Automation: Making bizav better for everyone

20 Dec 2018

Automation is sweeping through private aviation right now and it’s easy to see why. At Avinode, we love to perform the magic trick of making work disappear from your desk. Why leave you with boring, repetitive manual tasks when technology can step in and take charge?

Automation is sweeping through private aviation right now and it’s easy to see why. At Avinode, we love to perform the magic trick of making work disappear from your desk. Why leave you with boring, repetitive manual tasks when technology can step in and take charge? After all, automation makes the business of bizav… 

…more efficient. Integrated, automated systems talk to each other at lightning speed. Why spend time manually working through paper files when a customer booking can automatically trigger a system-wide check to find your most suitably trained and licensed pilot for a particular leg? 

Don’t just stop at automating one or two tasks, though. When properly coordinated, integration and automation can work together to let the data you need follow your entire workflow. Vital customer information, for example, can be automatically gathered and shared across your IT infrastructure, as if passing along the links in a chain. Data flows from the moment a customer starts exploring the empty leg search app on your website, all the way through inquiries and requests to quotes and bookings, invoices and payments. So why spend hours manually preparing new documents for each new link in the chain? Or passing physical paperwork from person to person? 

…faster and therefore more profitable. The more quotes you can generate in a day, the more business you can accept. Using technology (including our own TripManager) that automatically populates quotes with information – from customer details to FBO requirements and inflight catering needs – minimizes the time brokers and operators spend entering data. Who wants to turn down business because there isn’t enough time for the paperwork? 

…more accurate. When information can automatically flow as smoothly as we’ve described, why risk mistakes by manually re-entering data? 

…more personalized. Although it’s easy to assume that automation makes business less ‘human’, in actual fact the time automation saves can be spent talking directly to clients. Computers are fantastic, but it’s people who build the relationships that turn customers into friends who keep returning to your business. 

…more targeted. Armed with the vast amounts of data held by automated systems, operators and brokers can develop highly targeted marketing and highly personalized services. The more you study your customers’ activities and choices, the more proactive you can be in meeting each person’s individual preferences and needs. 

And while you’re analyzing all the data your integrated systems share, ask your business intelligence team to predict the future for you too. Tailor-made analytics reports, looking at everything in your workflow from airport and aircraft activity to aircraft pricing over the past year, will help you identify current and possible future trends, both in your own business and in the wider industry. This kind of informed planning and decision-making is critical if you want to keep your business ahead of the competition. 

…more scalable. As your business grows, you can feel secure knowing your employees everywhere are using the same automated processes. That’s a great way to ensure consistent quality and customer service. 

…a generator of jobs. Programmers are needed to create the unique technologies dedicated to driving bizav forward. You can’t build bespoke automated scripts without people to write, develop and oversee the work. 

Streamlining workflows and building ever more reliable platforms for companies, automation is helping to create a business aviation industry that perfectly combines technological efficiency with a personal touch. We think that sounds like a pretty good plan. Do you?

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