The Integration of High-Speed Technologies in the Business Climate - Essay Example

Hotel Distribution Framework Decision Making Framework in Information Technology Venture Introduction Developing a better direction to the end user is regarded as one means to obtain competitive advantage in any market. In an exceedingly competitive, automated age with innovative techniques and processes to extend to more insistent consumers all over the world, worldwide distribution networks grow increasingly essential to a company's ability to compete and develop a better direction to the end user. This is particularly true when consumers require real-time or immediate access to services and information at a time and at a place that is expedient for them. The hotel industry is the same in this respect. Within the hotel industry, network distributions are being redesigned as the outcome of technological progress, recent and rising competitors, and a change in the balance of power among buyers, suppliers and agents. The relative costs corresponding with technological venture and processing transaction, however, are increasing owing to the complicated channels and technological communications that must be in position to hold up flawless, single framework inventory in the range of distribution networks that subsist now and that will before long emerge in the future. Making matters worse, executives and managers have hardly any means and little support to help them decide when to venture, how much it cost to invest, and how to appraise or assess the trade value to be earned from the venture (Weill, 1991). This paper examines investment decisive factors and solutions, prioritisation strategies, and corporate-level decision making by hotel managers and executives with regard to information technology (IT) and in the framework of hotel distribution designs. This paper hopes to substantiate the issues considered, the evaluation of methods applied, and the procedures employed to ascertain the level of achievement from such venture and resource distribution decisions that were made with regard to information technology and a hotel company's distribution frameworks. General Overview Tourism is regarded to be one of the world's most substantial and most rapidly expanding industries. Its global extent, diversity, and mutually dependent activities necessitate companies to make effective and efficient application of information technologies and communications systems. This development will only keep going as this technological know-how become less costly, more effective, and found everywhere in the world. From the early time of farmer's markets, traders have struggled with finding out the best methods of delivering their goods to the marketplace. Generations afterward, this challenge is still present and even more challenging with the evolving, intensifying competition, and global marketplace in which firms have to operate their businesses. With the hospitality industry, the same is even more enunciated: the necessity to set up better and more distribution networks. Erstwhile principles such as location or they will get there if you build it, are not anymore enough in drawing the demanding and advanced consumers of today. Hotel distribution designs and networks are far too intricate to be regarded with such ease. As stated by Professor Roger Blackwell of Ohio State University, the direction of global distribution systems concerns the right good in the right place and time, the right price in the right set of circumstances and situations as demarcated by the consumer (Stein and Sweat, 1998). Employing this view in a hotel framework, a firm's worldwide distribution design must maintain two main goals: providing distribution networks that permit customers the option to accessibly and easily look for products and services they are agreeable to pay for with full information disclosure of availability and rates; and providing a process to complete the transaction instantaneously and providing confirmation on the spot (Castleberry, Hempell, and Kaufman, 1998). To attain these goals, a hotel distribution design needs an understandable and comprehensible strategy, committed resources, and efficient management if it aims to obtain competitive edge. "The design and management of effective and efficient distribution channels provide significant and frequently untapped opportunities for a firm to create long lasting competitive advantage (Stern and Weitz, 1997)." Firms like American Hospital Supply, Wal-Mart, FedEx, American Airlines, and Dell Computer have tactically employed information technology and distribution designs to obtain competitive edge and redefine industry structure as the outcome of knowledge's lop-sidedness, economies of scale, improved buyer and provider relationships, and enhanced channel implementation. Worldwide distribution designs have the possibility for generating better relationships with customers, reduced transactional costs and fixed overheard, improved customer service, and quick, convenient transactions. The Sophistication of a Worldwide Hotel Distribution Framework The dominant travel distribution network since the late 1960's is the CRS - Central Reservation System (Elliot, 1997). In the pioneering work of Emmer, Tauck, Wilkinson, and Moore (1993), the significance of worldwide distribution systems and electronic connections in the hospitality industry was featured in detail. They mapped out the evolution and history of hotel distribution networks