Railway Service Has Best Season Ever with Integrated Business Management Solution

Microsoft Dynamics Customer Solution Case Study

Railway Service Has Best Season Ever With Integrated Business Management Solution

Overview “We truly re-created the way we operate and Country or Region: United States Industry: Transportation services manage our business. Technology helped us attain a new level of performance that we can now Customer Profile White Pass & Yukon Route Railroad expand on.” (WP&YR) in Skagway, Alaska, offers Curt Dodd, Chief Financial Officer, White Pass & Yukon Route Railroad scenic train rides during a short, five- month season to large numbers of tourists, most of them traveling on cruise White Pass & Yukon Route Railroad (WP&YR) offers scenic ships. train rides to tourists, most of them coming off cruise ships, Business Situation during an intense, five-month season. During this short time, WP&YR wanted to improve its passenger service quality, create higher value from WP&YR must generate all of its annual revenue. Faced with its investment in railway infrastructure, increasing numbers of tourists, the company wanted to increase and increase the profitability and efficiency of its business. the efficiency of its railway and retail services and ensure optimal profitability in its rail operations. Replacing older, Solution WP&YR implemented and integrated disparate systems, the company implemented and integrated Microsoft® Business Solutions–Great Microsoft® Business Solutions–Great Plains® business software Plains® business software, Microsoft Retail Management System, and a (now part of Microsoft Dynamics™), Microsoft Retail custom solution created by Arctic Management System, and a custom solution created by Arctic Information Technology. Information Technology and made 2004 its best season ever. Benefits Revenue grew to U.S.$32 million, a record 404,000 passengers  Company grows to U.S.$32 million annual revenue, serves record rode the trains, and retail sales were up 13 percent. WP&YR 404,000 passengers prepares to exceed its new performance benchmarks in  Train utilization tops 90 percent  Store sales are up 13 percent subsequent seasons.  Technology infrastructure requires minimal overhead “2004 was our best Situation company was cautious not to overbook The White Pass & Yukon Route Railroad seats, preferring to err on the side of season ever. With the (WP&YR), headquartered in Skagway, underselling reservations and giving up new, integrated Alaska, was founded in 1898 to serve the revenue. WP&YR did not know the actual transportation needs of the Gold Rush. The usage rate of train seats until the end of the solution, we could rail line has operated almost continuously day. provide record since then. WP&YR is a fully owned In addition, WP&YR was unable to subsidiary of TRI-White Corporation. efficiently process any daily sales at the numbers of tourists ticket window. People had to stand in lines with a great Today, WP&YR serves tourists, taking that often trailed out the front door. growing numbers of people on a popular, Similarly, in WP&YR’s popular “Train experience.” forty-mile round trip to the White Pass. The Shoppe,” where visitors buy souvenirs and travel season is short—from May until gift items, it was at times difficult to Curt Dodd, Chief Financial Officer, White September. The vast majority of tourists effectively service the sudden rush of the Pass & Yukon Route Railroad arrive in Skagway on cruise ships. On five tourist crowds. Most customers waited days of the week, as many as 10,500 patiently, although some changed their people a day come to visit, disembarking minds about purchasing. from up to five ships. Updating the Company’s Technology Before tourists arrive in Skagway, many of To assist in its transport operations, them reserve seats on the WP&YR trains WP&YR used an older, proprietary from their ships, making payment to the software solution, written in 4th Dimension cruise ship operator. Others decide to go code. That software supported ticket on a train ride after they get off the ship. reservations but could not facilitate any Since WP&YR reopened in 1988 after a business performance reporting and shutdown, the number of passengers and occasionally suffered from unscheduled revenue from the rail operation has steadily downtime. WP&YR also owned Microsoft® increased to more than U.S.$30 million and Business Solutions–Great Plains® business over 400,000 passengers in 2004. software but used this business management solution in a limited way for Business Challenges financial management tasks. At the end of WP&YR runs historic, restored train cars, every month, workers had to manually many of them a century old. The company reenter data from the ticket reservation wants to realize optimal revenue from its system and spreadsheets into Microsoft transportation infrastructure and use the full Great Plains. seating capacity of its trains. To do so, WP&YR needs precise updates on the In the souvenir shop, WP&YR had a UNIX– number of seats booked for any scheduled based point-of-sale (POS) system from train, and it needs to be able to serve CAM Commerce. The stand-alone POS tourists efficiently when they want to make system did not yield any data to help a same-day reservation. However, WP&YR WP&YR assess or manage its business. did not have real-time insight into how fully The company did not have the ability to booked its trains were. For that reason, the report accurately on sales, costs, or inventory movement in the store. Purchasing