Buying a Travel System

Genesys has assisted many travel, tourism and hospitality organisations including tour operators and travel agents to buy new systems. Most organisations will be replacing their major strategic systems every seven to ten years. This means that there may not be the available resources or necessary skills to manage a project to buy a new computer system.

Moreover, they may be at a substantial disadvantage compared to the suppliers to whom they are talking. The suppliers are very familiar with selling their systems but, for their customers, this will be a very rare occurrence. This may put travel companies at a negotiating disadvantage.

Genesys, on the other hand, is involved in many system purchase projects. We have developed a tried and tested methodology that substantially reduces the risk inherent in buying a new travel or tour operator reservation system. 

We are very familiar with negotiation techniques to ensure our clients get excellent value for money. 

Our methodology takes you through an eight stage process.

1. Gather requirements

Our consultant interviews management and staff concerned with using the new system. The information gathered allows us to document all the business requirements that the new system will have to handle.

2. Advise on suppliers to short-list

We are familiar with the system suppliers in the marketplace. We discuss the pros and cons of each with you to arrive at a short-list.

3. Prepare business requirement specification

We prepare the business requirement specification. In the case of the purchase of a ready-built system, we use our experience to stress those requirements that are unusual or important, ensuring there is enough written detail to allow suppliers to properly assess the requirement.

4. Prepare invitation to tender

We build the business requirement specification into a formal invitation to tender (ITT). Using our experience, we build into the ITT all the clauses necessary to ensure a thorough and controlled written response from suppliers.

5. Facilitate demonstrations

An important aspect of procuring a system is to meet the system suppliers. We facilitate the meetings to ensure that you receive the system demonstrations you need rather than the demonstrations the suppliers' sales management wish to give.

6. Prepare scoring spreadsheet

We have developed a sophisticated multi-level, hierarchical, weighted scoring system. This allows us to manage your priorities in detail. Buying a new system is inevitably a compromise between various factors, for example, price, usability, meeting business requirements. Our unique scoring system manages this process down to the finest level of detail.

7. Score tenders

On receipt of suppliers' tenders, we pre-score these and then meet with you to review and finalise scoring. The scoring system makes visible to you exactly why and where one system and its supplier is better or worse than another.

8. Advise on negotiations

Having chosen a preferred supplier, we advise you on how best to conduct negotiations, based on our many years experience of system procurement.