Innovation with Boarding Passes³¹

Boarding passes were once issued by hand at the airport check-in desk. Inventory and seat allocation were handled manually, being either handwritten or accomplished using stickers to ensure that once passengers had a seat it would not be given to someone else.

Migration to electronic ticketing was completed in 2008. By 2010, 2D bar-coded boarding passes replaced the previous generation of more expensive magnetic stripe boarding passes. That meant passengers could check in online and print their boarding passes at home. Because magnetic strips required expensive Automated Ticket and Boarding Pass printers and were printed using a special type of expensive paper, this transition to home check-in provided a significant cost saving for the airlines and an added convenience for the customer. Home computing was booming, and boarding passes were easily printed on demand employing a simple home printer. Changing from the magnetic strip to bar-coded boarding passes took many years and millions of dollars of investment. But this investment was offset against the enormous savings made by the airlines with reduced airport check-in costs and reduced passenger processing costs. Projections at the time of the transition were that the industry would save up to $1.5 billion every year.

However, accepting passenger-printed boarding passes introduced new security risks that required additional attention, given intensified security requirements. Ultimately, it was determined that a new approach was needed to verify boarding pass authenticity within the airport. The machine-readable component of a bar-coded boarding pass contains the details for the flight, including passenger name, date of travel, airline, flight number, origin airport, destination airport, and class of travel. The format also allows for extra information to be appended to the bar-code data stream, enabling airlines to adapt their business processes to add additional services such as frequent flyer or trusted traveler programs. Because the machine-readable information is standard, it can be read and understood not just by the issuing airline but by third-party scanners and applications at key points in the passengers’ journey, for example, at government-managed security checkpoints. Today, airport security is managed through a mix of airport-printed passes, passenger-printed passes, and mobile passes. Passengers who check in early via online access and print their own passes not only reduce airline and airport costs, they save themselves time and stress while giving the airport more time to validate their identity.

Growing consumer adoption of smartphones and tablets, coupled with declining sales of home printers, means that this successful home check-in model has continued to evolve. The next generation of mobile boarding technology could be based on NFC (near-field communications), which utilizes wireless communications from mobile smartphones so customers are not required to present a paper boarding pass or QR code or pass a bar code through a scanner; they would simply stroll on board and the technology would flag their presence.

Airlines and airports have successfully been able to reduce the costs associated with managing boarding passes while simultaneously reducing the time it takes a passenger to obtain a boarding pass. By making it easier for customers to acquire boarding passes and by enabling the boarding pass technology to speed them through the airport check-in process, the transportation industry is moving its markets toward the real-time world.

Changing the boarding pass process required the participation of not just a single airline but multiple members of the air transportation industry. That included those responsible for security to assure adequacy and authenticity of the boarding pass. Given the role the boarding pass plays in air travel and the number of coordinated participants in the air travel network, the innovation required an industry-level agreement. Part of that agreement included the specification of the carrier-specific data fields that allow the airlines to add airline-specific information to the standardized check-in information. These proprietary data fields allow the future possibility for a specific airline to gain a real-time competitive advantage over other airlines based on proprietary service options.

Innovation at Fandango³²

Fandango touts itself as the go-to destination for more than thirty-six million moviegoers each month. Fandango helps movie fans discover new films, buy tickets, and share their passion for movies. It entertains, informs, and guides film fans with trailers and movie clips, exclusive and original content, insider news, and expert commentary. As the company claims, “We make it easy to find and buy the right movie at the right time, with showtimes and ticketing to more than 26,000 screens nationwide. Fandango is available online, and through our award-winning mobile and connected television apps with over 46 million downloads and counting.”

According to the company, “Mobile Ticket is the latest, fastest way to get tickets from Fandango.” Once you complete your purchase through the Fandango app or website, you receive a digital ticket on your mobile phone that allows you to skip the line at the theater box office.

Fandango clearly recognizes that moviegoers do not want to spend time waiting in line to buy tickets at the movie theater. Moreover, Fandango recognizes that moviegoers want them to provide a fast purchase experience. Fandango responded with Mobile Ticket as its latest ticket-purchasing innovation.

