Ahead of the pack through vision and hustle: a case study of information technology at Rosenbluth Travel

Author

Clemons, Eric K. ; Row, Michael C.

Author_Institution

Wharton Sch., Pennsylvania Univ., Philadelphia, PA, USA

Volume

iv

fYear

1991

fDate

8-11 Jan 1991

Firstpage

287

Abstract

Rosenbluth Travel has grown from a regional travel agency with $40 million in annual sales to one of the five largest agencies in the US, with sales of over $1 billion. Their strategy was based on exploiting the structural changes initiated by airline deregulation in 1978, including the growth of the corporate travel market and increasing economies of scale leading to consolidation. IT was a fundamental part of this strategy. The case sheds light on several theories on gaining competitive advantage through IT: technology leadership, leveraging critical resources, the role of IT infrastructure and switching costs. While these theories contribute to an explanation of Rosenbluth´s success, a critical factor appears to be the vision to see an opportunity and the ability to hustle to exploit it

Keywords

DP management; travel industry; IT infrastructure; Rosenbluth Travel; airline deregulation; competitive advantage; corporate travel market; costs; critical resources; regional travel agency; structural changes; technology leadership; Computer aided software engineering; Corporate acquisitions; Costs; Economies of scale; Information technology; Management information systems; Marketing and sales; Protection; Resource management; Technology management;

fLanguage

English

Publisher

ieee

Conference_Titel

System Sciences, 1991. Proceedings of the Twenty-Fourth Annual Hawaii International Conference on

Conference_Location

Kauai, HI

Type

conf

DOI

10.1109/HICSS.1991.184071

Filename

184071