Customers

Walt Disney World

"Business Objects and business intelligence are absolutely critical to our success. Without it, it'd be like going back to the Stone Age."

Richard Grindle
BusinessObjects manager for resort operations
Walt Disney World

Walt Disney World, located in Lake Buena Vista (Orlando), Florida, is a massive entertainment and vacation complex where families have been going for years to stay and play together. With four themed parks and 22 themed resorts - including five 18-hole golf courses and two themed water parks - the resort offers something for everyone, and for people of all ages.

Challenge

Because millions of people come to Walt Disney World each year expecting the "ultimate" vacation experience, the resort is eager to make that happen, and to have guests want to return - again and again. Another priority for the resort is to enhance its employees' (referred to as "cast members") experience - giving them consistent, timely, and relevant information and systems that help them perform their jobs and drive productivity. "Our cast members are passionate about helping our guests and making their vacation the best that it can be," says Richard Grindle, BusinessObjects manager for resort operations at Walt Disney World. "They help plan our guests' stay at the Club Concierge-level rooms, check guests in at the front desk, give guests their itineraries, and help them with any last-minute planning. So, from my behind-the-scenes job, I try to make their job easier and allow them to focus on what they really want to focus on: our guests."

Grindle's recent challenges to help enhance each guest's experience and improve cast member productivity included the following: delivering guest luggage in a more timely fashion, moving from a manual to an automated ticket log, and developing more timely and automatic guest communications - such as the guest welcome letter and guest itinerary.

Approach

When Walt Disney World's IT department deployed BusinessObjects 6.1 for use throughout its resorts, Grindle found it provided solutions for the challenges he was facing.

"With Business Objects," Grindle says, "we are able to effectively measure a new service called 'Disney's Magical Express' or 'DME.' Guests who fly into Orlando International Airport and who are staying at a Walt Disney World resort are eligible to be automatically transported via coach to their resort. When they arrive, their luggage is ready to be delivered to their room." Business Objects designed a metric system so that luggage-delivery time could be measured against specific goals.

Business Objects tools also helped Grindle develop an automated ticket log for front desk leaders. Prior to this system, cast members had to enter information manually. If a cast member got distracted, information was often forgotten. And if the information entered was illegible, the information was often inaccurate. "What happens today," says Grindle, "is that, when these tickets are generated, cast members have to go through a series of screenshots that prompt them with the kind of questions they used to have to enter manually. Everything is now captured automatically in a database. It's a one-step process that's more efficient, complete, and accurate."

Several guest communications were also automated with the deployment of BusinessObjects 6.1 - including guest welcome letters and itineraries. "We migrated our guest information - such as guest name, arrival date, etc. - into Siebel," says Grindle. "And with the Siebel database, we built Business Objects universes on top of that. So our welcome letter is now actually built off this data in Siebel." The information is automatically dropped into a template, and the completed welcome letters are delivered via Publisher every day prior to a guest's arrival. "So all cast members have to do now," says Grindle, "is go into their Outlook email, open up the PDF file, print it, and they're ready to go."

Guest itineraries are also generated in a similar fashion. When certain eligible guests sign up to stay at a Walt Disney World resort, they receive a form that basically asks, "What would you like to do during your stay with us?" When that information is received, it's entered into the Siebel database. Cast members then review guests requests and start going through various booking channels - setting guests up for dining, golf, a particular theme park, or whatever has been requested. "So when guests arrive, or even prior to their arrival," says Grindle, "they receive an itinerary - via mail or email - that contains all the pertinent information they need. It's a very automated process."

Results

"Business Objects tools have definitely made us more efficient," says Grindle. "For example, before we automated our welcome-letter system, cast members would spend up to an hour a day trying to generate these letters. Today, they might spend three or four minutes. It's a much easier, less painful, and more accurate process. And it's increased employee satisfaction - which almost always translates into improved guest satisfaction too. Anything we can do faster - and more accurately - enhances our guests' stay, and helps us in our guests' intent to return."

Grindle says he can't imagine going back to the company's days of "manual" processes. Once you've experienced automated processes, he says, you can't really go back. "Business Objects and business intelligence are absolutely critical to our success," he says. "Without it, it'd be like going back to the Stone Age."

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