An interesting read where Jon Bauer - CTO at Travel Counsellors makes some good points about how technology enables your business to operate more successfully. Off the shelf technology carries a lot of value, especially for internal operations. Where you have digital touchpoints with your customers though, you should focus on your what makes you different and translate that into a digital experience. 

Being able to automate administrative tasks frees up travel agents to deliver more of what they are great at. More interaction with the customer. More time to listen and really understand their requirements. But it can be a daunting prospect investing in new tech. Business owners worry about the cost of the tech itself as well as the cost of the transition. But it is so important to focus on the value that technology will add. 

About 15 years ago I had the pleasure of working with the top sales person in my organisation at the time. He was responsible for generating over £1.2 million of revenue per year, at a profit margin of 70%! He wanted to do more with the time he had available and over the period of a month, he analysed what he was doing throughout the course of a day. He identified that he spent circa 1 hour a day pushing paper around his desk. Multiply that up and it came to 240 hours a year, or 30 days. 

He introduced technology to remove that paper pushing, which gave him back circa 30 days of additional time to spend with his customers each year. He increased his revenue by just under £80,000 the next year, all thanks to removing an unorganised, paper pushing process!