Information Technology Reference
In-Depth Information
Chapter 11
Federation | Talking to Strangers
The sun glinted on the winding river in the valley below the hotel as
the group gathered round the table on the terrace. Marcus had specified
that this off-site planning weekend should be informal, but serious business,
nevertheless. They had spent the afternoon before reviewing their current
position, and had been treated to an excellent dinner as a thanks offering for
the progress they had made. The morning session was gnomically labelled as
new business models on the agenda, and frustratingly vague compared with
the clear topics of the previous day.
\Well, I hope you all enjoyed your breakfast," said Marcus, \but I want to
share some important news with you now. I didn't give you any preparatory
material because this is very sensitive, not for us, but for our new collaborators,
who could be in deep trouble with the market if their involvement became
known at the wrong time." He certainly had their attention now, although
Eleanor had a self-satisfied look that indicated she knew what was in the wind.
\We have been in discussions over the last couple of months with Factotum,
the market leader in bespoke luxury travel packages. They want to include
access to our services in a portfolio of benefits to take the hassle out of travel.
They are making a big thing of these extras in their advertising; to be honest,
they are being hurt by the fringe benefits some of the top-end credit card
companies are oering to their platinum cardholders, and need to ght back."
Claire looked puzzled. \I'm not sure I get it," she said. \Will the volume
be enough to make a difference to us, and are they going to be in the centres
we are planning to cover? Aren't they going to be in the tourist centres, not
the business hubs?" Marcus nodded. \Quite right, but think about it a bit
more. To take your second point first, a lot of their business is in historic
cities where we do have an interest, and they already have a very slick courier
network for handling tickets and delivery of luxuries to the isolated areas they
cover, so we can ride on that. As to the volume, that's not really why we are
interested. To be perfectly honest, I don't expect huge extra volume; we will
break even, but the real opportunity is that it's a perfect opportunity for viral
advertising. We want people who matter in our real market | the CEOs and
CIOs of companies we want to sign up | to hear at dinner parties how their
friends had their holiday rescued from disaster by the PhoneMob. We want
them to look at the Factotum flyers and think they should be giving their
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