Achieving Operational Excellence And Marketing Innovation

My last column, Airlines Transitioning from Merchandisers to Retailers, lead a few executives to ask the following question. Can a global full service airline become an innovator in marketing while achieving operational excellence? The answer is yes, now with the availability of increasing breadth and depth of data relating to internal operations, customers, employees, partners and competitors. With new data and analytics, an airline can now plan strategically and simultaneously in two domains that encompass two opposing sets of forces.