and the emergence of electronic reservations. They also showed the main factors of a global hotel distribution design, specifically the airline global distribution structures, global switches (i.e. WizCom and THISCO) that deliver information between airline systems and hotel booking systems, and travel agents as one of the primary reservation providers. In a succeeding study, Schulz (1994) developed on the piece of Emmer et al. (1993). Schulz emphasised the crucial part of travel agents in the reservation process and their facility to aid guests decide which accommodations serve best their needs. Hence, Schulz stressed the necessity for a hotel to set up business collaborations with this influential sector. In Schulz's opinion, hotel computerised (or central) reservation systems are superior reservation tools but restricted with regard to their capacity to distribute information. A great deal has changed relative to the means, technologies, competitors, and much more in the direction of hotel distribution designs. The environment is completely different at the time when Emmer et al. (1993) originally outlined and defined global distribution systems, particularly in today's advancements of web-based travel agencies and services, capable software agents, and more receptive hotel accessibility and availability. As the world advances into more digital and networked, the very idea of what amounts to worldwide distribution networks and who the main participants are changes radically. Not anymore can one consider worldwide distribution design in terms of a lone unit or system, and no longer can one suppose a hotel distribution framework exclusively in the perspective of an airline distribution system or hotel central reservation system (CRS). In its place, a hotel's worldwide distribution framework should be looked upon as a combination of suitably integrated structures, people, and management as well as marketing procedures that includes the overall distribution process and interaction of systems, players and components. The sophistication of a worldwide hotel distribution framework have expanded greatly as a result of the magnitude, instability, and wave of information, and the number of available distribution networks and agents and the insufficiency of interface standards applied. With the quantity of room types, rate arrangements, package-offers, and rising limitations and rules of sale, the level of technical sophistication needed to support a global hotel distribution system and disseminate the information in a secure and protected landscape is changing. This sophistication in technology increases the cost of technology capital needed to set up and provide for the essential worldwide distribution framework infrastructure and applications. It also increases the level of complexity in appraising information technology investment decisions in regard to a hotel distribution system. To be able to effectively manage a distribution system and invest in it, needs broad knowledge of exactly what is to be managed and how precisely the firm resources be allocated to it. On the other hand, a full understanding of the concept of worldwide distribution systems in the framework of present day realities and have the ability to anticipate where they can be directed in order to choose the suitable systems and technologies to construct competitive techniques. Investment in, successful management of, and resource allocations to worldwide distribution systems and their resultant channels will bring improvements to the profitability of a hotel thereby reducing costs and increasing revenues. The underlying principle, therefore, is a hotel's effective exploitation of its distribution systems to capture a share in the market by way of upward sales while at the same time lowering overhead costs. These affect directly the hotel's improved profitability and competitive edge. Integration of the Electronic Economy The integration of information technology, telecommunications, multimedia content, interactive, and broadcast media is the distinctly most significant occurrence transforming the future (Tapscott, 1996; and, Negroponte, 1995). This digital integration, as shown in Figure 1.1, fortified by miniaturisation, manageability and portability, deteriorating costs, and more powerful digital platforms, is a portion of an upward trend propelling computers to be ever-present that they are deemed indispensable and basic to survival today and not anymore gadgets of indulgence but necessities for business and professional requirements. Figure 1.1 Integration of the Electronic Economy Information Technology Telecommunications Interactive/Multimedia Content Broadcast Media This development gives rise to the emergence of the electronic or digital economy, where convenience, speed, interconnectivity, and the ability to build up and subsequently apply knowledge are crucial competitive factors. The impact on the hospitality industry is overwhelming. The consequent effects involve lost capacity control such as room inventory, higher investment costs, more demanding and sophisticated customers, and more vigorous, competitive hospitality industry. The rules for having a survival edge are redefined due to reduced margins of profit, smarter customers, IT savvy personnel shortages, and new emerging operating models. However, the impact of this digital integration is not entirely negative. If at all, this convergence unlocks new opportunities for those who are receptive to change and