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If anyone knows how to use the Internet like a cash machine it’s Haji-Ioannou, the brash billionaire son of a Greek Cypriot shipping magnate.
He employs the Net across all his businesses, to be more efficient than competitors and to extract the ideal margin from each customer through yield management software.
Dubbed “the world’s leading electronic airline” this year by the investment house Schroder Salomon Smith Barney, easyJet, a no-frills European carrier, fills more than 90% of its seats via its website.
Similarily, easyRentacar takes 95% of its reservations over the Net, keeping costs down and prices to consumers low.
EasyMoney offers customers online credit cards with flexible, personalized interest rates. Rates and fees are tied to customer creditworthiness, which easyMoney investigates as any other lender would. EasyInternetCafé, a global chain of surfers’ joints offering cheap, fast, 24-hour-a-day access, also uses dynamic pricing: the tariff goes up when the café is crowded, down when it’s not.
EasyValue, Haji-Ioannou’s sole dotcom, provides consumers with comparisons for on-line shopping. The easyEntrepreneur says the killer application here will be an impartial comparison of all flights to a particular destination, a service he is betting consumers are willing to pay for.
The Vision Thing: "The Internet is an efficient tool, not an industry."
Forward Spin: Haji-Ioannou is considering launching his own line of youth hostels and cinemas. Like his other businesses, they would use Web-based reservation systems, allowing him to forecast demand and price accordingly.
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