Inbound Logistics in STA Travel Company

The main activity for the firm is inbound logistic. This is a major activity because this is where they start the chain of the business flow. Referring this activity to STA Travel Company, the most important inbound logistic among all inbounds would be the technology. This is because of customer is able to download their brochures in PDF format or request online through the website, choose their insurance because there are optional holiday travels insurance and so on. it is a threshold resources for the company because it is a simple requirement to increase the sales due to the rapidly growth of technology. Besides that, On year 2007, STA travel company announce that they are now partnership with VisaHQ.com, which is allow STA Travel to provide online visa application services to student youth travelers. This partnership is unique resource for STA Travel Company, this is because of the VisaHQ.com only partnership with STA Travel Company.

Operation

The other flow of value chain after inbound logistic would be operation, this is the level which will determined how the company build their customer loyalty and customer confidence toward the company. In this aspect, the STA Travel Company has improve their the average time that needed for online visa application to 2 to 5 minutes which is faster then offline services that take average 30 minutes completion and the application can be make 24 hours a day and 7 days a week. This is a threshold resources, because due to the rapidly growth of technology, most of the travel company also come out with efficiency operation to attract more consumers.

Outbound

The next flow of value chain will be outbound, this is the level that involved collection, distribution product to customer, scheduling, storage of data and so on. The outbound unique resources for STA Travel Company is, on year 2006, STA Travel Company has launched their new ‘point of sale system’ from Datalex and Dolphin Dynamics. These systems enable to distribute the flight ticket, schedule, and any information that needed to the customer through e-mail, so it will increase the customer loyalty, maximize company revenue and reduce the distribution costs by provides STA Travel Company with a highly flexible, centralized system that professionally drives business and supports their company customers over several geographic markets. Furthermore, the following unique resources for outbound is the online visa application, the traveler profile will securely saved in and online account, which means the customer, will be able to repeat the visa application process quickly every time they need to go overseas.

Marketing and sales/firm infrastructure

Due to the culture of STA Travel Company, which is to create opportunities for the youth to make the most of their occasion and experience the world for real in the way they choose, the company has come out with wider ranges of promotion to enable the young traveler to travel around the world. For example, the STA Travel Company come out with some promotion such as £20 birthday voucher, 2 fares for 1 low price, and promote that all flights that offer are specially negotiated and selected to get the best and lowest price.

Meanwhile, there are several unique campaign and advertising method that the company organized, such as during year 2009, STA Travel has come out with a new idea which is switching to mobile advertising. The advertising will be working with the AdMob which is the world’s largest and faster growing mobile advertising platform. Via the mobile advertising, the company has coming out an iPhone focused advertising campaign to attract its target customers of below 30 years olds. Though the mobile advertising, the company able to communicate with its target demographic. Besides that, during august 2009, STA travel has organized a new campaign named ‘Ten Pound Poms’ which offer the 150 flights to Australia for just ten pounds each.

Furthermore, there are another unique program called Affiliate program that launched by STA Travel Company, the program is enable consumers to earn commission online and more special offers which there are no any fees attached. This program helps the company to build a strong customer loyalty and brand loyalty because there are 3.6 million page views and 620,000 visits per month. This is because of consumers may earn money, get more offers and enjoy their trip on the same time.

Although there are some unique and threshold resources that the company has, but the record for company annual turnover years 2009 show at £24,144,000 which is not more different hen the previous year. The company annual report has hit the record of more then £200 million during year 2002 and start to decrease until below £50 million during year 2003. Furthermore, the company annual profit has record at £3,100,000 which shown that the profit is decreasing compared to year 2008 , but the annual profit has hit the lowest record during year 2004 and start to increase during year 2005 until year 2008.

Services

The threshold resources of STA Travel Company in their services is The STA Travel Company has engaged IBM Global Business Services that powered by open text web solutions management server to design and implement a new, latest online strategy for STA Travel’s “Global-Online shop-window”. By providing this service, the customers are able to make their booking, get the latest information about the company holiday package, the latest promotion and so on through a click. Besides that, the services that provided to their customer also included travel checklist, visa, tax information, suggestion to customer where to go or what to do, travel chat, skype or make an appointment with their stuff and much more.

Human resource

STA Travel Company will only consider employing those employees who have a good attitude toward their job such as have a good passion for travel, understand the customer needs and have the passion to sell the holiday package. It is threshold resources for the company, due to every company will only consider to hire those workers who can make profit for the company. In years 2010, the STA Travel Company has reported, they employ around 3000 employees, working 375 travel agencies and speaking over 60 languages. The unique resources for STA Travel company human resources is the training will be changed year by year based on the new development within the industry and the organization by 3 months training period will be provided to the employee which included the introduction to basic of geography and the system used within the company, explanation from various heads of department for the roles of the department, practice 3 weeks in the real environment and so on. Furthermore, the employees have the right to voice out they unhappy for or changes that need to be make because the company are willing to listening the feedback from their staff to make the changes that needed.

Technology

The threshold resources for STA Travel Company in technology aspect is the company created their website that includes wealth of interactive features and social network tools, such as podcasts, travel blogs, facebook, twitter and so on, to attract more customer to visit the company website. Furthermore, the unique resources for the company is, during year 2010, the company has corporate with Zeus Technology to make an improvement on its company website traffic management, which is offer the customer a better experience when browsing and booking travel through especially when promotional campaigns by implementing the software-based application traffic management solution provider. Another unique resource is the STA Travel Company has signed a five years agreement with Azzurri Communication to supply a global wide area network (Wan), the network is a centralized technology strategy which will be link up the 450 retail outlets, services centers and business partners over 85 countries and provide instant access to information, such as travel data, flight schedules, and financial management software and so on.