to reconstruct the basis of competitive parameter underlying customer service. In the hotel industry, the frameworks for worldwide distribution systems signify the classic example of the integration of media content, communications, and technology. Add to this the World Wide Web or the Internet which gives access to real time information and transaction from any part of the globe. Modern utilisation of technology will generate unparalleled prospects for hotel executives and managers to interact with customers, products and services customised to the needs of the customers, empowering employees, and managing operations overhead. Information technology exemplifies the most significant competitive approach for the hotel industry (Olsen, 1996) since it supports and competes in the electronic economy of the future. Traditional Framework within the Hotel Industry According to Quinn (1988), conventional wisdom implies that services are less advanced technologically compared to the manufacturing industries. Within the hotel business, the traditional framework of information technology as a system of support has been in place. This framework has affected spending and investment in information technology, and utilisation all over the hotel industry. It gives more emphasis on technological systems with quantifiable revenues on investment. Strategic forecasting or anticipatory strategy is hardly applied on decision-making. This was confirmed in Cho's study (1996) relating to three multinational hospitality firms. The study showed that cost-benefit measurements uniformly prevailed over strategic forecasting when taking into consideration the decisions regarding information technology investment. Basically, information technology spending are considered as optional expenditure and hence subject to scrutiny (Antonucci and Tucker, 1998). Also, demands from Wall Street and investors to concentrate on immediate generation of revenues. In effect, it sacrifices long-term benefits and sustainable standing. The outcome of this view has time and again impeded the implementation and efficacy of information technology within the hotel industry. Withdrawing from anticipatory strategies is additionally bolstered by the continuing inclination in the direction of costs reduction for information technology equipment. These unfortunately resulted for managers to defer decisions directly related to technology and to put off decisions anticipating technology costs to become more affordable (Post, Kagan, and Lau, 1995). Information technology's potential competencies have moreover been held back by the lack of definite and explicit applications and verified solutions within the industry. Since a number of applications were taken from other industries such as airlines, they are viewed insufficient because these were not tailored-fit and their lack of facility to deal with specifically hotel related requirements and issues (Hensdill, 1998). The value and possibilities of information technology for creating competitive strategy and positioning was identified by Porter in 1985. He recognised the impact of information technology as the compelling force steering competition. More than a decade has passed before this similar acknowledgment of IT's potential is deemed evident in the hospitality industry as it competes in an information-based market (Hensdill, 1998; Cline and Blatt, 1998; Cline and Rach, 1996; Olsen, 1996). Hensdill intimated that the direction is starting to incline in the direction of more application strategies as investment in information technology all over the industry grows. Hensdill (1998) opined that it is not anymore adequate to just invest in technology for the simple reason of managing a hotel. IT: The In-Thing in the Hospitality Industry In a knowledge-based market, customer-related information and access are crucial factors to success (Cline and Rach, 1996; Cline and Blatt, 1998). These crucial factors to success are, however, attainable only through the existence of information technology and proficient, knowledgeable workforce. Only of late has the hotel industry started to proactively employ information technology in the matter of guest services. This requirement has opened up to rising competition, demands from customers, and shareholders' shift of direction towards asset maximisation. Hotel executives customarily refused to go along with utilising information technology fearing alienation of guests. There exist, however, a turn around trend since the onset of the personal computer in the early 1980's and the number of technology innovations thereafter. Investment by the industry on information technology is rising and the focus rests on worldwide distribution frameworks. This agenda is undoubtedly the most complicated in the area of hotel application for reasons of: complexity, instability of the information that includes structures of rate and room categories, and volume; the complex connections to external entities and the models used in the transaction pricing to pay for these entities for providing reservation services; the integration level needed with other, diverse central hotel structures such as PMS (Property Management Systems), management systems for revenue, sales and marketing, and guest historical data; and the sophistication and redundancy of technology that are needed to manage and support the overall worldwide distribution process and over a twenty-four-hours-a-day virtual market. These considerations are moreover made difficult