Alaska Airlines Taps Siebel For Business IntelligenceAlaska Airlines Taps Siebel For Business Intelligence

Siebel Systems Inc. has signed on Alaska Airlines as a customer of its fledgling business-intelligence technology, which could help Siebel convince others that its more than just a customer-relationship management vendor.

Siebel, which this year began marketing its analytics software as a business-intelligence product independent of its CRM platform, said Monday that Alaska Air would use the software to analyze customer data coming from the airline's proprietary CRM system and other sources, including its call center.

It's a watershed deal for Siebel, says Beagle Research Group analyst Denis Pombriant. "It's clearly an important area for the company to be able to supply analytics that work off of other data sources," Pombriant says.

Siebel analytics will be integrated with Alaska's customer data sources, and also will pull passenger information from the Sabre Holdings Corp. distribution system the airline relies on for many of its bookings. Alaska expects the analytics capabilities to help it get to know its customers better, and allow it improve its target-marketing efforts and promotional campaigns.

Alaska Airlines CIO Bob Reeder says deeper analytics capabilities will help the airline better contend with the growth in online ticket sales. "As the distribution channel shifts and more people buy directly from us, we have more information to work with than we used to," Reeder says.

Alaska chose Siebel analytics over other established business-intelligence vendors, including the former Brio Software, recently acquired by Hyperion Solutions Corp. Pombriant notes that Siebel has years of expertise in extracting value from customer information. "It's not just a BI tool [Alaska is] buying."