Saudi Airlines, one of the largest airlines in the Middle East, has implemented a business intelligence (BI) solution with Microsoft Corp. that includes Microsoft SQL Server 2012, Power BI for Office 365, Windows Server 2012 and Microsoft SharePoint Server 2013 to analyze, visualize and share data in a unified way, which allows them to have better business visibility, more engaged employees, and projected savings of millions of dollars per year in the process.

This deployment is helping the company gain insight to better manage different aspects of the global aviation operations, and once totally completed, it will also provide management of the necessary consolidated insights into subsidiaries such as Saudi Cargo, Saudi Catering, and Saudi Ground Services, and uniting business information spanning across multiple systems at the airline.

“Before we worked with Microsoft, we had scattered information everywhere. We had many different business intelligence and incentive solutions, separate training and no standard platform to run all of the environments,” said Muhammad Albakri, EVP of finance, Saudi Airlines. “The new BI solution from Microsoft maximizes the value of information coming from multiple systems.”

Beginning in 2007, Saudi Airlines spent five years on a major overhaul of its IT infrastructure to automate and integrate the airline’s core planning, scheduling, marketing and sales.

By working with Microsoft Consulting Services, Saudi Airlines was able to implement the foundation of its business intelligence solution in just 90 days, which provided fast payback time to recoup the investment.

“For us, the new BI solution is like turning on the headlights of a car on a curvy, dark road,” Albakri said.

“Saudia wanted to make this a success not only from a technology point of view, but from an overall business perspective,” said Samir Noman, president of Microsoft Arabia.