Tuesday, July 17, 2007

Technology disintermediation

Abhijit (a friend and ex-colleague), was telling me a little incident ... Something I found funny ...

He was flying from London to Delhi, en route to Calcutta (or Kolkata, if you must, though, I still prefer Calcutta!). He reached the shores of India (aka Indira Gandhi International Airport, but not his luggage). Not for a few days, at any rate.

In the meantime, it seems that he was following up with British Airways about the luggage, and for some reason (dont even ask me to fathom what the reson could have been), the folks at Heathrow were not updating systems (dont believe in them, I suppose?), and as a result, nobody had a clue about the luggage until it actually reached Delhi, and even then, there was a delay in updating the system. And here lies the nub.

Having talked to, and shouted at, the the BA luggage-handling folks in Delhi, he asked hem to inform him moment they hear from his luggage. They said they would, and they did, too ... Only thing, before they called him, he had actually checked on their website that the luggage had come.

Moral of the Story:

Abhijit knew about British Airways luggage before British Airways itself.

Point to ponder: Technology can disintermediate (as it is already doing, and I am sure this post is not telling you anything new, but I just thought that I would pen (or is it keyboard) my thoughts!).

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