for the necessity of global accessibility and presence, the increased requirements from guests to serve their particular needs, the guests' inclination to survey more thoroughly their shopping preferences, and the uptrend appeal of the World Wide Web. The industry's structure of fragmented ownership and the magnitude of mismatched technologies added to the perplexity of the situation. The objectives are to present a clear and distinct catalog such as: same information, pricings, and availability put on view to property employees, booking agents, or travel agents; real-time access, and remaining room availability to each distribution station anytime and anywhere and at the same time keeping control of hotel costs and inventory. To attain these goals, hotels certainly need sophisticated and highly capable technologies as well as high-speed information networks. The importance of worldwide distribution frameworks turns out to be deemed essential as hotels build up personalised affiliations with their guests, data storage and retrieval applications, and implementing revenue/yield management systems to optimise revenue per available room (REVPAR). Worldwide Distribution Frameworks in Perspective The aim of a worldwide distribution framework is to deliver a firm's available hotel rooms to as far-reaching potential guests as possible in the most efficient and effective medium so that these can be sold (Crichton and Edgar, 1995). More precisely, the functions taken by a hotel distribution system have changed in due time. The evolution involved the change of focus from transaction processing to that of strategic value. Figure 1.2 demonstrates the functions of a hotel distribution framework. Figure 1.2 Functions of Hotel Distribution Framework Transaction- Strategic Based Value The first function of a hotel distribution framework is utility, that is transaction-based processing and maintenance, controlling, and recording room availability levels and room rates. At the beginning, a hotel distribution system presented an uncomplicated inventory of available rooms against sold rooms at preset rates that are customarily fixed for a particular time period such as seasonal rates. In due time, this function has developed in strategic value as more focus has been put on maximisation of total revenue. This function accounts for the description of room pooling and rate types, the distribution of rooms and the control and restrictions that regulate the sale of these available rooms. The distribution system must substantiate the entire decision making relative to the rates fixed, the room allocations, and the directives and restrictions. The distribution system must relay this information to all distribution networks in real time, implementing all the directives when a room is booked or cancelled. The second function takes an important role as data storage and a profiling system for guest historical data, preference, and patterns of guest buying. This function is one of the main compilation levels of significant information and preferences relating to the guest. The importance of the stored information increases with each succeeding guest booking and from data retrieval utilised to aid a firm in building, positioning, and marketing its services and products. This function becomes a valuable supply of information, because of the data gathered, to other principal systems such as the firm's PMS and data bank. This enables a firm to enhance guest identification, customising a guest's unique requirements, positioning of product and service, and developing new product and service propositions. The third function refers to the channel of communications. It distributes essential information relating to hotel rooms availability, room rates including restrictions, and vital information about the hotel such as other facilities and profile information of a guest disseminated to different stations of distribution and delivery of service in real time readily accessible to concerned service personnel to permit them to better carry out their tasks, identify their guest, and better personalise the guest experience. The fourth function represents the revenue generation of a hotel distribution system. It refers not only in relation to rooms sold and maximisation of revenue through revenue management but also the rates imposed for partaking and for processed transactions. The final function is hotel distribution system's strategic positioning which relates to a firm's competitive edge. It functions significantly in providing access to the marketplace, permits a firm to employ distinct functionality and unique selling points, and creates strategic partnerships through inter-company systems. It provides a service or product by which is utilised to market and draw management contract agreements and franchisees. Certainly, a hotel's worldwide distribution framework is a crucial application undertaking. It is possibly the life support of the company. Any interruptions in guest service can drastically derail and devastate a hotel firm. The firms affected by the recent troubles that crippled Cendant's WizCom, a major player in travel booking system, in two days time totaling a nine-hour debacle can confirm to the critical function of a distribution system and the price to pay of a system glitch (Keates and Goetz, 1998; and Caldwell, 1998). A hotel's worldwide distribution framework is the foundation for the service distribution process in a hotel environment and for all the other