Changi Airport Group digitally transforms and scales with the help of Atlassian cloud

Challenge: Changi Airport (CAG) adopted agile, DevSecOps, & TechOps practices during their digital transformation but needed new tools to further enhance collaboration, transparency, & responsiveness.

Solution: CAG implemented the Atlassian cloud platform as a secure, enterprise-grade collaboration solution that could help solve their challenges & scale along with their company.

Impact: CAG’s teams have the tools needed to collaborate closely, streamline processes, & quickly resolve incidents & service requests – leading to better experiences for staff & visitors.

New practices call for a new solution

Airports are like little cities. People move in, move out, and move around. They shop, eat, and interact with dozens – sometimes hundreds – of businesses and organizations. They want to feel both secure and free to roam. 

This is even truer for Changi Airport Group (CAG) in Singapore. They set out on a unique mission to make the airport a destination for travelers and non-travelers alike, with permanent attractions like duty-free shopping, seasonal exhibits like the winter-themed Changi Festive Village, and exciting retail promotions. 

Creating a world-class airport and destination required a significant undertaking: digital transformation. CAG was already a leader in part because of their advanced technologies and practices. However, teams didn’t have all the tools needed to fully adopt agile, DevSecOps, TechOps, and other modern methodologies. They turned to Atlassian for ideas on how to bring their vision to life.

By implementing Jira Software, Confluence, and Jira Service Management Cloud, CAG has equipped their teams with the tools needed to collaborate closely, streamline processes, and quickly resolve incidents and service requests. With better tooling, the airport is delivering industry-leading experiences for internal stakeholders, travelers, and visitors of all kinds.

Solving challenges today, while preparing to scale in the future

Before CAG modernized their development practices to support digital transformation, the organization had a centralized platform for DevSecOps, along with Microsoft Teams for collaboration. However, they didn’t have tools specifically for tech project collaboration or IT service management. Without an ITSM solution, agents found it particularly hard to prioritize, track, and resolve requests. This gap also put service-level agreements at risk if agents were unable to close tickets in a timely manner. 

Employees also used a team communication app to chat with each other, but it was being discontinued for security reasons, leaving CAG with another major gap. They needed a secure, enterprise-grade collaboration solution that could solve these challenges and scale along with them.

As CAG began the research process for a new platform, they looked at existing solutions within the organization and asked employees for recommendations. One team member used Atlassian tools in a previous role and suggested Jira Software (which was already being used by the development team for CAG’s iShopChangi app), along with Jira Service Management for Corporate IT’s service management. With votes of confidence from the internal team and CAG’s Solution Partner, Akeles, leaders agreed to extend the company’s use of Jira Software, Confluence, and Jira Service Management Cloud.

A robust cloud collaboration platform lands at CAG

Today, several teams across the organization use Atlassian cloud tools to power their work and create a one-of-a-kind airport experience.

CAG’s engineering teams turn to Jira Software Cloud for agile development, project management, issue tracking, and collaboration. Jira Software is connected to CAG’s other Atlassian products, so teams can collaborate seamlessly and access all the information they need without switching tools. For example, with Jira and Bitbucket, engineers securely work together on coding, use version control, and stay in sync through the continuous integration and deployment (CI/CD) pipeline. Confluence Cloud is also built into Jira Software, making it easy to find and manage documentation for processes, requirements, releases, commits, and more. In addition, CAG integrates their Atlassian cloud products with other tools used for daily development and operations, such as Jenkins, Figma, testing apps, and security tools.

“With Jira and Confluence, our entire SLDC [software development lifecycle] is easier, from discovery, to ideation, to prioritization, to tracking how developers are coding, all the way up to ensuring deliveries are secured and approved. We get to envision how we are going to develop, add governance to ensure releases are reviewed before being released to production, track everything developers have been doing, and more,” says DevSecOps Lead Peewee Mercurio. Mark Fabie, Chapter Lead - DevSecOps, TechOps, CyberSecurity - Digital Tech, adds, “One thing we really like about agile is getting faster feedback. With Jira and Confluence, everyone who is working on something gets notified whenever there is an update or change, making the feedback even faster.”

Since ITSM and incident management were gaps in CAG’s toolset, adding Jira Service Management has made a significant difference. The solution makes it easier for the Ecommerce and Rewards Teams to quickly fulfill and track IT service requests. With better visibility and tracking through Jira Service Management, the teams have decreased the average number of aging (or unresolved) monthly tickets over each six-month period by over 50% in three years. 

CAG also added Opsgenie to their Atlassian suite for reliable incident response and alerting, enabling the team to address critical incidents quickly and minimize downtime.

Best of all, CAG runs their Atlassian products on the cloud, freeing up the burden of managing these tools. Mark says, “We don’t have to think about infrastructure. The only thing we have to think about is if we have enough licenses.”

Modernizing and optimizing the experience for everyone

With more Atlassian cloud tools and fewer maintenance responsibilities, CAG is on the path toward digital transformation and delivering the best experience possible for both internal and external customers. “Atlassian cloud gives us visibility, accountability, and faster feedback. And we don’t have to worry about security or connecting, so we can collaborate or work from anywhere,” Mark says.

As more people flock to and fly through CAG, this ability to work quickly, flexibly, and collaboratively will be more important than ever. And now that they have Atlassian cloud solutions at their fingertips, their teams are ready for takeoff.