Laura Salisbury. All work
Case study · 02 of 05

Transforming Boeing's Global Services experience, a vision for OneBGS.

Client
Boeing Global Services
Role
Innovation Consulting Lead
Year
2024
Disciplines
Research · Strategy · Future Vision

Boeing Global Services set an ambitious target: grow to $50B in annual revenue by 2027 by becoming the only fully integrated aftermarket partner in commercial aviation.

But after years of growth-through-acquisition, BGS had become siloed, disconnected systems, isolated teams, and disjointed experiences for the customers it served. Salesforce partnered with Boeing to define a path forward, and I led the research and future-vision work.

The Engagement

A four-month sprint with one question: how do we propel sustainable digital transformation?

HMW

How might we propel sustainable digital transformation that delivers on our promise of OneBGS in order to grow revenue, improve operational efficiencies, and strengthen customer & employee experiences?

Together with the Boeing's BGS leadership across all four P&Ls (CMESP, P&DS, DAS, Training) and the Salesforce Sales team, the Salesforce Ignite team ran a structured engagement from opportunity alignment through future-vision readout.

50+
Participants across all four P&Ls
42
Discovery interviews with Boeing employees
10+
Workshops & working sessions, Oct → Feb
196
Future capabilities identified across the platform
Our Journey Together / The Engagement. Left side states the HMW: 'How might we propel sustainable digital transformation that delivers on our promise of OneBGS in order to grow revenue, improve operational efficiencies, and strengthen customer & employee experiences?' Right side surfaces the key stats: 50+ participants across all 4 P&Ls, 42 discovery interviews, 10+ workshops & working sessions, and 196 future capabilities. Bottom is a six-step timeline from Oct 9 to Feb 26: Opportunity Alignment (align stakeholders, refine scope), Stakeholder Research (learn from Boeing employees about pains and gains), Ideation Workshop (co-create early ideas from discovery insights), Capability and Value Discovery (technical/architecture requirements and value hypothesis), Future Vision Development (design future-state experience through the eyes of Boeing employees), Future Vision Readout (showcase the future state via use cases, capabilities, and phased roadmapping), and Next Steps (Roadmap Deep-Dive, Value Hypothesis Deep-Dive, Operating Model Deep-Dive). Click to view full detail
Figure 01 Engagement arc, Oct alignment → Feb future-vision readout.
01 / Research

A complex, siloed organization, and customers feeling it on the other side of the table.

What we heard

BGS was formed by merging Commercial Aviation Services (AerData, Aviall, Jeppesen), Defense Aviation Services (ForeFlight, KLX, Tapestry), Parts & Distribution, and Training under a single shop for the aviation aftermarket. The integration delivered scale, but at the cost of consistency.

Through 42 interviews across leadership, marketing, sales, service, and IPT execution, four obstacles surfaced again and again:

  1. Differing cultures, processes, and technology across P&Ls, communication barriers between teams that should be coordinated.
  2. Legacy tools and disconnected systems with data siloed inside each acquired company's stack.
  3. Manual effort to answer basic questions, "How much business do we do with this customer? How many email campaigns?", couldn't be answered in an integrated way.
  4. Customers experiencing BGS as fragmented, overlapping, conflicting interactions across product teams when they expected one Boeing.
They view us as Boeing. If they're not getting what they want, they'll go anywhere in the organization to talk to whoever they think they need to end the frustration.
The opportunity

BGS holds about 1% of a $3.2T addressable market. It's well-positioned to extend its lead, but smaller, more nimble competitors are gaining ground. The team had aligned: customer centricity is the path forward. Our role was to define what that looked like.

