Golden Village could not sell tickets through third parties. The booking system ran on a non-centralised database, so exposing data to an outside application risked double-bookings. Agile Labs left the booking system alone and built a middleware layer in front of it. Tickets now sell through Grab, Google and Facebook Messenger.
Movie-goers increasingly book through platforms that compare cinemas and showtimes in one place, and none of them could reach Golden Village’s inventory.
The obstruction was architectural. The timetable and booking system ran on a non-centralised database, so exposing data to an outside application risked data overlap, and data overlap in a booking system means double-bookings.
The business consequence was a channel that stayed closed. The technical consequence was that the obvious fix, replacing the booking system, was disproportionate to the problem.
The existing system was not replaced. A middleware layer was built in front of it, compounding the information safely and serving it outward.
Aggregates booking and timetable data and exposes it to third parties without the risk of overlap.
Tickets sell through Grab, Google and Facebook Messenger.
Media assets managed centrally rather than as separate databases per outlet.
The third-party sales channel opened. Ticket sales and payment collection run through automated operations, and running costs fell through central management of media assets rather than per-outlet duplication.
The constraint was the database design and the answer was not to fix the database. Putting an interface in front of a system is usually cheaper and lower-risk than changing what is behind it, and it leaves the option of changing it later.
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