ITC Infotech, a global IT services company, has implemented a CRM based loyalty product for Finnair, Finland's largest airline. The Infotechers say Finnair is the first airline in the world to move away from a legacy based frequent flyer program to an analytical CRM product.


The new loyalty system for automating Finnair Plus, the loyalty program for Finnair customers, is expected to improve the effectiveness and usage of Finnair's loyalty program as well as reporting, analysis and decision support.

Tom Källström, Vice President, eBusiness Development, Commercial Division, Finnair said the loyalty program has gone live.

Sanjiv Puri, Managing Director, ITC Infotech, said delivery of the loyalty product to Finnair was part of a five-year multi-million dollar contract signed with Finnair in 2006. ITC Infotech is involved in implementing Finnair's frequent flyer loyalty program, e-ticketing and other operational application systems.

Back in 2003 Bangalore-based ITC Infotech put itself on the map by winning a software development order worth up to 2.5 billion rupees ($54 million), at that time one of the biggest outsourcing deals in India's software industry.

The order from U.S. product development software maker Parametric Technology was spread over 39 months, Sanjay Verma, then-managing director of ITC Infotech said at the time. As Reuters reported, ITC Infotech was "setting up a dedicated software center for Parametric, which was already a client, in the technology city of Bangalore."

Indian software firms offering low-cost skills, then and now, thrive on outsourced programming and project work. Previous large deals before ITC Infotech's included a $50-70 million per year contract won by Wipro Ltd. (News - Alert) and Tata Consultancy Services last November.

"The agreement with Parametric covers the entire range of the service requirements of its full suite of products," ITC Infotech India Ltd, wholly owned by conglomerate ITC, said in a statement.

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David Sims is a contributing editor for TMCnet. To see more of his articles, please visit his columnist page.