When White Pass & Yukon Route Railroad recast its business model, revenues gained speed, but the cumbersome UNIX system labored through long lines of customers, discouraged timely reporting, and imprisoned data behind arcane rules and menus. Find out what WP&YR did to help increase sales 13 percent, clear out slow-moving items, save steps and stoke the profit engine.
Microsoft Retail Management System Customer Solution Case Study
Historic Railroad Reengineers Retail and Tour Sales; Revenue and Profits Climb Higher Overview "When we saw the Microsoft Business Solutions Country or Region: United States Retail Management System demo, we were Industry: Retail, Tourism impressed with its user interface, its thoroughness, Customer Profile and its integration capabilities....We stopped looking." White Pass & Yukon Route Railroad (WP&YR) hit hard times but converted to a Curt Dodd, Chief Financial Officer, White Pass & Yukon Route Railroad tourist attraction, selling 38,000 tickets its first season. With cruise ships now fueling When mineral prices and the economy declined, transportation tours, WP&YR sells 400,000 tickets yearly. conglomerate White Pass & Yukon Route Railroad (WP&YR) recast Business Situation its business model from freight to tourism. Revenues gained speed, WP&YR?s UNIX system made it hard to find excess stock, then allowed the costly error but the cumbersome UNIX system labored through long lines of of running out of fast-selling items. Staff customers, discouraged timely reporting, and imprisoned data had to type data into an early Microsoft® Windows®-based financial solution. behind arcane rules and menus. Data had to be typed into an early Microsoft® Windows®-based financial solution. Arctic Information Solution Arctic Information Technology created an Technology reengineered business processes and installed a end-to-end solution to track reservations, reservation system to keep seats filled with cruise ship tourists. sell tickets and souvenirs, speed lines, and enable fully integrated enterprise reports. Microsoft Retail Management System was installed to track thousands of daily sales and send daily data to Microsoft Business Benefits ? Ticket sales climbed 13 percent Solutions-Great Plains® (now part of Microsoft DynamicsT). Sales ? Faster lines raised ticket and gift sales rose 13 percent, management cleared out slow-moving items, and ? Staff reconcile and invoice high-volume cruise ship sales each evening managers can use standard and customized reports to save steps ? Managers create department-specific and stoke the profit engine. reports and are more accountable
"Sales were up 13 Situation contains many store items to entice buying White Pass & Yukon Route Railroad (WP&YR) after the picturesque ride, such as the White percent last year, and I in Skagway, Alaska, exemplifies how a Pass video, which brings in 28 percent of am quite confident that business can evolve products, marketing, and retail sales. WP&YR turns inventory about systems to remain profitable during swings in four times a season. Microsoft Retail local demographics and the economy. Management System WP&YR was built in 1898 to serve the Brandt points out, "Because most visitors to Klondike Gold Rush and connect Skagway Alaska are on their trip of a lifetime, we want played a key role..." with Whitehorse, Yukon, in Canada to move their memories of WP&YR to be perfect. We Curt Dodd, Chief Financial Officer, White Pass miners and their supplies through challenging don?t ever want to run out of stock." & Yukon Route Railroad climate and geography. During the 1900s, WP&YR grew to a transportation enterprise Slow Lines Due to UNIX-Based System with docks, stage coaches, sleighs, buses, WP&YR?s UNIX system slowed growth at every paddlewheel boats, trucks, ships, airplanes, turn. "Customer satisfaction was uncertain as The WP&YR railroad was laid in 1898 hotels, and pipelines. WP&YR is a wholly- reservation counts had to be done on a and runs five months a year through owned subsidiary of Tri-White Corporation. clipboard," says Brandt. "We were always gorges, by cliffs, and next to waterfalls. high or low, and either way was bad." When mineral prices collapsed in 1982, freight operations were suspended. But The system kept customers waiting. "We lost WP&YR reinvented itself as a tourist money when people saw long, slow lines that attraction, selling 37,000 tourist fares in snaked around the depot and out the door. 1988. In 2004, WP&YR broke its records for Credit cards weren?t integrated," explains total fares and busiest days, carrying more Brandt. "Then we had no customer histories than 400,000 passengers that year, with of... [download for more]