hotel-related technology. However, worldwide distribution framework cannot be considered as a single framework or entity. It is an integration of systems, technologies, people, telecommunications, and stratagems, which when put all together, provide an effective framework of sales and marketing for a hotel's facilities and services. In most situations, it is the onset and primary information gathering station that provides information to all other points of the company and all succeeding system in the life cycle of the guest. A disorderly distribution framework such as those of marketing, relationship building, data retrieval, revenue management, and forecasting workforce requirements, will seriously split up a company into pieces. The price of doing business is rising and the necessity to carve a market presence in varied distribution routes such as airline worldwide distribution systems, the World Wide Web, or hotel central booking system is propelling these costs to a situation where a number of hotel executives deemed to have lost control of their own margins of profit. It is not unusual for hotels to extend more than 25 percent or even 30 percent of their revenues derived from room yields on the costs linked with the hotel booking channels. This declining revenue margin is factual, and if hotel firms resist from operating actively to create a strategic framework to manage their distribution systems, they will continually deal with losing control over their room market. Effectively and competently utilising technology is a workable framework by which hotel firms can salvage control over their room inventories. Inevitable Dominance of the Digital Market The Internet according to Wilder (1997) is creating a webolution by transforming the way everyone interact, live, work and trade. The impact of the Internet is overwhelming for all businesses especially for the hospitality industry. The Internet entirely transforms the hotel distribution and reservations landscape. The decision options provided by the Internet market is revolutionising the hospitality industry by its innovative developments. Hotel executives with receptive view on the potential of the digital market had capitalised on them to gain competitive advantage, expand their market audience, decrease costs of distribution, and promote better customer service and experience. A number of hotel firms are vigorously engaging themselves in utilising the Internet to promote their services and products, distribute information, interact with their prospective customers on real time, and extend their reservation points. They are positively attempting to harness the potential of the electronic economy. To these forward looking firms, the Internet provides a sustainable opportunity for restructuring their basic business framework. The objectives are to promote the customer value proposition, to draw customer one-on-one relationship, and to generate guest to patronise their products and services by taking advantage of a closer marketing prospects and by setting up enriched, personalised transaction experiences via the utilisation of integrative tools and non-alienating software vehicles that trace customer's preferences. The gains to the customers are personalised aimed promotions, indicative selling, and tailored-fit requirements when interfacing with company service representative or when visiting the company's internet web site. To the consumer, the World Wide Web is a convenient and potent resource to survey destinations and shop for hotel room accommodations. Certainly for many, the Internet becomes a very important resource. It supplies large resource of real time information such as locations, precise maps, acceptable currencies and conversion rates, travel recommendations and advisories, weather updates, local events, prospective sites to visit, resorts, local cultures, and just everything one wants to know. With a simple click of a computer key or mouse, prospective customers can readily access information about a certain hotel such as rates, travel destinations, facilities, and other domestic attractions. The Internet is utilised by consumers to search for travel bargain rates, comparative-shopping selections, and information on fares, and even travel accommodation auctions and bids. In short, consumers set up the price ceiling they are agreeable to pay. With the presence of the Internet, consumers dictate the buying process since they are more informed. The trend more progressively is directed to the possibility for real-time models for pricing, where the rise and fall in price constantly occur similar to that of a stock market in which prices are steered by the volume of trading (Davis and Meyer, 1998). Adopting this model to the hospitality industry would spell an entirely new concept in revenue management. The Internet today allows access to more than 100.5 million people all over the globe, and the trend is rapidly increasing. It was estimated that more then 327 million people will access the Internet by year 2000. Internet has become an indispensable function of society just like TV or the telephone. With more than 11,000 travel industry sites on the web, the industry benefited from the rapid growth of digital trading on the Internet (Loftus, 1997). Hundreds of millions of dollars in travel bookings and accommodations were attributable to the Internet (Shapiro, 1997). As illustrated in Figure 1.3 and Figure 1.4, Forrester Research estimated that for travel lodging alone, the 