Socrate - Buying systems instead of developing them Reservation System for the French National Railroads (SNCF) To be implemented at a set deadline at the same time as the launch of the Atlantic TGV Ambitious attempt to develop a Global Distribution System (GDS) for rail transportation Very large development project –current system obsolete –lack of confidence in internal development (previous failure) Why not buy SABRE?

Story of a Disaster Launch January 18th 1993 Million of customers stranded Queues longer than ever before ghost trains missing towns (eg Rouen / 400,000 inhabitants) Clerks went on strike traffic decrease by 7% in 1997!

The real story Difficult managerial decision difficult project technically (never done before) Other factors (increased competition) explain the bad results of 1993 Reason of the failure were largely external to the project No support from top management SNCF is important and irreplaceable service

Why buy SABRE? Current system has reached the end of the road bad experiences with semi-state bodies developing large systems GDSs are huge packages - Socrate was expected to –take 500 man years to create –add up to a million lines of code –cost around £150 million Train industry is very specific => outsourcing not an option Lack of political support for European collaboration SABRE provided a good basis for what was needed - service + yield management

Development Joint venture between AMR and SNCF gradual transfer of responsibility and knowledge overshot budget by 20% was ready just about on time systems has now been sold to SNCB, SNCS and other European operators Users and customers not involved in development Training was minimum

Greatest Problems Bad analysis of requirements Underestimation of the complexity of the problems raised (eg: exceptions) Not consideration given to training needs Lack of understanding of the implications of the culture and structure of the company (eg: databases) Appalling communication with the public