| Plus, how to tell a good innovation story |
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August 3, 2018 |
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| Weekly need-to-know content |
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| Welcome to the Shortlist: new ideas on timely topics, plus a few insights into our people. Subscribe to get it in your inbox every Friday. This week, scroll down for reading recommendations from Gillian Pais, an associate partner and agriculture expert based in Nairobi. Also, heads-up that the Shortlist will be taking a fleeting summer hiatus; watch for the next issue August 24. |
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| Flying off somewhere fabulous for August vacation? Chances are, when you finally board the plane you’ll be pondering your in-flight entertainment options, not how you chose the flight. But you can bet your airline is thinking about how it snagged you as a customer, and how to keep you, especially as the industry tackles digital transformation. |
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Airlines have a hard time getting customers’ attention, and no wonder: when researching travel online, the average customer shifts dozens of times across channels—desktops, tablets, and mobile devices—chalking up roughly 100 pre-booking touchpoints. That adds up to way too many chances to lose potential passengers, even after the ticket-cost box is checked. |
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The latest global passenger survey from the International Air Transport Association showed, for example, that just half of passengers in Europe are satisfied with their travel experience. And recent McKinsey research indicates that airlines only partly meet the expectations of two-thirds of travelers, whose top concerns are threefold: changing flights, bookings involving partner airlines, and status updates. Eighty percent believe airlines should focus on these issues. |
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In the wide-open race to make customers happy, the winners will be the airlines that adopt smart digital strategies quickly. Since frequent business travelers are heavy mobile-app users, a “mobile first” mind-set that prioritizes quick and easy interactions should be the top priority. |
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Second, carriers shouldn’t reinvent the wheel. The most efficient path for a newly formed digital unit is to draw inspiration from strong competitors. Most airline apps offer the same basic functions, including check-in and push notifications for gate changes; some have more advanced ones, such as a status-on-standby list and the ability to rebook canceled flights. Novelty and glitz aren’t as important here as meeting industry best practice. In the long run, a user experience tuned to a specific airline can make digital solutions more effective. |
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Airlines also must look ahead to tech-driven trends that will transform customers’ booking experience. Thanks to virtual reality and augmented reality, travelers will make greater use of digital “travel assistants,” capable of offering personalized suggestions through machine learning. |
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But for now, sit back, relax, and ponder how planes may one day be guided by pilotless technology. |
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| Interview |
| Pixar’s co-founder on how to manage creatives |
| Ed Catmull, whose company has created some of the most popular animated films in history, says you have to strike a balance between clarity and the chaos that often goes hand in hand with great creative output. |
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“We know, intellectually, that if we want to do something new, there will be some unpredictable problems,” he told McKinsey in 2016. “You are always in this balance between clear leadership and chaos; in fact, that’s where you’re supposed to be. Rather than thinking, ‘OK, my job is to prevent or avoid all the messes,’ I just try to say, ‘well, let’s make sure it doesn’t get too messy.’”
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| WHAT WE’RE READING | Gillian Pais |
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| Gillian Pais, an associate partner based in Nairobi, leads McKinsey’s agriculture work in Africa. A lifelong environmentalist, she is fortunate to also lead projects related to forest protection, renewable energy, and conservation. She still owns and uses a library card. |
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| Joseph Conrad’s Heart of Darkness is the book that made the most profound mark on me. It’s a searing indictment of colonialism, an exposure of the evil that humans are capable of, and a deeply personal story of guilt. And the historical events it invokes have reverberated into modern times, as rendered superbly in King Leopold’s Ghost: A Story of Greed, Terror, and Heroism in Colonial Africa by Adam Hochschild and Dancing in the Glory of Monsters: The Collapse of the Congo and the Great War of Africa by Jason Stearns. |
| Guns, Germs, and Steel: The Fates of Human Societies by Jared Diamond makes the point that so much of what we consider to be successful in modern societies is due to sheer happenstance of geography. I admire how this argument lays bare the prejudice underlying commonly held views on social progress. |
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I believe ecological calamity in my lifetime is inevitable. The World Without Us by Alan Weisman asks: what would happen to the environment if the human race vanished today? It’s humbling to realize how quickly the monuments of our civilization would crumble and the kinds of detritus that would be left in their wake. But there is a glimmer of hope: the Voyager 1 Spacecraft and its famous Golden Record—one good thing that just might last forever. |
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| BACKTALK |
| Have feedback or ideas? We want to hear from you. |
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