1998 contributions for hotel reservations via the Internet amounted to US$1.1 billion in revenues or 4.44 million hotel trips. The figures are expected to increase ten times over for the succeeding five years to about US$10 billion or 37.12 million hotel trips (McQuivey et al., 1998). These overwhelming projections only suggest that the Internet cannot be set aside as non-viable in providing hotel distribution opportunities to sell and market hotel accommodations. The rapid growth and potential capabilities of the Internet are accompanied by declining apprehensions for privacy concerns and security issues. Electronic trading and digital commerce will grow to be conventional in not so distant future. The World Wide Web is rapidly developing into society's life support system (Shapiro, 1997). Quoting President Bill Clinton on the impact of the Internet on business, economy, and society: "As the Internet becomes our new town square, a computer in every home - a teacher of all subjects, a connection to all cultures - this will no longer be a dream but a necessity" (Stahlman, 1997, p.88). Figure 1.3 SOURCE: FORRESTER RESEARCH- MCQUIVEY ET AL. (1998, p.8) Figure 2.4 SOURCE: FORRESTER RESEARCH- MCQUIVEY ET AL. (1998, p.8) Conclusion The integration of high-speed technologies, powerful software, and sophisticated, worldwide telecommunications structures is transforming the business climate all over the globe. This same integration is attributed for redefining and redesigning worldwide distribution frameworks and marketing. They are not anymore restricted to the simple concepts suggested by Schulz (1994) and Emmer et al. (1993). Hotel reservation bookings can be a tedious process and take so much time for the guest. This is partly due to the number of available options and the natural inefficiencies and ineptness in hotel booking system. With the emerging technological breakthroughs in technology and the Internet, the landscape is changing. A worldwide hotel distribution framework is turning out to be a complicated network of systems that give consumers direct access, convenience, and real-time processes to a hotel's available accommodations, room rates, and information on hotel facilities. The new avenue of competitive edge will be more dependent on intellect instead of the focus on capital and assets. In a high-speed, dynamic, and sophisticated market the customer is the core focus taking into consideration a customer who is more informed, demanding, and mindful of value. A hotel can no longer survive in the future if it will not transform itself into an organisation of learning and redefine itself to generate value and provide personalised service. Information will be the future's arena in competition. To gain future advantage and positioning, a hotel must recognise and effectively implement the systems and technologies and utilise their capabilities. The main objective will be to innovatively apply technologies in the context of providing a superior customised service and distinct experience for each customer. Information technology will make these opportunities attainable but only if the right framework is setup first. The right framework is dependent on the organisation's flexibility and capability to address the changing requirements for doing business and taking advantage of recent innovations in technology. There is a need to develop a strategy that will identify and comprehend the events emerging in the future. The necessity to invest on information technology and the outcome of integration is highly reasonable and vital to the future of the industry. To proactively meet the inevitable changes, the industry must do the well-timed planning now. Hotel firms have unique chances to capture the world market through information technology. On the other hand, technological developments are taking away control such as that of the worldwide availability of hotel rooms, car rentals or airline seats from the proprietors of these assets and placing control under the dictates of travelers, reservation and booking agencies, and service entities. The possible threats to hotel managers and executives could include such risks as: increasing costs of distribution that will reduce contribution margins; rooms are sold by agents or agencies in greater number; requests for more and bigger room discounts by service agencies who will turn out to be travel wholesale brokers. It is clear that the landscape for doing hotel business is being transformed. Conventional marketing concepts will need to be revised and adjusted to meet the requirements of the more information-savvy travelers armed with sophisticated tools to make an informed judgment for available prices and options. In positioning for the future, hotels have to raise their levels of information technology systems to facilitate integration with the external setting while at the same time maintaining control of rates and establish strategies in selling. Indisputably, hotels' worldwide distribution frameworks are redefining how travel accommodations are facilitated. They are remodeling how the actual and perceived control those travel service agencies have over their available rooms. The frameworks are also reforming the functions of agents and agencies in the process of selling. The speed of transformation is fast rising and the paradigm for value creation in the next millennium will be radically distinctive from the traditional and conventional model. 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