Kristin Carlos

Head of, Digital and Entertainment, Qantas Airways Ltd.

2016

Supernova Award Category

The Problem

The Qantas Codeshare hackathon, a three-day competitive event, involves coders from across Australia taking on the challenge to build apps and other digital solutions that solve real business problems and enhance the service Qantas provides to its customers.

In 2015, the problems presented to coders included providing customers with more control over their journey, increased participation in the Qantas carbon offsetting program, better integration of travellers’ social media networks with Qantas experiences, and creating a new point of sale (POS) system to enhance ancillary revenue. The theme of the 2015 inaugural hackathon was Always On.

In 2016, the problems presented to coders included making Qantas easier to choose, ensuring our customers are always primed, maintaining a reliably smooth service, and empowering our customers to be fully self-sufficient. The theme of the second annual hackathon was Seamless Travel.

The Solution

Digital innovation is a major pillar of Qantas’ strategy, and part of making that work is being open to new ideas and concepts. Qantas has a huge amount of expertise internally, but at the same time work closely with external partners who bring their own skills and knowledge to the table.

Qantas developed a wide range of problem regions across the Qantas business units, employing the “Problems Worth Solving” methodology to create and articulate differentiated problem sets and achieve business unit buy-in. To support this methodology, Qantas defined what research pieces were relevant and integrated this documentation to support the problem statements.

To support the “Problems Worth Solving” methodology, Qantas outlined technologies that enable the development of the minimal viable products (MVPs) that could solve the problems. While these technologies provided a guide for participants, they can and do choose alternative approaches.

The results

As a new innovation source, the hackathon increased collaboration of Qantas employees by reducing the boundaries that their business unit, department and team silos imposed, collaboration between Qantas and Qantas’ strategic partners and vendors, and collaboration between Qantas and the startup ecosystem.

The hackathon also validated that innovation sprints, designed to bring a solution to market quickly, could be used to discover new ways to rapidly make meaningful changes to the Qantas customer experience.

Qantas facilitated and adopted fast-paced, disruptive thinking that proactively integrated the voice of the customer as part of experience, product and service development. The hackathon process discovered key opportunities, designed and developed propositions and prototypes, business models and roadmaps, relevant to problem statements, which could be pitched to senior management.

Metrics

1. Research and development

- Identifying problems and creating solutions: After two hackathons, Qantas identified nine customer experience related problem statements. In response, participants created twenty-one working solutions to solve these problems.

- Driving enterprise innovation: Alan Joyce, Chief Executive Officer and Managing Director, referenced the hackathon as a new source of innovation to dramatically improve the way Qantas will listen to, understand, communicate with and serve customers. Source: http://bit.ly/2bX1yKM

- Driving industry innovation. The Airline Passenger Experience Association referenced the hackathon as a new way to rapidly make meaningful changes to the passenger experience. Source: http://bit.ly/2bvRE2g

2. Accelerated product development

- New products: The Qantas Joey Playbox, designed by Secret Lab, was developed in the 2015 hackathon. Qantas commissioned them to build the product, launching to customers in the same year. Source: http://bit.ly/2baOwns

- Product enhancements: Qantas is working with several hackathon teams to further develop the solutions they created, which will enhance several of Qantas’ existing products and channels.

3. New talent identification

- Qantas Codeshare Cadetship: Qantas offers a six month contract position for a developer or designer, who participated in the hackathon. After two rounds of applications, Qantas has received 32 applications from highly-skilled applicants.

The Technology

After two hackathons, the following technologies have been adopted to solve real business problems;

  • Point-of-sale solutions
  • App and website development
  • On-demand, context-aware, match making
  • Real time, dynamic notifications
  • Social media integrations
  • Artificial intelligence, bots
  • Digital assistants
  • Wearable technology
  • Augmented reality
  • Virtual reality
  • Gamification
  • CRM

Disruptive Factor

Since its inception in 2015, the Qantas Codeshare Hackathon has fast-tracked into an industry-disrupting innovation program that has positioned Qantas to adopt fast-paced, disruptive thinking and proactively integrate the voice of the customer as part of experience, product and service development.

The Qantas Codeshare Hackathon is the premiere event of its kind in Australia and has established a global reputation and “innovation brand” for Qantas on the international stage. Qantas believes the rapid prototyping process of hackathons are a significant opportunity for improving customer experiences and business efficiency at Qantas, as well as throughout the travel industry.

Shining Moment

Head of, Digital and Entertainment

Topics Covered

Submission Details

Year
2016
Category
Result