports the consumer storefront that is used by Aeroplan

members who want to redeem miles. AquaLogic Commerce Services integrates with

operational systems and Web applications to help improve the effectiveness of the

store and enhance the customer experience with capabilities such as dynamic page

creation, customer self-service, inventory tracking, and a comprehensive catalog.

BEA AquaLogic Commerce Services helps Aeroplan simplify the customer shopping

Customer Case Study Aeroplan

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experience, maximize the efficiency of store management, and flexibly connect to

enterprise systems by leveraging commerce storefront, commerce management, and

commerce integration services.

Aeroplan has implemented BEA AquaLogic Commerce Services so that non-flight

reward partners are able to update inventory status and expose product details and

images to the Aeroplan catalog without any Aeroplan intervention, improving efficiency

and availability. And BEA AquaLogic Commerce Services is integrated with Aeroplan’s

redemption and transaction systems so that members can quickly see if they have

enough miles for a specific award (and calculate how many miles they would need to

purchase to cover a mileage shortfall), and move through the checkout process.

Among the unique aspects of Aeroplan’s business, and an important competitive

differentiator, is the ability for members to redeem miles for hotel rooms and car rentals in

real time and completely online. No other loyalty program offers that type of redemption.

“It is a tribute to BEA AquaLogic Commerce Services that we’re able to integrate with

travel service providers to offer our members such valuable rewards,” said Lafrance.

“Car rentals and hotel bookings can be complex transactions involving real-time

inventory and price management. By eliminating the big technical obstacles, AquaLogic

Commerce Services helps us make travel planning faster, easier and more convenient

for our members.”

The BEA solution is running in a Red Hat Enterprise Linux environment. The primary

database system is MySQL.

Results

“The robust feature set in BEA AquaLogic Commerce Services has helped us to

diversify our product offerings, expand our business partnerships and eliminate some

barriers to revenue growth,” said Lafrance. “We’ve become more effective at converting

customer contact into revenue. Our business has increased significantly and we have a

strong foundation for future commerce growth.”

Today, Aeroplan has over five million active members. The company works with 60

mileage and reward partners. In the past two years, key commercial partners have

been added, including major retail brands such as Bell Canada and Imperial Oil (Esso),

adding significant value for Aeroplan members. The Aeroplan consumer website

delivers more than 20 million page views per month. During peak periods, Aeroplan’s

online store processes 2-3 transactions per second and maintains 3000-4000

concurrent sessions.

“The BEA-powered infrastructure gives us limitless scalability and extremely high

performance,” said Lafrance. “This helps enhance the customer experience and has

contributed to the channel shift we’re now seeing. Not only is this very cost-effective,

it enables further expansion of our online capabilities.”

Customer Case Study Aeroplan

He added, “We’ve become a very nimble organization from an IT perspective. When

we see opportunities to modify our business model, bring on new partners or improve

a process, IT is able to implement the necessary changes quickly. That’s a tremendous

competitive advantage.”

About BEA

BEA Systems, Inc. (Nasdaq: BEAS) is a world leader in enterprise infrastructure

software. The BEA SOA 360™ platform, the industry’s most unified SOA platform for

business transformation and optimization, is designed to improve cost structures and

grow new revenue streams. Information about how BEA is enabling customers to

achieve Business LiquidITy™ can be found at bea.com.

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Customer Case Study Aeroplan

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