The future of ferry technology: Insights from Christopher Kirman

What did your role at Brittany Ferries involve?

I was in charge of everything linked to technology, from governance around IT and support to managing infrastructure, architects and data engineers. We organised our whole company around getting things to market, taking a more agile approach. That meant putting power back into the business rather than just in IT.

When I joined, they needed a digital transformation. It’s a loaded phrase, but what it means is shifting from old legacy systems into modern SaaS-based applications. SaaS platforms do bring some added value in themselves but the real value lies in transforming the data into a format that enables the use of AI, data-flow automation, etc.

What are some of the key challenges technology leaders in the ferry industry are facing?

Historically, ferry companies’ systems have been custom-built. Different teams of people have contributed to develop these solutions over the years, sometimes with little or no documentation. This ends up in a large and complex ecosystem, every change to part of the system can affect other parts, so a tremendous amount of testing is required to launch new features. This impacts time to market significantly. 

A lot of these ecosystems have been set up without thinking about the passenger experience, but rather to transport passengers and vehicles from A to B. In some cases, the experience is managed in one system and the travel part in the booking solution. Consolidating the data between these different systems can be difficult and costly. 

Beyond the issues I just mentioned, the key is to extract the right information from the operational data running through the system. This enables teams to take real time, automated actions to improve performance. This is tricky when all systems have different data models, especially for real-time insights. The best way to get to a ‘data-first’ environment is to shift to SaaS tech as the data in these platforms is generally AI and automation ready out of the box. 

If you can’t manage your data properly, you can’t do dynamic pricing, for example. If your competition can, you’re going to lose out. If you are running legacy systems, you also open yourself up to cybersecurity risks which can be devastating to a business. 

In Expian’s recent guide for ferry operators, “AI on the Horizon”, we talked about the importance of data-readiness. Can you explain what that means to ferry operators?

Ferry operators should leverage all the data they have to gain the best possible understanding of their customers and tailor the experience they offer. That means linking up the booking experience with everything that happens on board – from restaurants and retail to promotional offers and watching films – to what happens when passengers disembark. 

Having clean and connected data enables you to better manage your customer ecosystem. For example, with AI you can predict passenger numbers. With automation, you can compare that prediction with ticket sales in real-time. Unlike in the past when teams would look at static reports every week or month, if numbers are lower than expected, you can automatically run a marketing campaign and adapt prices to drive up sales.

What are the barriers that are holding up transformation for ferry operators?

The first thing is fear, because your booking system is the heart of everything. If you break that, you can significantly disrupt, or dare I say, break the company. Second is the complexity. The booking solution interfaces with many other systems and in transformation roadmaps, it is often left towards the end. A lot of ferry companies are still in the middle of their transformation and haven’t yet addressed their booking system. The third barrier is resistance within the organisation. There will likely be people who have contributed to or developed the current solution, so they see it as their baby. Those people may try to downplay the benefits of the new solution. 

What can ferry operators do to tackle resistance to change?

There is always resistance to change, it is very natural. When going through a global transformation, a lot of people will block, get stressed out and won’t support the transformation. One way of making this smoother would be to initiate the transformation subject and discuss with the teams very early on. You want to leave the time for the difficult conversations and resistance to decrease before actually transforming. 

How does your client-side experience inform Expian’s partnership strategy? 

In my CIO role, to some degree, I had to sell concepts internally to the CEO and executive committee for them to make an investment for the future of the company. Now I am in a position to help our customers and prospects build the same type of business case for this type of transformation, in their own organisations. I can then work with our specialist integration partners to ensure they are the right people for the job and that the project delivers the greatest return. That articulation of value sets us apart from our competitors in the space.

And how does it impact the way Expian works with ferry operators on their tech roadmap?

I really know the pain points, and I understand them depending on the operator’s size. People from the booking world don’t necessarily understand the wider business behind the booking platform. What people want is to be a data-first company. Why? Because their competitors are starting to go that way and if they don’t, they will lose. 

It’s important to remember that ferries are an experience. It’s much more interesting than flying on a plane or going by train. But I know that the ferry world is traditionally not very good at the “experience” side of things in the sense that they are behind the attraction industry. Although it is getting better. Expian also works with attractions customers. And because all our customers are using the same code, ferry operators benefit from all the features we’ve developed for attractions by default.

Lastly, what’s your message to ferry operators experiencing some of the challenges you’ve talked about?

If you want to be competitive in today and tomorrow’s world, you can’t avoid AI or data automation. 
You have to be a data-first organisation, and you need to get there as quickly as possible. The way to do that is to shift all of your systems into SaaS, in order to be able to exploit a very efficient, real-time, data activated environment – that’s it. And that will give you the edge on your competitors. 

Want to know more? Get started