Explore SNCB’s journey with SAP
Société Nationale des Chemins de Fer Belges (SNCB), the Belgian National Railway Company, needed to get to know its customers better. By enriching their profiles and gathering more data, they want to be able to get the right message to the right customer at the right time. It relied on SAP Integration Suite, part of SAP Business Technology Platform, and partner technologies to integrate existing sales channels, new self-service channels, and a marketing platform.
increase in newly registered customers using self-service channels.
rise in average daily logins to self-service channels.
boost in marketing campaign open rate.
We were looking for a stable, scalable, and robust solution that would allow us to reliably manage online accounts and gain data-usage consent so we were sure customers were happy for us to reach out to them with the right message.
Ludovic Mattheussen
Business Area Lead, Société Nationale des Chemins de Fer Belges (SNCB)
The Challenge
Overcoming disparate data systems to better engage customers
SNCB could only access 40% of its customer data, and this was siloed across various systems and channels. When the marketing team wished to run a campaign by e-mail, it needed the IT team to first aggregate the data.
SNCB sought a solution that would unify its customers and their related transactional data within enriched profiles. It could use this profile data to optimize communication – presenting customers with the right messages at the right time through the right channel.
It wanted to enable customer registrations and manage consent by prioritizing data security and compliance with General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) requirements. It hoped to build a 360-degree view of customer data and deliver optimal customer service by consolidating historical, structured, and unstructured data from various channels into a central source of actionable data.
We can now capture transactional data and customer consent in customer data solutions from SAP and automatically send this information to Adobe Experience Platform and Adobe Campaign Standard, resulting in improved market segmentation and more targeted communication.
Ludovic Mattheussen
Business Area Lead, Société Nationale des Chemins de Fer Belges (SNCB)
The Solution
Enriching customer profiles with integrated cloud solutions
SNCB chose to implement customer data solutions from SAP, integrating them with its existing back-end systems using an on-premise integration offering. And it used SAP Integration Suite to integrate Adobe Experience Platform and Adobe Campaign Standard for e-mail communication. SNCB partnered with Tata Consultancy Services (TCS) for consulting-led advisory services from design to deploy to transform customer experience by implementing customer data solutions from SAP and integrating them with its existing back-end systems using an on-premise integration offering.
The company is using the registration-as-a-service functionality of SAP Customer Identity and Access Management solutions for B2C (SAP CIAM for B2C) and integrating it with its Web site, mobile application, and Wi-Fi portals as well as the SAP Customer Relationship Management application, the SAP ERP Financial Accounting and Operations application, and offline sales data system.
Using SAP CIAM means the railway operator can capture existing sales data, create new customer accounts, and record data for further use. For example, offline and online ticket sales are now linked to customer profiles in customer data solutions from SAP, where the sales details are recorded and sent to the Adobe marketing platform via SAP Integration Suite in near-real time.
SNCB also knows if a customer has given consent to be contacted with offers, an d it can choose the target audience according to different parameters, such as ticket type, sales channel, age, or area.
The Result
Unified customers and enhanced communication efforts
With more than three million unified customer profiles created, SNCB has been able to find out more about its passengers by capturing and analyzing their transactional data. Injecting this information into Adobe’s platform allows the company to successfully segment customers for particular information.
There’s been a significant uplift in the open and click rates for newly launched marketing initiatives, thanks to the 1.9 million customers added to the campaign database. SNCB was able to convert anonymous passengers to registered customers using the Web site, mobile app, and Wi-Fi portals, and there was an increase in the average daily logins to these self-service channels.
The progressive profiling of customer data created a 360-degree view of customers and enriched profiles that can be shared with Adobe Campaign Standard to trigger tailored journeys based on events, using digital channels.
The company can market to customers safe in the knowledge that they’ve given permission. This security measure for customer data helps ensure compliance with the European Union’s General Data Protection Regulation requirements.
SAP helps SNCB run better
Key business outcomes and benefits
- Stability of SAP CIAM during periods of increased ticket sales and seasonal renewals
- More-efficient and -effective process to define target audiences
- 360-degree view of customers and enriched profiles used for improved segmentation and more targeted communication
- Increase in logins to self-service channels and open and click rates for newly launched e-mail campaigns
- Reliable customer consent management and improved compliance with GDPR requirements
Featured solutions and services
- SAP Integration Suite lets you accelerate connectivity on-premise and cloud-based applications and processes with tools and prebuilt content.
- SAP Customer Identity and Access Management helps connect company-wide information to inform business decisions, build trust, and strengthen loyalty while respecting customers’ data privacy and reducing compliance risks.
About SNCB
Société Nationale des Chemins de Fer Belges (SNCB), also known as Nationale Maatschappij der Belgische Spoorwegen in Dutch and Nationale Gesellschaft der Belgischen Eisenbahnen in German, is the National Railway Company of Belgium and the second-oldest in Europe. It operates, organizes, and commercializes train traffic across the country and is also responsible for train maintenance and renovation and for 551 stations. The operator has about 4,000 train drivers and transports over 250 million passengers each year.
| Industry | Region | Company Size | Partner |
|---|---|---|---|
| Passenger travel and leisure | Belgium | 18,000 employees | Adobe and TCS |
Featured partners
Tata Consultancy Services (TCS) Ltd. is a global IT services and consulting company headquartered in Mumbai, India. It operates in 149 locations across 46 countries and has more than 600,000 employees worldwide. TCS offers advice and trademark products and platforms for wide-ranging topics, such as cybersecurity, blockchain, AI, sustainability, and IoT and digital engineering, in numerous industries.
Adobe Inc. was founded in 1982 and has more than 26,000 employees worldwide. Based in California, the company provides tools for creativity, from photography to mobile user experiences, digital documentation, and commerce and marketing workflows among many other cloud solutions. Its products include Adobe Photoshop, Adobe Acrobat, Adobe Scan, and Adobe Experience Cloud.
About SNCB
Société Nationale des Chemins de Fer Belges (SNCB), also known as Nationale Maatschappij der Belgische Spoorwegen in Dutch and Nationale Gesellschaft der Belgischen Eisenbahnen in German, is the National Railway Company of Belgium and the second-oldest in Europe. It operates, organizes, and commercializes train traffic across the country and is also responsible for train maintenance and renovation and for 551 stations. The operator has about 4,000 train drivers and transports over 250 million passengers each year.
| Industry | Region | Company Size | Partner |
|---|---|---|---|
| Passenger travel and leisure | Belgium | 18,000 employees | Adobe and TCS |
Featured partners
Tata Consultancy Services (TCS) Ltd. is a global IT services and consulting company headquartered in Mumbai, India. It operates in 149 locations across 46 countries and has more than 600,000 employees worldwide. TCS offers advice and trademark products and platforms for wide-ranging topics, such as cybersecurity, blockchain, AI, sustainability, and IoT and digital engineering, in numerous industries.
Adobe Inc. was founded in 1982 and has more than 26,000 employees worldwide. Based in California, the company provides tools for creativity, from photography to mobile user experiences, digital documentation, and commerce and marketing workflows among many other cloud solutions. Its products include Adobe Photoshop, Adobe Acrobat, Adobe Scan, and Adobe Experience Cloud.