Heathrow Airport unifies finance and HR with Fusion Cloud Applications

Coordinating work across the airport

London Heathrow Airport is one of the world’s leading international hubs, connecting passengers to more than 230 destinations in nearly 90 countries worldwide. Heathrow’s focus is on delivering a high-quality airport experience, which depends on coordination across many moving parts, from workforce planning and procurement to revenue management and vendor payments.

As passenger numbers increase and expansion plans remain in view, Heathrow continues to invest in modernizing enterprise processes and systems that support resilience, agility, and consistent service delivery at scale.

Moving from fragmented reporting to enterprise analytics

With long-term growth in sight, including future expansion and increased passenger numbers, Heathrow needed business systems that could scale.

As teams looked to answer more complex questions across finance and HR, spreadsheets and manual processes became a limiting factor. Reporting packs were assembled through manual extracts and copy/paste workflows, costing significant time and creating avoidable risks around data consistency.

Heathrow also wanted to operate as a data-driven organization, where teams could access real-time insights, identify issues early (such as late payments), and support decisions that improve both efficiency and the passenger experience.

Standardizing on Fusion Cloud Applications

Through project Magenta, with Oracle Fusion Cloud Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) and Oracle Fusion Cloud Human Capital Management (HCM) at the core, Heathrow unified key finance and HR workflows on a single cloud platform. Heathrow now has a foundation for automating manual tasks, standardizing business processes, and giving employees real-time access to integrated financial and HR data.

That foundation helps teams make faster decisions, respond to day-to-day needs, and support growth and expansion goals. Rather than tailoring the system around old ways of working, Heathrow kept customizations to a minimum so teams could adopt consistent processes across finance and HR.

“The Oracle platform does many things well, but simply put, it just works,” says Caroline Knight, head of technology, London Heathrow Airport. “We now have a standard set of processes, where everyone knows where and how to get things done. We implemented a vanilla product with minimal customizations and a consistent look and feel, so it’s easier for employees to use and for us to maintain.”

Results across finance, HR, and billing

Since implementing Oracle Fusion Cloud Applications Suite, Heathrow has brought processes together across the organization. Within the lines of business, tasks such as hiring, procurement, and revenue management are managed through one suite, producing time savings and supporting productivity.

Oracle Billing and Revenue Management supports Heathrow’s multi-million-pound B2B transactions with airlines, helping the airport launch flexible business models and increase automation for new billing streams.

Real-time insights support improved operational efficiency and day-to-day responsiveness. And all Heathrow employees benefit from a consistent user experience that supports adoption and day-to-day work.

Chief People Officer Paula Stannett says, “If you want to attract and keep the right talent, you need to provide a great work experience. Oracle Cloud HCM has transformed all that. Tasks that took 20 to 50 hours are done in a fraction of that.”

Expanding analytics while exploring predictive and AI use cases

Heathrow is also expanding how it uses data, moving from reactive reporting to proactive action. As analytics adoption increases across the business, teams are replacing manual spreadsheet-based processes with dashboards that make issues visible earlier and enable more targeted interventions.

Finance analytics
In addition, Heathrow is exploring predictive use cases that bring AI thinking into day-to-day financial operations, particularly for collections and revenue management with airline customers.

“One of the big things is that the AI use cases are there about predictions, you know who’s going to pay latest, who normally pays later, who’s likely to do it in the future, and focusing the team on those areas to know who to chase and who not to,” says Alan Petrie, head of master data management and insights, London Heathrow Airport. “At the moment they’re very reactive, it’s become becoming proactive, you know, much more efficient that direction.”

Human resources analytics
Looking ahead, Heathrow plans to bring additional operational data sources into its broader analytics approach, helping connect workforce and operational planning more tightly to passenger experience outcomes.

By improving visibility into staffing patterns, peak periods, and operational demand, Heathrow aims to help ensure “the right people are in the right place at the right time”—supporting smoother journeys for passengers and more efficient operations across the airport.

Partners

Heathrow partnered with Capgemini and Oracle Consulting to deliver the program.