Delta takes flight on the wings of its international strategy
Several years ago, skyrocketing fuel costs and fierce price competition in the U.S. forced Delta Air Lines to rethink its business strategy. Delta concluded that, to succeed, it must expand into new underserved markets.
This meant adding international routes and better leveraging Delta.com, its lowest-cost marketing and distribution channel.
To engage these underserved markets, Delta had to expand its online presence, empowering customers to buy tickets and conduct self-service in languages other than English. “Even if customers are comfortable doing business in English it doesn’t mean they are not more comfortable and more satisfied when they are doing business in their own language,” commented Josh Weiss, Managing Director of Delta.com.
The key question was how to manage multiple languages on Delta.com, a site with dynamic content changing throughout each day.
The Solution
In examining alternate approaches, Delta quickly found MotionPoint's solution to be both faster to market and less expensive than any other option, including in-house development and other service providers. Delta was surprised (as well as a bit skeptical) that MotionPoint could deliver a fully-translated site in less than 90 days compared to the year-long timeframe other options offered. In addition, MotionPoint’s turn-key solution freed Delta’s IT resources to focus on other critical projects.
On May 25th, 2006, Delta partnered with MotionPoint to add Spanish to Delta.com ... and 87 days later, the site was delivered. Italian, French, German, Portuguese, Chinese, Russian and Japanese sites soon followed.
The Results
Forrester Research analyzed Delta’s use of MotionPoint’s website translation service. The results were striking. Forrester determined that by using MotionPoint, Delta generated an ROI of 114% versus the next best alternative. Forrester found that Delta realized many benefits unique to the MotionPoint solution. These included the reduced time and cost of implementing and deploying each language, reduced staff resources to support the site on an ongoing basis, as well as the flexibility to add languages as required.
Delta saw additional benefits not quantified in the Forrester study, including revenue impacts from the addition of multiple languages; low risk due to MotionPoint’s fixed price and delivery model; flexibility to change the architecture of the English website without requiring technical integration work on the translated sites; and the convenience that all sites reflect the current features and promotions automatically.
To learn more about the economic impact of MotionPoint's website translation for Delta Air Lines, please view the Delta webinar featuring representatives from Forrester, Delta Air Lines and MotionPoint Corporation.
