EmQuest: Travel Distribution in the Digital Era

Karim R. Lakhani; Gamze  Yucaoglu

Case | HBS Case Collection | February 2018

EmQuest: Travel Distribution in the Digital Era

Abstract

EmQuest, Emirates Group’s travel distribution company, must decide what to do with its contract with the global distribution system it uses, Sabre. Since its founding in 1988, EmQuest was servicing travel agents in the MENA region by providing a connection to over 400 airlines as well as numerous other travel suppliers. EmQuest mainly relied on Sabre to provide this service to the agents, and its contract was coming to an end.
In the last decade years, since the beginning of EmQuest’s Sabre contract, while EmQuest grew, a lot happened in the travel industry: the Internet transformed customer habits, low-cost carriers emerged, and the Middle East experienced a boom in tourism. The conditions under which EmQuest had first signed its contract with Sabre a decade before were much different in 2017.
With change happening so rapidly and impacting the fundamentals of the travel business model so dramatically, it was a real challenge to predict where the industry would be in the next decade. Yet the management needed to make a decision regarding the Sabre contract in 2017, amidst such a whirlwind in the market.

Keywords: UAE; emerging markets; for-profit firms; business model; Business Strategy; competitive advantage; growth and development strategy; value creation; change management; decision; Business Model; Competitive Strategy; Growth and Development Strategy; Decision Choices and Conditions; Travel Industry; United Arab Emirates;

Language: English

Format: Print

19 pages

Educators

Citation:

Lakhani, Karim R., and Gamze Yucaoglu. "EmQuest: Travel Distribution in the Digital Era." Harvard Business School Case 618-040, February 2018.

Open data science and algorithm development competitions offer a unique avenue for rapid discovery of better computational strategies. We highlight three examples in computational biology and bioinformatics research where the use of competitions has yielded significant performance gains over established algorithms. These include studying algorithms for antibody clustering, imputing gene expression data, and querying the Connectivity Map (CMap). Performance gains are evaluated quantitatively using realistic, albeit sanitized, data sets. The solutions produced through these competitions are then examined with respect to their utility and the prospects for implementation in the field. We present the decision process and competition design considerations that lead to these successful outcomes as a model for researchers who want to use competitions and non-domain crowds as collaborators to further their research.

Case | HBS Case Collection | February 2019

Sales Force Management at Nobel Ilac

Doug J. Chung and Gamze Yucaoglu

The case opens in 2017 as Hakan Sahin, CEO of Nobel, the Turkish pharmaceuticals company, reviews Nobel’s year-to-date performance. The case describes the pharmaceutical market and sales channels in Turkey and provides a background on Nobel. The case also provides details about a transformation strategy; particularly, a customer segmentation plan, whereby the salesforce began to use a scientific matrix when determining their call plans. As a result, between 2014-2017, Nobel increased its sales significantly and its previously negative EBITDA reached double digit positive numbers. In 2017, two key issues still remained: growth was not as high as desired, and the voluntary turnover rate for the sales force was very high. Given that the sales force was the only go-to-market channel for Nobel, Sahin needed to do something to reduce the sales force turnover without affecting the positive trend in sales and profits. He contemplated the options with his executive team where many proposed a change in sales force compensation. Should he increase the fixed base salary, increase the performance-based variable pay, or change the fundamental structure of compensation? Or should Sahin keep compensation the same and adjust other factors such as the recruitment criteria, mentoring, and (or) training?

Keywords: Sales strategy; compensation; Employee Retention; recruiting; Pharmaceuticals; Salesforce Management; Strategy; Organizational Design; Human Resources; Compensation and Benefits; Employees; Retention; Recruitment; Training; Emerging Markets; Private Sector; For-Profit Firms; Pharmaceutical Industry; Turkey;

Citation:

Chung, Doug J., and Gamze Yucaoglu. "Sales Force Management at Nobel Ilac." Harvard Business School Case 519-067, February 2019. View Details

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The case opens in 2013 as Amine Benkirane, founder and CEO of the leading Moroccan furniture company KITEA, contemplates the loss his company has incurred for the first time in its 20-year history. The case then describes KITEA’s origins and provides a detailed overview of the business plan that enabled Benkirane to bring affordable modern furniture in flatpacks to the Moroccan market, which had previously been dominated by unorganized artisans. At the beginning of 2010, KITEA was a market leader with a robust market share of 24%. However, Benkirane read about rumors that IKEA was planning to enter the Moroccan market. The case explores in detail KITEA’s efforts to prepare for the increased competition. In 2013, KITEA found itself in a difficult situation, facing a downturn in the economy, a slowdown in sales, a delayed store opening, and souring creditor sentiment following the news about IKEA’s entry. Would KITEA be able to bounce back and remain competitive when IKEA entered the market?

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EmQuest: Travel Distribution in the Digital Era

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