Innovation at Netflix³³

In 1998, Netflix launched the first DVD rental and sales site, netflix.com. In 1999, Netflix debuted a subscription service, offering unlimited DVD rentals for one low monthly price. Netflix mailed movies to customers, who then returned them. It could take days for customers to get the movies, and it took time and effort to return them. In 2007, Netflix introduced streaming, which allowed members to instantly watch television shows and movies on their personal computers. From 2010 to 2016, Netflix launched its service in various countries so that it is now available worldwide. Members can instantly watch TV series, documentaries, and feature films across a wide variety of genres and languages anytime, anywhere, on any internet-connected screen.

Using enabling technology to reengineer its processes, Netflix disrupted its industry. Through transforming its service from delivering physical DVDs to streaming entertainment over the internet, Netflix has become a quintessential real-time organization. Rather than having to wait days for entertainment to arrive through the mail, customers can receive it instantaneously upon request. This achievement shows that leaders can transform their organizations to provide ideal real-time customer experiences.

Innovation with the Movie Theater Experience³⁴

Vitascope Hall opened its doors to the general public in New Orleans in 1896. At the time, theaters provided a mix of live performances supplemented with short films and newsreels; no other theater in the US had ever been designed with the sole purpose of displaying motion pictures. Since then, movie theaters have evolved tremendously with the incorporation of concession snacks, plush seating, sound-shaking technology, and 3D visuals.

In 1925, Paramount installed the first air conditioners in a movie theater in an effort to improve customer comfort and improve the quality of the time customers invested to see a film. In 1925, popcorn was also introduced into cinemas when Charles Manley developed the first electric popcorn machine. He specifically targeted movie theater owners when marketing his product because people became hungry when watching a film, and popcorn increased their enjoyment of the event without disturbing the other patrons. With the 1930s came the introduction of candy into concession stands. As these snacks increased in popularity, the concession stand became a more and more prominent and expected addition to the architecture of each theater.

From the beginning, numerous experimental attempts were made within the theater itself to merge audio and visual entertainment. When The Jazz Singer first spoke to audiences in 1927, the talking picture revolution took hold as patrons responded to this more complete entertainment experience. Since the emergence of the “talkies” in movie theaters, audio configurations have never stopped evolving. From the original monaural audio feed, the cinema industry moved toward a stereophonic configuration to provide an audible sense of movement within the auditorium. The arrival of surround-sound technologies in the 1980s allowed sound mixing engineers to further enhance the feeling of movement by allowing the source of the sound to change from the screen at the front of the theater to the rear of the auditorium. Continued refinements in sound technology have allowed sound engineers to enable flyover effects, seat-shaking bass sounds, and many other environmental effects (e.g., a spaceship hovering and moving above the audience). The goal of these immersive sound systems is to more completely engage the audience by creating a sound environment that transports the moviegoer into the heart of the action from each seat in the theater.

For cinema exhibitors, immersive sound was perceived to be one of the best ways to differentiate themselves from home entertainment with large flat-screen TVs. However, home entertainment has not stood idly by. It, too, has continued to evolve the quality of in-home entertainment systems. These consumer-grade systems are now capable of bringing a high-quality surround-sound theater experience to the home, thereby forcing theater owners to seek other methods to differentiate their services. Many theaters have taken steps to improve the quality of their seating, some have reconfigured the theater to resemble a restaurant where food and drinks can be served, and many employ reserved seating options to allow the patrons to select a specific seat for a specific show.

During the 1980s and ’90s, almost every movie was produced on 35mm film; it was the standard for movie production and distribution to theaters. As a physical medium, film was difficult to work with; the production process was a slow and manual operation. Once the film was complete, copies had to be physically duplicated and distributed to theaters. At the end of the twentieth century, the University of Southern California, working with the entertainment industry’s Digital Cinema Initiatives (Disney, 20th Century Fox, Paramount, Sony Pictures Entertainment, Universal, Warner Bros., and others), created a new digital standard to support the film industry. This new standard allowed digital technology, first developed for the computer industry, to be reapplied to the film production process. Not only did this new technology improve production processes, it also allowed for the incorporation of computer-generated special effects and editing into the workflow. Further, by moving the film distribution system from a process that physically shipped 35mm films (via overnight shipping) to individual theaters to a distribution process where content is electronically delivered to the theaters over a digital network, other benefits are achieved.