We framed customer-centered transformation across four requirements:

  1. System & data unification, one customer record, not a dozen.
  2. Operational efficiencies through automation & insights, free people from swivel-chair work.
  3. Proactive collaboration & communication, coordinate across P&Ls before the customer feels the gap.
  4. Domain specialization for each P&L, unify the customer experience without flattening the expertise.
Figure 02
Current-state landscape, from siloed companies to four transformation requirements.
1 / 4
The OneBGS Vision · Integration of Companies. BGS moved from siloed teams and independent companies (Aviall, KLX, Jeppesen, ForeFlight, Commercial Aviation Services, Defense Aviation Services, AerData, Tapestry) to an integrated one-stop shop for the aviation aftermarket spanning Marketing & Sales, Parts & Distribution Services, CMESP, DAS, and Training.
BGS Today · Obstacles. Commonly seen with growth through M&A, BGS has become a complex and siloed organization. Five obstacles: BGS / P&L Misalignment, Differing Cultures, Differing Processes, Differing Technology & Systems, Communication Barriers. Pull quote: 'The information that should be supposedly simple, that we get asked usually from leadership is, how much business do we do with this customer? How well? How much marketing? How many email campaigns? We can't answer that today in an integrated systemic way.'
BGS Today · Disjointed Experiences for Operators. Customers anticipate interactions with an integrated partner and instead are presented with disjointed experiences across product teams. Illustration shows tangled, looping dotted lines connecting Boeing Global Services to an Operator with surrounding functions: Leadership, Pilots, Supply Chain, Engineering, Overhauls, Flight Ops, Maintenance, IT.
Uncovering Opportunities · Customer-Centered Transformation. Customer-centered transformation for BGS must address four requirements, shown as banners connecting BGS to the Operator: Proactive Collaboration & Communication, Domain Specialization for Each P&L, Operation Efficiencies through Automation & Insights, and System & Data Unification.
The backstory, BGS moved from siloed companies to an integrated one-stop shop.
02 / Future Vision

A platform approach built on a shared foundation, then four excellences on top.

The model

The future-state vision rests on a unified Customer 360 + Fleet & Aircraft 360, a single, real-time view of the operator and their fleet that every team in BGS works from. On top of that foundation, we defined four excellence layers, each tied to specific moments that matter for the people doing the work.

Foundation · Customer 360 + Fleet & Aircraft 360

A connected landscape giving every team a 360° view of the operator, the fleet, and the events in each airplane's lifecycle, the basis for everything else.

Marketing Excellence

Account-Based Marketing automation, GTM strategy, and journey orchestration grounded in the same customer record sales and service use.

Sales Excellence

Data-driven white-space analysis, account planning, customer-facing quote requests, and proactive renewal management.

Service & Support Excellence

Intelligent case management, unified order servicing across P&Ls, and omni-channel customer self-service.

Execution Excellence

Slot management scheduling, product performance intelligence, scalable Managed Inventory with IoT bins, and Customer Success tooling.

The vision statement

Salesforce as the catalyst to accelerate customer-centered transformation, uniquely positioning BGS as the purveyor of choice for commercial aviation aftermarket parts and services.

