Blog homeFirstly a definition - I like the one from CadburySchweppes which is “The benefit for consumers and/or customers which competitors may find difficult or uneconomic to replicate”. Not to be confused with cost advantage (doing the same as a competitor but at lower cost) or product difference (differentiation advantage)
Phew. Glad got those out of the way!
I have been thinking about this for a few weeks. I have been wondering whether by having one reservation system rather than another - whether a tour operator can compete more strongly than a competitor. Can software really make a difference?
To answer this I suspect its a matter of size of company. I have personally worked on ecommerce projects for tour operators who turn over a million dollars (or more) per day through their reservation system. These companies tend to have very efficient business processes (ways of doing things) - and develop software to support those business processes. Therefore it is the business process that could perhaps give competitive advantage (especially as when you get to this size of company, change occurs slowly, so the advantage comes from having a solution in place that a competitor can’t get up and running in the near future).
At the other end of the scale - smaller tour operators are probably forced to use business processes that can be supported by their chosen software. The budget just isn’t available for custom development to take place. Smaller companies will therefore tend to adapt their business processes around the software. This is probably the largest shock to companies who are coming from offline systems created in software like Microsoft Access - as previously they have been used to creating software that supports their business process (i.e just like larger companies)
From a TourCMS perspective (and I apologise for getting geeky) we have taken the approach that individual companies should have the capability to do things well - or badly. In particular this is true around the web end of a small tour operator business. TourCMS gives you the capability to invest in your website and create something truly amazing - giving you competitive advantage. For those less inclined to spend time or money in this direction, we still aim to get people up and running with our “out of the box” functionality - which is reasonable.
To further explain, take for for example a shopping cart system such as OScommerce or Miva Merchant. If you have seen these systems before (they let retailers sell product online - but don’t do tours really) - when you go to an OScommerce or Miva Merchant powered retail website - you recognise it immediately. This is because their approach has been that you pretty much get a system “out of the box”. It is difficult for a web designer to do a bad job with one of these products. Conversely it is difficult for a web designer to create a unique site as well. (not impossible, just difficult). One advantage of this approach is that finding people with skills capable of setting up these systems is fairly easy. However, you can’t get competitive advantage from it. Anyone can come along and setup a site…. so the system doesn’t give competitive advantage.
So in summary, I think that its quite difficult for a reservation system to give you competitive advantage. Your website can (and the scale of that advantage is often restricted by your reservation system). However, my opinion is that a poor reservation system can give you competitive disadvantage!
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