Manual shipment of films is a slow, labor-intensive, and expensive process. By moving to a digital distribution system, there are significant operational cost savings, and theater owners can easily alter their presentation lineup. For example, if a multiplex theater owner discovers one film is in high demand, it is a straightforward process to configure the theater so that particular film is showing on multiple screens. By allowing local theater owners greater flexibility to cater to local film interests, the potential for sold-out showings is reduced and customer satisfaction is increased. It also expands the theater owners’ options because they are now able to do more than show films at their theaters. They can also support corporate events and broadcast live events happening anywhere in the world. Because customers can more easily see their desired film or event, the quality of the time they spend at the theater is further maximized. In the year 2000, there were just thirty movie theaters in the world set up with digital screens. A decade later, there are more than thirty-six thousand.

As screen sizes got larger, the resolution of the content became more important. High-resolution content has a sharper image and can be shown on a large screen without degradation of the image quality. The resolution of a movie shown in a digital cinema is measured by the horizontal pixel count, so 2,048 × 1,080 pixels for 2K or 4,096 × 2,160 pixels for 4K. Ultimately, the quality of the movie that a customer will see in a theater will depend on a number of factors, such as the screen size and available lighting, but the resolution of the content is the limiting factor around which the other parameters are set. As the entertainment industry continues to press to further improve the content quality for its customers, an increasing number of production and display systems are being developed to increase the value that customers derive from the time they have invested to watch a film.

It may be that future innovations in the movie theater experience will further improve picture and sound quality, seating options, food choices, or other aspects of entertainment. Immersive experiences based on new technologies like augmented reality (AR) and virtual reality (VR) may emerge to support personalized content enhancers or more completely immersive experiences.

The industry understands that (1) consumers want to be entertained, and (2) there are a growing number of options for the consumer to choose from. Consumers will seek to maximize the entertainment value of their time when deciding between the various options available to them.

Innovation with iRobot³⁵

iRobot was founded in 1990 by Massachusetts Institute of Technology roboticists with the vision of making practical robots a reality. In 2002, iRobot launched the first Roomba vacuuming robot. There have been a number of innovations since then. A review of the Roomba 980 by a user in 2015 notes that the 980 is her third Roomba. She finds that these robots have cut down on cleaning considerably. Before Roomba, she vacuumed every day. The Roomba keeps her house tidy; however, since she recognizes that Roombas do not vacuum as well as a regular vacuum, she vacuums really well once a week or sometimes every other week. While the Roomba is keeping her house clean on a daily basis, she works on something else, and then the house is clean enough for her to enjoy. She muses, “It is good to have a robot maid to help you keep the daily stuff tidy.”

A later Roomba model, the Roomba i7+ with Clean Base Automatic Dirt Disposal, holds thirty bins of dirt, dust, and hair. A 2018 review notes, “Robot vacuums get smarter with each generation, and iRobot’s Roomba i7+ might just be the most advanced model we’ve tested to date. In addition to Amazon Alexa and Google Assistant voice control, multistory mapping, and adaptive camera-based navigation that cleans better as it learns your home’s layout, it’s the only vacuum we’ve tested that can empty its own dustbin. Sure, it’s a little loud, and at $949.99 it’s one of the most expensive models we’ve seen, but it’s also the only robot vacuum out there that doesn’t require you to lift a finger. And isn’t that why you want one in the first place? For its truly autonomous cleaning capabilities, the Roomba i7+ earns our Editors’ Choice for high-end robot vacuums.”

iRobot itself states, “With more than 25 years of leadership in the robot industry, iRobot remains committed to building robots that provide people with smarter ways to clean and accomplish more in their daily lives.”

When customers use iRobot Roomba vacuums, they spend less of their scarce time vacuuming than they would with a regular vacuum. They still need to pick up shoes, toys, and other clutter before turning loose a Roomba, but they can use the time that they would have used vacuuming to do other things, i.e., be more productive (“accomplish more in their daily lives”). iRobot is becoming a more real-time organization by striving to achieve an ideal combination of customer productivity and satisfaction with the experience of using a Roomba. It is using the product innovation lever to provide customers with real-time experiences that meet and raise their quality-of-time-spent expectations.