Reference no: EM133303290

Holiday Travel Vehicles consists of roughly hundreds of independently managed franchised offices throughout the United States with over 10000 sales specialists. Holiday Travel Vehicles is in the business of buying and selling recreational vehicles. The goal of the franchisees and their independent agents is to bring in potential customers, nurture customers, and deliver a positive vehicle experience. Holiday travel serves the full lifecycle of owning, renting, leasing, financing, and remodeling holiday or vacation travel vehicles including bikes, cars, RVs, boats, and others for both the buyers and sellers. In other words, Holiday Travel Vehicles allows not only buyers to rent, lease or buy vehicles, but also sellers (and those who want to rent out their vacation vehicle) to put the vehicles up on the market.

The last few years (especially during COVID) have witnessed a tremendous change in the industry. Thanks to new and emerging web-based platforms, customers are now able to access travel vehicle information online, which was not possible before. Travel enthusiasts can now access travel vehicles without a sales agent and make their reservations online. Due to an increase in self-served customers, Holiday Travel is negatively affected as their earnings are largely dependent on sales commissions. At the same time, buyers are also empowered with tools to compare vehicles online and sellers to look at similar vehicles.

It is now common to include dozens of photos, video tours, years, and asking prices. An agent will directly request information from the system on listings that match customer requirements. Information is provided on the vehicle, on the sales agent who listed the vehicle, and on the franchised office for which the agent works. It is important to have information on the listing agent, such as name, office phone, cell phone, and e-mail address. This information is needed because an agent might want to call the listing agent to ask additional questions or call to make an appointment to show the vehicle.

While entering a new vehicle in the system, the sales agent takes photos of the vehicle, collects necessary information from owners and enter the information to the system manually. Some of the competitors developed Sales Force Automation (SFA) systems that allow their agents to list the properties from their mobile phones and portable devices. Those cloud-based SFA applications do not require IT experts, to set up or manage. The agents simply log in and start connecting to customers in a whole new way. Holiday Travel started to lose its best-performing real estate agents to rival firms as their SFA systems make agents more efficient.

A newly elected top management of Holiday Travel is well known for embracing cutting-edge technology for better customer experience and operations. The new top management decided to start a new initiative to make a nationwide system that will provide a competitive advantage in the long term. The new nationwide system will change the power structure in the industry. Holiday Travel also wants to build an SFA system that will integrate seamlessly with the individual systems of various franchisees. It believes that both systems are of strategic importance and is eager to start both projects at the same time. Keep in mind that the nationwide system can be used by all agents of the franchisees. The ultimate aim of Holiday Travel is to make the new MLS system source of competitive advantage.

With the new system, Holiday Travel Vehicles wants the data about the vehicles (and possibly existing customers) to be readily available to their sales agents across different franchisees. When new vehicles arrive at Holiday Travel Vehicles, a new vehicle record is created. Included in the new vehicle record are a vehicle serial number, name, model, year, manufacturer, and base cost. When a customer arrives at Holiday Travel Vehicles, he or she works with a salesperson to negotiate a vehicle purchase. When a purchase has been agreed upon, a sales invoice is completed by the salesperson.
The invoice summarizes the purchase, including full customer information, information on the trade-in vehicle (if any), the trade-in allowance, and information on the purchased vehicle. If the customer requests dealer-installed options, they are listed on the invoice as well. The invoice also summarizes the final negotiated price, plus any applicable taxes and license fees. The transaction concludes with a customer signature on the sales invoice.
Customers are assigned a customer ID when they make their first purchase from Holiday Travel Vehicles. Name, address, and phone number are recorded for the customer. The trade-in vehicle is described by a serial number, make, model, and year. Dealer-installed options are described by an option code, description, and price.

Each invoice lists just one customer. A person does not become a customer until he or she purchases a vehicle. Over time, a customer may purchase a number of vehicles from Holiday Travel Vehicles. Every invoice must be filled out by only one salesperson. A new salesperson might not have sold any vehicles, but experienced salespeople have probably sold many vehicles.

Each invoice only lists one new vehicle. If a new vehicle in inventory has not been sold, there will be no invoice for it. Once a vehicle sells, there will be just one invoice for it. A customer may decide to have no options added to the vehicle or may choose to add many options. An option may be listed on no invoices, or it may be listed on many invoices. A customer may trade in no more than one vehicle on a purchase of a new vehicle. The trade-in vehicle may be sold to another customer who later trades it in on another Holiday Travel vehicle.

Question:

Your management information systems course stressed the importance of analyzing the business situations using several models such as the Porter's Competitive Forces Model, the Value Chain model etc. and the importance of using generic information systems strategies such as Low-Cost Leadership, Product Differentiation etc. for achieving competitive advantage. Furthermore, the class also discussed the importance of considering management, organizational, and technological issues when building and using the information systems successfully. For the next set of questions, you are required to apply these concepts when providing your recommendations

Discuss the structure of the industry in which your business (Holiday Travel Vehicles) is located? Evaluate the elements of the Porter's Competitive Forces Model and Value Chain model as it applies to your business above. Describe the results of this evaluation.
List all of the Management Information Systems (MIS) you would recommend for the Holiday Travel Vehicles scenario described above. How effective are these systems in giving your business a competitive edge? Explain your answer.
What management, organization and technology issues should be considered when implementing your proposed systems for your business.
NOTE: You may make additional assumptions concerning the above scenario. However, these assumptions must be clearly stated in each response and be reasonable.

NOTE: If you make any assumptions, please clearly note them IN EACH applicable section. Each section is individually graded by different professors. Professors will not grade questions not assigned to them. As a result, your answer(s) should be stand-alone answers meaning that all assumptions will need to be clearly stated WITHIN each question in which the issue is relevant.