Figure 03
Future-vision walkthrough, Foundation → Marketing → Sales → Service → Execution.
1 / 17
OneBGS · Future Vision section divider. 'Let's look at our BGS Foundation' with three pillars listed: Customer 360, Fleet + Aircraft 360, and Role-specific Dashboards.
Future Vision · Foundational Enablers. WHAT WE HEARD: accurate customer data needed across BGS; fleet makeup needed for GTM; too many manually integrated systems; need visibility into what a customer has bought; need to create BGS-wide experiences. THE TRANSFORMED EXPERIENCE: unified data across Marketing, Sales, Service & Support, and IPT Execution. Capabilities unlocked: Customer 360, Fleet & Aircraft 360, Install Base Management, Data & Integrations, Intelligence & Analytics. Outcomes: marketing/sales/service efficiency, wallet share, customer satisfaction. Pull quote about needing functional excellence and integration across BGS sales and marketing.
Future Vision · Foundation · Customer 360. OneBGS built on the idea of a connected landscape, empowering a 360° view of data and insights on the customer. Crowd-source detailed information on commercial operators and their teams, aggregating insights at the account level. UI mockup of United Airlines account: Sales, Renewals, Agreement Analytics, Forecast, Wallet Share Forecast tabs; committed/ordered+invoiced/pipeline/upcoming renewals figures; Success Score donut showing 6/10; bar charts of wallet share. Insights and alerts surfaced for action.
Future Vision · Foundation · Fleet + Aircraft 360. Detailed view of fleet information, showcasing key events in the airplane's lifecycle and unlocking opportunities: forecasting parts demand, Digital Whole Offer–Operator alignment, Operator/Fleet Segmentation for Training & Engineering Services GTM. UI mockup shows Lauren Bailey account with Aircraft Key Events (Birth, Test Flight, Delivery, Training, In Flight, Refurb), service campaigns, and a drill-down into engines and other rotable components.
OneBGS · Future Vision section divider for Marketing. 'Let's look at moments that matter to Marketing' with two focus areas: ABM Marketing and Whole Offer Go-to-Market Strategy.
Future Vision · Marketing Excellence. WHAT WE HEARD: reports require massive manual effort, every P&L uses different tools, no way to track marketing attribution, need to transition to Account-Based Marketing. THE TRANSFORMED EXPERIENCE: built-out Customer 360 framework driving ABM, AI-assisted segmentation, bespoke multi-channel automated journeys. Capabilities: Account & Contact Management, ABM Automation, Marketing Strategy (GTM), Engagement & Intent Management, Audience Segmentation, Automated Journey Orchestration, Personalization. Outcomes: marketing-led growth, lead generation, customer engagement, marketing analytics & reporting efficiency. Pull quote about Boeing's small customer base requiring relationship-driven engagement.
Future Vision · Marketing · ABM Marketing. Leverage Customer and Fleet 360 along with curated engagement information to precisely pinpoint audience segments and activate bespoke marketing campaigns at scale. UI mockup shows a Marketing Cloud Journey Builder with audience entry, multi-step email/wait/branching journey, and a United Airlines email preview: 'Get ready for your new Dreamliners!!!' with a financial questionnaire form. Annotation: easily view audience segments and recommendations.
Future Vision · Marketing · Go-to-Market Strategy. Create and maintain GTM strategies using customer details like decision maker engagement and executive affinities. Align Whole Offer solution tiers to ideal target accounts and define outcome-based GTM programs to repeat and scale proven approaches. UI mockup shows a Territory Overview / Defend & Grow dashboard with sales plan alignment, account health, agreement performance, and a Whole Offer recommendation panel.
OneBGS · Future Vision section divider for Sales. 'Let's look at moments that matter to Sales' with three focus areas: Data Driven Parts Go-to-Market, Account Planning, Proactive Renewals. Background dashboard shows Avg Sales Cycle, Avg Opportunity Age, Avg Win Rate, Created Cases, Days Since Last Activity, and pipeline funnel by stage.
Future Vision · Sales Excellence. WHAT WE HEARD: account & contact data is a mess, CRM adoption very low, sales pipeline designed for legacy Jeppesen/BCA, swivel-chair for reports, IPT inflexibility causes lost deals, overlapping customer interactions, must become more customer-centric. THE TRANSFORMED EXPERIENCE: complete Customer + Fleet 360 as the basis for account management; GTM intelligence drives sales; marketing ABM seamlessly activates sales activity; BGS executive leadership manages business out of Salesforce. Capabilities: Opportunity & Pipeline Management, Digital First Approach, Account Planning, Customer Quote Collaboration, Renewal Forecasting, Sales Support / Technical Sales Management, Activity Insights & Analytics. Outcomes: sales productivity, sales revenue, forecasting accuracy, customer satisfaction, share of wallet, cross-sell/up-sell. Pull quote: 'They view us as Boeing. If they're not getting what they want, they'll go anywhere in the organization to talk to whoever they think they need to get the job done.'
Future Vision · Sales · Account Planning. Build on customer relationships year over year by leveraging existing data & content as a starting point for Account Plan creation and collaboration. Align teams around a single approach and ensure consistent messaging with a BGS-wide plan. UI mockup of United Airlines account: C360 metrics (85% TAM, 77 Open Claims, 25 Open Opportunities), Topics Discussed bubble chart, an Account Plan 2024 document with executive summary, an Executive Relationship Plan, and a Boeing Distribution Services Inc. customer review brief.
Future Vision · Sales · Customer Self-service Quote Requests. Capitalize on the great foundation built internally with Quoting and extend the ability to customers to track and request new quotes. Gather information with a tailored, guided experience, self-service or collaborate with BGS. UI mockup shows a Boeing Global Services 'Hello United!' portal with one-stop quote requests, browse products, My Quotes / My Solutions / My Orders tabs, a Request for Quote form (date, reason), and Quote Request Guided Steps (Welcome, Fleet Information, How many Modules, Bundles for Review, Collaborate with BGS). Annotation: easily collaborate with customers on their needs.
OneBGS · Future Vision section divider for Service. 'Let's look at moments that matter to Service' with two focus areas: Intelligent Case Management and Unified Sales Support. Background shows an Agent Activity dashboard with case-volume bubble chart, by-type/by-priority breakdowns, and a Service Agent mobile activity view.
Future Vision · Service · Intelligent Case Management. Use Customer 360 as a foundation to optimize contact center operations, routing inquiries to the right resources, supporting the customer's preferred channel, keeping them informed throughout the case lifecycle, and prioritizing critical cases to comply with SLAs. UI mockup shows a Boeing Service Console with Ms. Lauren Bailey case for United Airlines: case classification, priority/type/sub-type fields, Einstein Next Best Action suggesting Boeing Dreamliners 787, Boeing Support chat with order-update notifications, Case Summary side panel suggesting a Parts Nurture Campaign. Annotation: customer receives current updates on orders and modifications.
OneBGS · Future Vision section divider for Execution Teams. 'Let's look at moments that matter to Execution Teams' with four focus areas: Slot Management Scheduling, Product Performance Intelligence, Scalable Managed Inventory with IoT Bins, Customer Success & Professional Services. Background shows a Boeing Project Summary dashboard with bookings/billed/value/invoiced metrics, project status by account, billing summary vs project margin chart, daily project management Gantt.
Future Vision · Execution Teams · Slot Management Scheduling. Optimize resource utilization through slot planning for time-constrained assets like service bays and training simulators, unused capacity is not wasted, revenue is not lost. Customer-facing slot management tools allow customers to take control of their investment through self-service scheduling and work plans. UI mockup shows a Boeing Field Service Lightning calendar view of work assignments and a customer-facing mobile Maintenance Schedule for 'Landing Gear Exchange' with service appointment time, location, and directions.
Future Vision · Execution Teams · Customer Success & Professional Services. Highlight customer usage, maturity, consumption, and business goals, unlocking insights to predict future customer needs and collaborate on next steps. A more complete picture of the customer's journey unfolds (likelihood of smooth renewal, cross/upsell potential). UI mockup shows an Enterprise Health dashboard with Overall Score 64, Outcomes Health (Deployment, Engagement, Adoption Depth/Breadth, ROI), Experience Health (NPS, Onboarding, Product, Support, Sentiment, Payment), and a Customer VOC dashboard with location/operations contact, 87% NPS, safety onboarding, 3 critical events upcoming. Annotation: KPIs that focus on product utilization guide success motions.
Foundation · intro, Customer 360, Fleet + Aircraft 360, and role-specific dashboards as the basis for everything that follows.
03 / Value & Roadmap

