Actually, it's not that hard. EK own an IT business called Mercator. While I don't know the total capabilities of the business or IT solutions on offer, a component of their platform is a CRM and loyalty management product.
http://www.mercator.com/solutions/CRM/CRM.aspx

To achieve "scale" all the business needs to do is to create another set of "rules" or parameters which its current system follows. For example, people who achieve 100,000 tier miles within 12-months, people who fly 4+ F sectors in a month, they can identify top 20 customers by route, by country, by spend etc etc.

The challenge is getting the human component right - ie delivering on the benefits. Or having the resources to deliver these benefits.

EK already have a Top 50 customer list by country/airport - which every EK station has access to.

Whatever we may think of UA, I can assure you they have this side of the business sorted out. Program has 3 standard tiers (Premier, Premier Exec and 1K), Invitation Only equivalent (Global Services), plus incentives and recognition for 1MM, 2MM and 3MM. They track spend on a membership base which is 5 times the size of EK's.

EK could easily do this - if they put their minds to it and had the right people (in terms of resource not just competence).