¶ … new technology -- The Internet -- and discuss the following concepts: Strategic thrusts, Strategic value of networks (if applicable), Stages of growth, IT strategy, Social and organizational changes (requirements and/or barriers), and Critical success factors.
Recently, one of travel agencies located at a rural area at Johnstown, Indiana decided to make the use of the Internet for handling the travel needs of its customers. Previously, the agency was connected with American Airline's reservation systems; however, this system was quite inflexible to meet the growing travel needs of the customers. Therefore, lately the agency has decided to use the Internet for meeting the travel demands of the customers. In the following I discuss the reasons for such a change.
Strategic Thrusts: The major strategic thrust for using the Internet technology was based on the agency's requirements for handling customers' various travel needs. In recent times, customers are demanding not only air travel bookings but also looking for the reservations of cars, hotels, and travel-guides to show them new places. Since the previous reservation systems as used by the agency could not meet these needs simultaneously, the agency had begun to use the Internet technology, since it can provide the flexibility and offer the capability of one-stop booking for airlines, cars, hotels, and travel-guides (Laudon and Laudon, 2000). In addition, the Internet provides the flexibility of comparing prices of several airlines, hotels, and travel guides. These comparisons are being used by the agency to provide the...
By bundling different services simultaneously, the agency is beginning to charge premium prices for its services and has also attracted new customers, who are looking for going on a vacation in resort on long-term sight seeing.
Strategic Value of Networks: Since the Internet use has become common in the United
States and other Western Countries, it is no surprise that the strategic value of the Internet has risen rapidly. There are several reasons for it. First, because almost all of the firms have begun to use the Internet for conducting their businesses -- order processing, payment scheduling, and order confirmation processing; only a few companies can expect not to take the advantages of the Internet technology.
One thing that is important in understanding the strategic value of the networks is that when more number of companies begins to use the Internet, the more flexibility and strategic value the Internet provides to the users (Turban, McLean, and Wetherbe, 2002).
In the travel agency's case, the agency will be able to gain more flexibility and value when it can connect to the Internet technologies of the other agencies such as-car booking, hotel reservations, and travel-guides. If it were not the case, the agency would not be able to provide the high level of services to its customers.
Stages of Growth: Internet technology for business purposes has gone through different stages. In the first stage, the Internet was used for merely displaying the advertisements of a company's products and services.…