Translating the vision into a defensible business case and a phased plan.

Business value

The Salesforce Business Value team partnered with us to translate the future vision into a quantified hypothesis grounded in Salesforce benchmarks and BGS-specific operating data. We modeled three scenarios:

$206–302M
Annual revenue lift (conservative → optimistic case)
250–350%
Typical ROI on the platform investment
12–16 mo
Typical payback period
Where the value lands
  1. Parts cross-sell / up-sell, white-space analysis on commercial operators drives ~$85M revenue lift.
  2. Software sales & renewals, Customer + Fleet 360 insights drive ~$72M incremental software revenue.
  3. Customer retention / CSAT, personalized engagement and self-service recoup ~$30M annually.
  4. Slot management utilization, efficient training scheduling adds ~$18M.
  5. Employee efficiency, call deflection, and AHT reduction, ~$6M in operational cost savings.
Figure 08
Strategic roadmap, 4 phases across PI 9 → PI 16, with cumulative margin benefit modeled by phase.
04 / Outcome

From a four-month engagement to a three-year platform roadmap.

Impact

The future vision was endorsed by Boeing leadership and translated into a three-year platform roadmap: 22 epics, 213 features, four P&Ls, with H1 2024 focused on building the Customer 360 + Fleet & Aircraft 360 foundation.

The work gave BGS executives a shared vocabulary, People · Process · Technology · Data, aligned around the customer, for evaluating every subsequent investment decision against the OneBGS ambition.

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