Socrate Buying systems instead of developing them

1
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?

2
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!

3
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

4
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 gt outsourcing
  not an option
• Lack of political support for European
  collaboration
• SABRE provided a good basis for what was needed -
  service yield management

5
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

6
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