Danny Gonzalez, chief digital and innovation officer, London North Eastern Railway
Danny Gonzalez, chief digital and innovation officer (CDIO) at London North Eastern Railway (LNER), says his firm’s skill to ship high-quality companies to clients is more and more enabled by know-how and information. “Digital runs through our work like words through the middle of a stick of rock,” he observes.
Gonzalez transitioned to LNER – the rail firm that operates the UK’s East Coast mainline – in late 2018 when the franchise moved from earlier operator Virgin Trains. He turned CDIO at LNER, having beforehand been advertising director at Virgin. His appointment to the function coincided with a broader recognition from the board that digital transformation would play a key function sooner or later course of the enterprise.
“We wanted to make sure that we were able to compete in the marketplace today and in the future, and that basically led to the creation of a digital directorate that I head up, which is actually really unique in a rail franchise,” he says. “I was tasked to set that directorate up and take on digital transformation.”
Gonzalez’s day-to-day function is about ensuring the specialists in his 38-strong directorate assist wider enterprise transformation. He recognises that rail has a repute for not being essentially the most revolutionary trade – and that’s the place Gonzalez goals to alter perceptions.
“A huge part of the role for me is to be that cultural and transformation agent to set the challenges to the business,” he says. “More specifically within the digital directorate, it’s about making sure our teams are supported and empowered to drive the change that the business needs.”
The firm’s transformation encompasses two principal strands. Externally, it’s about making certain clients have a digital expertise that helps high-quality journeys with LNER. Internally, change is about creating an environment friendly and well-run enterprise, with the event of operational techniques and processes which might be match for the organisation’s future goals.
“It’s all about making sure that the whole business is modernising itself so that it’s in the best place to compete and that we become the transport of choice in the rail market,” he says.
“It’s all about making sure that the whole business is modernising itself”
Danny Gonzalez, LNER
Gonzalez sits on the chief board at LNER. A know-how group run by a head of IT sits throughout the organisation’s enterprise companies division. This IT group is charged with enabling the revolutionary concepts that Gonzalez and his digital directorate generate.
“A big part of LNER’s success in this space is our method of collaborative working,” he says. “Everyone on the chief group is evident that digital transformation is a precedence for us in terms of being a profitable enterprise.
“That positioning really helps all of the teams across the business come together and to understand that digital transformation is crucial for us. We’re lucky to have a managing director who is absolutely on board and championing what we’re doing. And even above that, we’ve got a very supportive chairman.”
Building a platform for change
Gonzalez recognises that remodeling an trade that depends on legacy processes and techniques isn’t any straightforward process. As effectively having to maneuver away from a reliance on paper information and typically decades-old techniques, his group should assist make passengers’ journeys as easy as doable throughout a sophisticated set of interactions.
“Rail is absolutely full of elements that can go wrong across an end-to-end journey,” he says. “From the retail a part of the expertise to attending to a practice station and on to delays that may happen whenever you’re on trains and by way of to the onboard expertise and even getting away from the station itself.
“We believe digital plays an absolutely crucial role in helping customers have complete control of all of those elements of the journey. We look at how we can fix any pain points and prioritise the different types of customers that we have.”
Another key issue pushing LNER’s enterprise transformation is the necessity for operational efficiencies. If applied sciences could be applied that assist cut back prices and enhance income, then Gonzalez and his directorate are eager to discover potential functions.
“The other part of the equation is the well-documented challenges around the cost of running railways,” he says. “We really need to modernise ourselves to be viable businesses in the future. A huge part of that will be the digital transformation of how we run our business and moving away from legacy processes and legacy technology.”
The digital group has targeted on a few main programmes to assist assist its technological explorations. First, they’ve moved the corporate’s IT infrastructure to AWS to ship a scalable cloud-based reserving platform. Second, they’ve applied real-time information techniques to assist create personalisation for purchasers.
“AWS has helped create an integrated ecosystem to move data around the different component parts of the business,” says Gonzalez. “That allows us to give our tech teams what they need and to create the products and services our customers require.”
Exploring modern improvements
LNER’s digital directorate has already pushed by way of some artistic options to the enterprise’s challenges and the group continues to search for extra openings. Gonzalez says their efforts are sometimes targeted on innovation alternatives.
