Round about once a decade, says Tim Fitzsimmons, a technology or innovation comes along to allow businesses a large forward leap, what Fitzsimmons calls a "step change". As General Manager e-Business and Regions for Cathay Pacific Airways, Fitzsimmons is responsible for driving the airline's e-business strategies, and for achieving the company's aim of becoming Asia's leading e-business airline.

E-business technology gives companies an opportunity to implement a "step change", says Fitzsimmons. Companies that leave those opportunities untaken, he believes, are left at a permanent disadvantage to their competitors.

In October 2000, Cathay Pacific declared its intention to invest over HK$2 billion in e-business projects within three years. The projects included ongoing enhancements to its customer website (www.cathaypacific.com), and cargo business website (www.cathaypacificcargo.com), development of more online procurement systems including an investment in Aviation portal Aeroxchange (www.aeroxchange.com) and on the ongoing world-wide rollout of its corporate intranet.

Directing Cathay Pacific's drive to become Asia's number one e-business airline means identifying investments that can pay off in at least one of four areas. To win a share of the $2 billion pot, proposals must demonstrate that they can enhance productivity, result in absolute cost reductions, enhance passenger or cargo customer relationships, or increase revenue.

"We've got beyond the stage of throwing money at ventures," says Fitzsimmons. "We've spent quite a bit of money. Now we're concentrating on holding our departments or businesses accountable in one of those four areas."

"The real issue is not the technology," he continues. "Rather, change management - getting people and business processes aligned - is what we spend most of our time doing today. It's a long-term process that's not glamorous, but will make us a better business."

"Organisationally, the view that we have is that e-business should not be a standalone area within the organisation," Fitzsimmons says. "The way to get business benefit is to incubate and implement e-business initiatives, and then hand them back to the departments or business units."

Cathay Pacific has focused its e-business investment in six areas: retail, customer service, cargo, procurement, internal and what it calls ventures.

The company's investments in retail e-business have been based around the thinking that customers want to have a relationship with the airline both directly and online. Most visible is the company's main website, www.cathaypacific.com, where travellers can research their travel itineraries, manage their frequent flier accounts and even book flights.

Fitzsimmons classifies as customer service investments a number of offerings including online check-in, kiosk check-in, and a wide range of passenger information services. "We find that the principal place our customers go for news about what's going on is cathaypacific.com," he says. "We are able to provide real-time information and that takes massive strain off our telephone system and other channels." Fitzsimmons expects the advent of widespread third generation (3G) mobile telecommunications services to significantly enhance the company's customer service offerings.

Cathay Pacific's cargo website parallels the passenger website, but allows the company's cargo customers to track their shipments in real time. The company believes it must offer real-time tracking in order to be competitive, and Fitzsimmons says customer feedback has been excellent.

"Our customers tell us that our real-time tracking capability frees up a tremendous amount of resources for them, and allows them to spend time on activities that add more value for their businesses," he says.

Cathay Pacific also maintains a website for travel agents, www.cxagents.com, which serves the company's travel agent partners. "Again, the feedback has been great for this site," Fitzsimmons reports. "They allow people to invest their time better."

Cathay Pacific is a 15,000-person business, but many of those employees do not come into "the office" every day. The company's investments in internal e-business initiatives have been aimed at streamlining or removing unproductive processes.

Through the intranet, employees can manage their relationships with the company, and with one another. This function is perhaps more important to Cathay Pacific than to other businesses, since airlines must match employees (flight and cabin crew) to equipment (planes) roughly 150 times a day.

Says Fitzsimmons, "We're also trying to use the intranet to monitor our distribution of reports, thousands of reports. Who reads them? Who doesn't? We're trying to make the process much more productive. If you know exactly what people need and can deliver that in a very targeted way, you add genuine value."

Procurement is an area in which many companies have looked to streamline processes through implementing e-business initiatives. Cathay Pacific put in place its internal purchasing system, CXe-BUY, early on, and has realised cost and time savings. The company is also a founding member of Aeroxchange, an online marketplace that allows nearly two dozen member airlines to maintain lower inventories and benefit by pooling their purchasing power.

In combination with participation in several other online procurement marketplaces, Cathay Pacific conducts around 40% of its purchasing online.

Slightly outside the framework of the organisation, Cathay Pacific has also made investments in e-business ventures such as Zuji, a new Net-based travel portal, and Tenzing Communications, a company offering in-flight access to e-mail. Obviously, though these investments have not been made directly within the Cathay Pacific organisation, the airline will benefit - by making it easier for customers to find the flights they want and by allowing them improved communications access on the Cathay Pacific planes.

Fitzsimmons says the company anticipates a long-term payout from its e-business investments. "We are now working to build e-business capabilities into the organisation, throughout the organisation," he says. "We're moving from what I call the 'investment phase' to the 'leveraging investment phase'. The true business benefits will emerge within the next 4-5 years, and we hope to benefit from a "step change". Companies that missed this "step" will be that much farther behind. I don't expect we'll be looking back."