Supercharging Heathrow Airport’s digital customer experience evolution using Salesforce

Operating as one of the largest hubs for air travel in the world, Heathrow Airport is responsible for the journeys of over 75 million people annually. Heathrow offers a variety of passenger services, including; Parking, Fast track, Lounges, Personnel shopper, Reserve and Collect, and more, the combination of which helps ensure the greatest experience possible as passengers travel through the airport.

To achieve its vision of delivering the best airport service in the world, the Heathrow digital experience needed to evolve. Capgemini was chosen as a key strategic partner by Heathrow in 2019 to support it on this digital transformation journey.

Heathrow and Capgemini implemented a suite of Salesforce clouds and technologies to support a host of new solutions and passenger benefits. Such transformation relies on a robust, continuous integration and continuous deployment (CI/CD) pipeline, which enables different product teams to collaborate effectively. Delivering constant uptime, high-quality code, and scalability is critical.

A novel approach for complex Salesforce implementations

Given the complex nature of the ongoing digital transformation journey – numerous products and services, multi-cloud (Service Cloud, Commerce Cloud, Experience Cloud, Marketing cloud) shared code base, and a coordinated multi-vendor release cycle – Heathrow required a robust CI/CD and automation product to support delivery. In addition, Heathrow wanted to manage its future processes through a single development pipeline and utilize a single way of working.

To address such an extensive set of objectives and the associated complications, Capgemini introduced one of its global innovation partners and a Capgemini Ventures invested portfolio company, Copado, a market-leading DevOps startup that provides a platform for Salesforce solutions.

Capgemini and Copado developed new build processes and methodologies that supported Heathrow’s needs. This involved introducing end-to-end tracking of every user story, bug, defect, code commitment, and low-code automated testing. Throughout this process, the partners leveraged the airport’s existing Azure DevOps Application Lifecycle Management platform to reduce complexity and assure a higher degree of visibility among key stakeholders.

Integration innovation supports evolution

This holistic solution offered a single way of working throughout Heathrow Airport’s various service and enabled seamless and efficient delivery of new functionalities. In addition, the partners were able to upgrade existing source code dependencies to ensure future updates could be seamlessly applied.

This decreased the amount of effort required for Heathrow teams to effectively support passengers while providing stakeholders with more visibility into code quality and automated testing output. A single, shared process and DevOps approach enabled team resources to more easily join the organization or move from one team to another while following a more transparent onboarding and development journey.

Following the successful use of Copado DevOps to support the Salesforce Service Cloud and Salesforce Commerce Cloud, Heathrow Airport opted to expand the scope of this coverage. The organization committed to applying Copado support for key Salesforce solutions utilized throughout its operations. By fully integrating the Service Cloud and Commerce cloud with Heathrow Airport’s existing Azure technology stack and Copado DevOps, the partners have ensured that future passengers will enjoy a smoother, more modern, and more intuitive digital experience that unifies their journey through the airport.

“From the moment travelers think about flying from our airport, we want them to have a seamless digital experience, which means making sure that all our Digital Product teams are collaborating successfully. Our partnership with Capgemini was critical to implementing Salesforce and Copado successfully, which provided a unified platform and way of working for all of our teams.”

Bob Stickland
Head of Technology, Heathrow