was a separate function. The Through the STaRS Web parts, cruise ship processing of credit cards—using operators and WP&YR managers can use telephone lines—was inefficient. their Microsoft Internet Explorer browser to access current information on passengers’ WP&YR executives decided to change the train reservations. In addition to way the company did business. Curt Dodd, reservations, STaRS helps the rail Chief Financial Officer (CFO) at WP&YR, company manage scheduling of trains and says, “First of all, we wanted to give ticketing for passengers. WP&YR used to tourists and visitors a better experience— order preprinted tickets but no longer most of them come just once in a lifetime. needs to do so. Today, the reservation In addition, we wanted to operate more system generates the tickets—which are profitably and efficiently in the short actually custom Crystal Reports® for business season available to us.” creating interactive, presentation-quality Solution content—as needed. Based on the latest WP&YR wanted to explore what it could reservation data, a graphical “train builder” accomplish by using technology differently. capability lets WP&YR managers model, The company had a long-standing on screen, the most efficient and practical relationship with Arctic Information arrangements of rail cars in trains before Technology (Arctic IT), the only Microsoft rail workers perform the physical assembly. Gold Certified Partner in the state of Alaska. Arctic IT reviewed WP&YR’s Retail Operations business requirements and created a plan Replacing the CAM Commerce system in to satisfy them by rebuilding the company’s the Train Shoppe, Arctic IT implemented technology infrastructure. for WP&YR Microsoft Retail Management System on six POS stations to make retail Ticketing and Reservations operations more efficient and to connect Over a period of nine months, Arctic IT them closer to the transport business. developed a custom software solution and Microsoft Retail Management System uses implemented and integrated it with new and a familiar, graphical user interface to existing Microsoft products and support all retail operations, including technologies. Maximizing the impact of online processing of credit card payments. developer resources, the solution Arctic IT Microsoft Retail Management System built, called Scheduling, Ticketing, and provides comprehensive cost, inventory, Reservations System (STaRS), was written and purchasing information. To help with the Microsoft Visual Studio® .NET customers who are interested in a train 2003 development system and ASP.NET ride, retail workers can quickly access 2.0, a set of technologies in the STaRS through Microsoft Retail Microsoft .NET Framework 2.0 for building Management System, offer available seats, Web applications and Web services. and make reservations. STaRS uses XML for data consistency and integration with the other elements of the Performance Analysis and Reporting technology environment at WP&YR. Both STaRS and Microsoft Retail Company Grows, Serves Record 404,000 Management System integrate with the Passengers financial management modules of Microsoft Says Dodd, “2004 was our best season Great Plains. Once financial and business ever. With the new, integrated solution, we data have been entered into any area of could provide record numbers of tourists the solution, they reflect throughout. At any with a great experience.” time, WP&YR executives and managers can draw on complete and current A record number of approximately 404,000 information to assess business passengers rode the trains, and the White performance and build reports. The Pass & Yukon Route Railroad company company uses Microsoft Busine ss attained an annual revenue level of U.S. So lutio ns Ente rp rise Re po rt in g and $32 million during 2004. The company is Crystal Reports to create and publish poised to do even better in the following business reports, including distribution to seasons. With increased efficiencies, that executives of the parent company, TRI- amount of business is much easier to White Corporation. manage. Today, executives have optimal insight into business events and can WP&YR managers also export data from perform sound strategic planning. Financial Microsoft Great Plains for further analysis management processes are efficient. and reporting with Microsoft Office Excel® Month-end reporting, based on real-time 2003 spreadsheet software. information, concludes in several days. Reconciliation of passenger records takes Executives and employees at WP&YR no more than a day. The increased speed communicate electronically through e-mail with which data becomes available also messages sent with Microsoft Office means that WP&YR can invoice the cruise Outlook® 2003 messaging and ship operators for passengers’ train rides collaboration client. Arctic IT is about to quickly and receive the revenue sooner. begin implementation of Microsoft Exchange Server 2003 as WP&YR’s communication and collaboration server to manage communications and business processes even more effectively.

Benefits “Our cost of running The business management solution implemented by Arctic IT for WP&YR the trains is …. always already performed well above expectations. the same. We “We truly re-created the way we operate and manage our business,” says Dodd. increase our “Technology helped us attain a new level of profitability by performance that we can now expand on.” operating the trains at their full passenger capacity—and, at over 90 percent, we are very close.”

