Finalist: Shepherd Systems

Finalist: Shepherd Systems

By David Wexler

Associate Editor

For airlines, understanding the market, knowing what your competitors are doing and tracking traffic flow can be as important as having working landing gear.

But for years, valuable booking data available to airlines through global distribution systems came at a hefty price, essentially locking out small, regional carriers. The time and effort required to analyze the data made the undertaking unjustifiable for the smaller carriers, says Chris Collaco, senior vice president of Bradenton-based Shepherd Systems.

That changed when Shepherd launched its market analysis product, Clarity, in 2004.

"The introduction of this product has given a whole new market segment [to] smaller and regional airlines, who now have the ability to analyze their markets and competitors in ways that were not previously possible," says Collaco.

Clarity is essentially a package of travel data and analytical tools delivered over the Internet. The system, hosted in a data center inside the Bradenton Financial Center, provides detailed market information to more than 50 airlines and travel agencies in Asia, Europe, North America, South America and Africa. The data has been tailored to their particular competitive environment, allowing airlines and travel agencies to survey current competitors and recognize new market potential.

"This allows them to make better, more objective and quantified business decisions." Collaco says.

One of Shepherd's customers, for example, has a fleet of six 34-seat aircraft that serve domestic routes in its home country near India. It uses Clarity to identify passenger demand from such places at London, Paris and Frankfurt.

Next, using the data, Collaco says the small airline can work with major airlines, such as British Airways and Air France, to serve the passenger.

Shepherd is a subsidiary of New York-based Cendant Corp., which operates several prominent franchises, including Century 21, Coldwell Banker and ERA real estate, Avis car rental and the Ramada hotels. Shepherd was founded in 1983 in Houston by Steve Shepherd, who was initially in the gas and oil business.

The company moved to Bradenton in the mid '90s, before being acquired by Galileo in 1998. Four years later, Cendant purchased Galileo and made Shepherd a key component of its Travel Distribution Services division.

"As competition in the travel market place grows more intense and financial margins get thinner, airlines can ill afford to make poor decisions," Collaco says. "In areas such as pricing, contracting, sales focus [and] scheduling, it is fundamental to understand where the market is and where it is going."

The success of Clarity was dependent on the availability of the underlying market data, requiring Shepherd to work closely with data providers. The market information is provided by four or five major reservation systems.

Shepherd started development on the product in July 2003. The company's data center in Bradenton provides the information to carriers worldwide.

Tech Time

Many technology fans say the best part of any product is when you get to use it in a life-changing way. Chris Collaco, a senior vice president of Shepherd Systems, uses the technology of instant messaging in just about the best possible life-changing way.

"My father lives in Portugal, and I managed to get him on instant messenger," he says. "Now he can see his grandkids here in Bradenton because we have a Web cam set up. Bringing that technology to life has made the world smaller and has permitted me to have a much closer family relationship with my remote family than would otherwise have been possible."