• Home
  • About Us
  • Contact Us
  • Privacy Policy
  • Special Offers
Business Intelligence Info
  • Business Intelligence
    • BI News and Info
    • Big Data
    • Mobile and Cloud
    • Self-Service BI
  • CRM
    • CRM News and Info
    • InfusionSoft
    • Microsoft Dynamics CRM
    • NetSuite
    • OnContact
    • Salesforce
    • Workbooks
  • Data Mining
    • Pentaho
    • Sisense
    • Tableau
    • TIBCO Spotfire
  • Data Warehousing
    • DWH News and Info
    • IBM DB2
    • Microsoft SQL Server
    • Oracle
    • Teradata
  • Predictive Analytics
    • FICO
    • KNIME
    • Mathematica
    • Matlab
    • Minitab
    • RapidMiner
    • Revolution
    • SAP
    • SAS/SPSS
  • Humor

How Avis Europe Uses Optimization to Make Real-Time Decisions

January 1, 2019   FICO
Avis Optimization How Avis Europe Uses Optimization to Make Real Time Decisions

Supply chain optimization takes many forms, some more visible than others. In the case of a rental car agency, the impact is obvious. If you arrive and the car you want isn’t available, you go somewhere else. But at the same time, a car sitting idle on a lot is wasting money.

This is one reason why Avis Budget Group in Europe uses FICO Xpress Optimization. A recent article in the German magazine Business Intelligence provided a fantastic case study on Avis, showing some of the benefits of using mathematical optimization to solve supply chain challenges and make real-time decisions.

Here are some of the highlights of the article (translated into English):

Avis Budget EMEA Limited uses mathematical modeling and analysis to make better decisions. One of the software tools is FICO Xpress Optimization, which has been continuously improved since its launch ten years ago. “With this technology, we optimize our business decisions to balance supply and demand. This leads to an improved customer experience and higher profitability,” said Phil Norton, IT Director of Fleet, Finance, Revenue Management, Legal, and Strategy.

Prior to deploying this software, the company relied on a manual pricing, reservation, and fleet mapping process: station and fleet managers attempted to use information from the reservation system to predict future demand. Price analysts searched the same data to make estimates for the optimal car rental prices.

This method does not work anymore. “Customers now expect more service and a wider range,” says Norton. Businesses need to be more flexible and demand stronger IT support. “Our key IT challenge is to keep up with the new requirements for system improvements, because the world is changing fast,” says Norton.

Using an optimization solution, the company has developed an intelligence model that optimally supports decision-making. “We use Xpress as an optimization engine to make recommendations, such as which fleet should be made available for booking at which locations, which upgrades are most meaningful, or how we should distribute the vehicles,” explains the manager.

In this process, the forecast of customer demand must be very accurate. “We have to make sure that we have the right car for the right customer at the right time – and that the recommendations are as accurate as possible,” says the expert. He underlines the need for more real-time data to enable real-time decisions: “The tendency for short-term booking of car rental customers means that the situation can change very quickly at any time, so we have to make all decisions based on the latest reservation trends.”

The use of technology also brings about a major organizational change: a new role for the analysts. “They’re not going through the optimizations anymore, they’re putting that into the system,” says Norton, “Their role now is to deliver the inputs they need to get an accurate result.”

In view of the many locations throughout Europe, the many different car categories, the very different rental periods and routes, it would be a great challenge to optimize the data as a decision-making basis within an acceptable timeframe. “With the FICO optimization software, we’ve found meaningful ways to break up the problem into smaller parts without losing the accuracy of the result,” Norton says.

For more information, read our case study on how Avis Europe optimized fleet usage to drive $ 19 million in gains.

Let’s block ads! (Why?)

FICO

Avis, Decisions, Europe, Optimization, realtime, Uses
  • Recent Posts

    • PUNNIES
    • Cashierless tech could detect shoplifting, but bias concerns abound
    • Misunderstood Loyalty
    • Pearl with a girl earring
    • Dynamics 365 Monthly Update-January 2021
  • Categories

  • Archives

    • January 2021
    • December 2020
    • November 2020
    • October 2020
    • September 2020
    • August 2020
    • July 2020
    • June 2020
    • May 2020
    • April 2020
    • March 2020
    • February 2020
    • January 2020
    • December 2019
    • November 2019
    • October 2019
    • September 2019
    • August 2019
    • July 2019
    • June 2019
    • May 2019
    • April 2019
    • March 2019
    • February 2019
    • January 2019
    • December 2018
    • November 2018
    • October 2018
    • September 2018
    • August 2018
    • July 2018
    • June 2018
    • May 2018
    • April 2018
    • March 2018
    • February 2018
    • January 2018
    • December 2017
    • November 2017
    • October 2017
    • September 2017
    • August 2017
    • July 2017
    • June 2017
    • May 2017
    • April 2017
    • March 2017
    • February 2017
    • January 2017
    • December 2016
    • November 2016
    • October 2016
    • September 2016
    • August 2016
    • July 2016
    • June 2016
    • May 2016
    • April 2016
    • March 2016
    • February 2016
    • January 2016
    • December 2015
    • November 2015
    • October 2015
    • September 2015
    • August 2015
    • July 2015
    • June 2015
    • May 2015
    • April 2015
    • March 2015
    • February 2015
    • January 2015
    • December 2014
    • November 2014
© 2021 Business Intelligence Info
Power BI Training | G Com Solutions Limited