Curt Dodd, Chief Financial Officer, White Pass & Yukon Route Railroad Train Utilization Tops 90 Percent managers can adjust purchasing, “Our cost of running the trains is mostly promotions, and pricing as is best for the fixed. It is always the same,” explains business. Having this information at hand Dodd. “We increase our profitability by so easily also means the company can operating the trains at their full passenger avoid tying up capital in inventory that does capacity—and, at over 90 percent, we are not move. very close.” Technology Infrastructure Requires Minimal Overhead With the new reservations system, which The integrated business management allows access to real-time booking solution at WP&YR requires minimal information through a Web browser, maintenance and support. The company WP&YR employees can see exactly how has one IT specialist on staff to manage all many seats have been reserved and how technology components. Occasionally— many are still available for any given ride. every few months—Arctic IT provides Using the same information, staff can use remote support on certain concerns. The the “train builder” capability of the STaRS solution has not experienced any system to assemble cars into trains in the unplanned downtime. This low- most efficient and economical manner. maintenance aspect of software technology at WP&YR is a far cry from what occurred Store Sales are Up 13 Percent in years past when the reservation system, The Train Shoppe took in approximately for example, suffered from unforeseen U.S.$2 million in 2004, the highest retail interruptions. revenue ever during a single season. Sales were up 13 percent over 2003. Shrinkage, The software technology tools in use at on the other hand, was noticeably lower WP&YR today offer a consistent, than before. CFO Dodd believes the main comfortable interface for workers and reason for these changes is the more managers. UNIX–based technology of the efficient service facilitated by Microsoft past presented an entirely different Retail Management System and STaRS. navigation and user interface from what “We can now serve retail customers faster,” employees worked with in their he says, “and we managed to substantially spreadsheet or word processing increase our sales without adding staff.” applications. Now, with an integrated software environment based on Microsoft WP&YR records show that, with the new technology, familiarization and training with technologies in place, average transaction the technology takes very little time and time declined by two-thirds. The store can minimal support from the IT specialist. now process credit cards with high WP&YR expects the ease of operating and efficiency. In addition, credit card using its business transactions n o lo ng er re qu ire p ho ne management lines but can take place online. solution to remain the same after the implementation of Today, inventory performance and cost of Exchange Server 2003. goods sold are easily known quantities, so

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Document published November 2005 For More Information Microsoft Dynamics For more information about Microsoft Microsoft Dynamics is a line of integrated, products and services, call the Microsoft adaptable business management solutions Sales Information Center at (800) 426- that enables you and your people to make 9400. In Canada, call the Microsoft business decisions with greater confidence. Canada Information Centre at (877) 568- Microsoft Dynamics works like familiar 2495. Customers who are deaf or hard- Microsoft software such as Microsoft of-hearing can reach Microsoft text Office, which means less of a learning telephone (TTY/TDD) services at (800) curve for your people, so they can get up 892-5234 in the United States or (905) and running quickly and focus on what’s 568-9641 in Canada. Outside the 50 most important. And because it is from United States and Canada, please Microsoft, it easily works with the contact your local Microsoft subsidiary. systems that your company already has To access information using the World implemented. By automating and Wide Web, visit: www.microsoft.com streamlining financial, customer relationship, and supply chain processes, For more information about the White Microsoft Dynamics brings together people, Pass & Yukon Route Railroad call (907) processes, and technologies, increasing 983-2214 or visit the Web site at: the productivity and effectiveness of your www.whitepassrailroad.com business, and helping you drive business success. For more information about Arctic Information Technology call (907) 646- For more information about Microsoft 7300 or visit the Web site at: Dynamics, go to: www.arcticit.com www.microsoft.com/dynamics

Software and Services  Microsoft Office System  Microsoft Dynamics − Microsoft Office Excel 2003 − Microsoft Business Solutions–Great Plains − Microsoft Office Outlook 2003  Microsoft Windows Server System™  Technologies − Microsoft Windows Server™ 2003 − Microsoft ASP.NET − Microsoft Exchange Server 2003 − Microsoft Internet Explorer 6  Microsoft Visual Studio .NET 2003 − Microsoft .NET Framework  Microsoft Retail Management System  Microsoft Business Solutions Enterprise Partners Reporting  Arctic Information Technology