Qantas focusing on the digital interactions before the journey ZDNet

Just like many organisations, Australian airline Qantas is grappling with the challenge of how to be innovative while managing risk. But according to its new CTO Rob James, the flying kangaroo is fast evolving into a digital business. Having joined Qantas in August from a four-year tenure as CIO at online betting player William Hill, James said the contrast between an all-online company to one that delivers tangible services to customers is what attracted him to the role. He touted Qantas as an organisation that is performing well financially, but one that has a strong desire to look at technology to help it keep the numbers up. "Coming across to Qantas, what has been interesting is that Qantas as an organisation has really started to embrace technology as a differentiator in the business," James told the Gartner Symposium/ITxpo on the Gold Coast this week.