SeaNet - Case Study
SeaNet partners with Smilefish and AWS to develop a Fractional Yacht Ownership and Yacht Sharing application
Executive Summary
Based out of Newport Beach, California, SeaNet provides services for Fractional Yacht Ownership and Yacht Sharing all around the United States and Europe. Yacht owners traditionally use their yachts for only an estimated 5 to 9 weeks a year. SeaNet’s yacht share concept provides all the benefits of traditional yacht ownership for the time an owner actually uses their expensive asset, all for a fraction of the cost. An appealing mobile application combined with transparent concierge services are the key allowing SeaNet to further enhance fractional ownership concept by a complete yacht management services, which includes scheduling, crew organization, maintenance, provisioning, and much more to provide yacht owners with a turnkey solution to the yachting lifestyle.
Problem Statement:
Pleasing SeaNet’s busy and highly affluent clientele required a fair, transparent, and flexible reservation system that could react to special requests. It needed to handle the long-term vacation and holiday planning and provide flexibility to utilize the asset for spontaneous trips. The requirements called for the ease of a mobile application combined with an administrative web application to provide a flexible concierge experience. In addition, the solution needed to be expandable to integrate fleet maintenance, reputation management, expenses, and analytics for all business aspects. The overarching goal was to streamline all of SeaNet's internal and external systems into one efficient data platform to allow for data-driven process optimization and highest client satisfaction.
Vendor Selection:
Seanet evaluated several off-the-shelf and custom solutions and decided to partner with Smilefish. The Smilefish Data Fabric solution provided more than sufficient turn-key services to be customizable for all data, process, and governance needs. In addition, Smilefish offered customizable mobile application templates to generate appealing iPhone and Android applications with low maintenance due to its single code base in ReactNative.
"Smilefish demonstrated an approach that impressed us in terms of short-, mid-, and long-term ROI," remarked Michael Costa, President of SeaNet. "In the short term, we required an improved scheduling solution; in the mid-term, we aimed to transform into a data-driven company, integrating all facets of our business for streamlined processes; and looking ahead in the long term, we aspire to be well-prepared for the integration of AI into our process optimization."
Implementation in the AWS Cloud:
Smilefish offers a pre-configured Data Fabric Solution in the AWS cloud which strictly follows the AWS Well Architected Framework. This combination not only allwed SeaNet to drastically reduce development time and cost, it also ensures best practice for operational excellence, security, reliability, performance, and cost control.
- A cost efficient serverless AWS Aurora database allows for complex scheduling queries at scale and meets high-availability requirements with seamless failover in the US and Europe.
- A completely serverless implementation of all data service APIs in AWS Lambda allows for cost efficiency, low maintenance, and robust scalability.
- The AWS Simple Notification Service (SNS) is deeply integrated in the web services to swiftly inform yacht owners or maintenance personnel about scheduled events or spontaneous changes.
- The analytics dashboards are supported by Smilefish Data Fabric APIs that utilize AWS Aurora queries. Additionally, these APIs allow for self service analytics (i.e. Tableau)
- AWS CloudWatch monitors the system's health and notifies admin users via AWS SNS should manual interference be needed.
Outcome:
The preconfigured Smilefish Data Fabric in AWS and the customizable mobile application templates allowed SeaNet to present an MVP solution to a selection of yacht owners within 3 months and to roll out the fully functional product within 6 months.
Yacht owners appreciate the application’s ease of use and the flexibility to contact the concierge service, which both tie into the same backend service. The operational team benefits from a unified dashboard that facilitates the monitoring of KPI across all business facets. This enables them to optimize various aspects such as fleet utilization, owner schedules, maintenance windows, and associated expenses, all from a single control center. Additionally, the system automates transparent reporting to the owners, ensuring clear and consistent communication.
Next Steps
During the international rollout, the application scaled effortlessly, managing to accommodate the increased demands without encountering any unforeseen disruptions. SeaNet and Smilefish are now planning the implementation of predictive analytics for enhanced scheduling and maintenance optimization, further solidifying their collaborative efforts.