دیجیتالی کردن روابط بازار در کسب و کار هواپیمایی: تاثیر و چشم انداز کسب و کار الکترونیکی

In today's hypercompetitive environment, new sources of product and process innovation are continually being sought to reinforce companies’ competitive advantages. In the recent past, the digital revolution inspired new managerial applications to strengthen positions within market arenas. In the case of airlines, early web applications were in the form of asynchronous sites, where customers could get little more than the same information on timetables and fares provided by travel agents albeit in new formats. Later, carriers started selling tickets on the web to make use of the cheaper distribution channel than the standard computer reservation systems (CRSs). Today, Internet potentially permits carriers to get significant economic and competitive benefits beyond those simply coming from e-commerce. A wider e-business perspective may assure a one-to-one relationship with target customers, with a consequential fine-tuning of a firm's system offer. At the same time, carriers may exploit the significant cost savings from their procurement processes

As a general market trend, the substantial growth in the output in the recent years has moved firms beyond traditional focus on efficiency and, in particular, to look for potential market segmentation and product differentiation. What is now of importance for many firms is the adoption of ‘customer responsive’ through the reengineering of the value proposition of the desires and expectations declared by customers. The challenge for firms is, therefore, linked to a focus on applications that allow further increases in the customer–supplier interface so that it is possible to generate new forms of competitive advantage at the lowest possible marginal costs. In this sense, the so-called Digital Revolution (Shapiro and Varian, 2000), namely the diffusion of Internet on a pervasive scale, may create new strategic patterns of action for proactive firms (Valdani (1995) and Valdani (1997)). These goals may, on the one hand, be reached through the design and development of ‘really new’ and innovative value propositions. In this case, firms offer their products and services through the digital channel alone and give life to virtual companies such as Amazon.com and Ebay.com. On the other hand, ‘occasions for change’ may be implemented on an incremental basis, and by working on an existent product and service portfolio. This can embody the case of existing firms that initially open a web site to establish complementary communication and distribution channels but eventually offer new ancillary services. This alternative may be suitable for those industries generally included in what is often considered the old economy. Air transport falls is considered to fall into this category. Table 1 shows evidence of the weight of online retail sales in the main sectors in the US. Its importance in travel is clearly seen.In simplified terms, the appeal of doing business on the Internet comes from the possibility of contacting consumers and producers in a highly flexible way. The web interface multiplies the range of choices for buyers, while giving sellers access to new demand clusters at normally much lower transaction and operating costs. This is especially so in the context of transactions involving less tangible items and services (Valdani, 2000). The impact of Internet on a firm's value management is just confined within a narrow e-commerce approach. e-Commerce is increasingly only a first step within a wider goal of digitalisation of the firm's entire front-line and back-office applications. In this sense, the passage from e-commerce to an enriched e-business perspective suggests a change not only in the way outputs are sold (e-commerce), but also in a redefinition of offer types and procurement practices together with a one-to-one consolidation of the links with the target customers or suppliers. Fig. 1 shows those that are often seen as the four main drivers of the impact of e-business within a firm's value stream.As seen in Table 1, the implementation of new digital technologies has been most intense in the macro-environments of tourism and travel. The impact has been particularly significant in the tourism pipeline (Jarach, 2001) and for air travel. Air carriers, for example, have enjoyed exponential growths in online ticket sales for the past two years and there are forecasts suggesting that this new distribution channel would amount to $12 billion dollar for airlines by 2002.

The possible implementation of new web-based solutions to carriers’ value generating activities has implications for air transport industry's management. Only a short time ago, firms operating on the web were regarded as pioneers. Nowadays, the spread of the web even in relatively backward markets means that virtually no actor can wait to redesign a unique entrepreneurial formula around a web platform. This includes carriers that traditionally have been active only in niche markets, or markets still partly protected by restrictive legislation, such as airlines. The immediate access to the global market provided by Internet rapidly destroys product (or position)-based competitive advantage but it does give innovators a chance to increase their market power. To take advantage, there is, thus, a need to adopt a new market philosophy. This cannot be limited to the simple creation of new distributive channels designed for the narrower aim of cost-saving. e-Business implies a substantial redefinition of the ‘old’ business models, with the purpose of introducing something completely new to the consumer experience. This means satisfying the needs of consumers, as well as attracting, fascinating and tying the consumer to the airline in a creative and entertaining way. It means using technology not just to develop the product, but also to innovate and improve the whole consumption experience that surrounds the choice of a product, from selection and order to post-sale management. The availability of new technological solutions, and a willingness to restructure systems to achieve new competitive advantages helps in explaining why 87%4 of airlines have moved towards Internet systems in pools and consortiums. Internet is an extraordinary infrastructure that is in continuous development. In the 1980s, the answer of incumbent airlines to low-cost entants was the design of new forms of offer (such as the FFP) and services aimed at retaining high-spending customers. Megacarriers chose to partly abandon price competition on elastic segments because of cost disadvantages that made it impossible to match low-cost carriers’ fares. Recently, Internet, has offered a potentially a ‘win–win’ technology for all types of air carriers. Megacarriers can use it as an innovative tool for CRM applications while low-cost providers can exploit the web for distributing their services at fares approaching their marginal costs whilst covering their procurement costs. Carriers that pursue the traditional business model will face a risk of marginalisation and exit from the competitive arena, while e-business-centred operators have the opportunity to survive in a hypercompetitive environment.