“We’re out there looking at things that can really make a difference to the business and we’re looking much further down the roadmap to see the new technologies that could help us address our pain points,” he says. “We give the team a lot of freedom to try stuff, to run proof-of-concepts and to understand where the technology does or doesn’t work.”
An important aspect of this exercise is an in-house accelerator programme called FutureLabs, the place LNER works with the startup group to discover recent and thrilling instructions. Since 2020, the digital directorate – together with an ecosystem of enterprise and startup companions – has launched greater than 60 instruments and trialled 15 proofs of idea.
LNER has simply run the third cohort of its accelerator, the place chosen startups obtain mentoring and funding to scale up know-how options alongside the digital group. The first launch of FutureLabs led to LNER’s QR-code-enabled “Let’s eat at your seat” perform, which permits passengers to order meals and drink from their seats, which was essential throughout the social-distancing necessities of the coronavirus pandemic.
Other revolutionary product launches embrace Quantum, which faucets into machine-learning know-how to assist course of enormous volumes of historic information on practice journeys. Developed alongside a specialist startup referred to as Jnction, Quantum helps LNER’s staff to reroute practice companies that is perhaps delayed and minimise the impression on passengers.
“Everyone’s really excited about this project and how the technology can be used to transform the way we provide our train services,” says Gonzalez. “When you look at the list of customer requirements, the one that comes out as the absolute number one is, ‘I want my train to be on time’. If anything’s going to drive people away from rail, it’s big delays.”
Delivering nice connectivity
The provision of Wi-Fi connectivity is one other important problem for individuals utilizing public transport. As Gonzalez recognises, it’s tough for corporations to offer high-quality connectivity to passengers on trains which might be hurtling by way of the countryside at 125mph.
That problem is intensified by the growing variety of clients who’re utilizing their sensible units to devour TV reveals, music and on-line video games from main leisure corporations. LNER analysis counsel 69% of customers take good Wi-Fi into consideration when selecting how one can journey. For enterprise travellers, this determine rises to 79%.
Providing connectivity is hard at the perfect of instances, nevertheless it turns into even more durable when individuals stream content material that calls for important quantities of bandwidth. LNER’s reply is an revolutionary strategy referred to as Edgecasting, which permits passengers to stream content material from ITV Hub with out impacting the Wi-Fi capability of trains.
The rail firm is working with know-how specialist Netskrt to trial the know-how. Popular content material is saved on the trains’ servers. When passengers go browsing to the LNER Wi-Fi service, they’re introduced with the chance to stream content material. As effectively because the proof-of-concept trial, Gonzalez is exploring how different media corporations may turn out to be concerned sooner or later.
“Edgecasting caches streaming platforms directly onto the Wi-Fi service on a train,” he says. “For customers, it’s virtually like your ITV Hub account is now on board the practice. We are trialling the service on just a few trains in the meanwhile. We are additionally seeking to introduce BBC iPlayer and we’re speaking to Amazon to see if we will get these guys on board, too.
“We’re really excited about Edgecasting because I think it could solve what has been a very difficult problem around how people stream content. It also frees up bandwidth, so business customers can use our Wi-Fi capacity for the things they need to do. So far, it’s working seamlessly. It’s a very clever piece of technology.”
Reaching the vacation spot
Over the following 24 months, Gonzalez says his group shall be engaged on makes an attempt to grasp how the applying of extra machine-learning instruments can assist to rework the enterprise.
“We really see that as a space that can change the game in terms of a lot of things that we do,” he says. “It will help our people make better, more informed decisions. Machine learning will also help us automate some of our processes.”
Gonzalez believes automation encompasses an enormous space of potential technological advances. He says there are nonetheless too many limitations that make it tough for individuals to purchase transport tickets and companies shortly – and there’s a important alternative to automate processes and enable clients to self-serve.
“By empowering everyone through technology, we are really striving to give customers digital touchpoints at every point that is important to them when they’re interacting with us,” he says. “Ultimately, we want customers to step off our trains and say LNER are providing an amazing experience, whether that’s via digital channels, through our people or on our trains.”
