Travel agencies: why avoid creating your software yourself?

You manage a travel agency specialized in tailor-made services or an incoming agency. You come to say no to an invitation to discover online how a back office software works.  Indeed, you want to save time and be more efficient. Your teams have enough of commercial travel proposals written in Word and estimates calculated with Excel.  "But why entrust my business to a SaaS when I can create my software in-house? Here are four reasons why the latter is a bad idea.

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1/ Because creating in-house software takes time

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Creating a quality in-house software is like happiness: it exists, but the road to get there is often long and winding. Indeed, starting from scratch, your custom travel software must at least be able to :

• help you connect sales and production
• guarantee that you will find in one place all the functionalities you need, from pricing to estimates, accounting and booking
• to automatically generate your different travel documents (travel books, vouchers, invoices for example) in a personalized way
• customize rates according to the nature of the products you sell
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However, on average, it is estimated that an internal team needs one to two years of development for a software to perform satisfactorily after testing phases with its share of bugs.

Keep in mind that while your developer or IT team is working on your in-house software, you and/or your vendors will continue to use the same tools you want to get rid of. So isn't there a better way to improve productivity?

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Keep in mind that while your developer or IT team is working on implementing your internal software, you and/or your vendors will continue to use the same tools you want to get rid of. So isn't there a better way to improve productivity?

When the time comes, also consider the fact that the rest of your employees will have to get used to the new tool. This also takes time. Keep your fingers crossed that they like the change 😉.

Therefore, can you afford to tell your customers that their plans to go to Vietnam, South America or India will be available for sale in a few weeks? "You understand Madam, we are missing some features".  In response, your client will go to one of your competitors who will book the travel project in a few clicks thanks to a software provided by a SaaS, already present on the market.

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This minimum time required for the implementation of your software assumes that you have a technical team with one or more experienced developers.  "If you don't have them, you'll have to ask yourself: "Oh, you don't have them? Then add a few weeks to recruit the right profiles. Tick tock, tick tock the clock is ticking ⏲️, your competitors are making sales.

You can give the task of recruiting to someone who is competent in this field, but you will have to pay them accordingly.  This is the second reason why you should not create software in-house

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2/ Creating your own travel software is expensive

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Developing your own travel software means building a team, so it has a cost. Are you ready to spend several thousands of euros per month on the salaries of this team? Wouldn't it be wiser to take out a subscription to a back office software? The amount of this subscription can certainly change over time and according to the number of users you will need. But, play the competition and benefit from a tool that is constantly improved to meet the needs of their customers.  

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If you choose the first solution, you should also consider adding an extra line to your expenses for :

• Set up a workspace
• Have efficient workstations
• Servers and licenses

Remember, many in-house projects go over schedule due to problems that increase the cost of the budgets that companies have set for themselves. 

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3/ Because you lack technical expertise

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In a company like yours, you may be versatile by necessity, but your core business is selling trips, being in contact with your suppliers and customers, not being an expert in storage systems, cloud-native applications or finding solutions to counter hacking attempts. Especially since technologies continue to evolve rapidly.

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Therefore, rather than allocating a portion of your budget to the creation and maintenance of in-house software, take advantage of the many benefits that SaaS software brings. Not only can you get software that meets your specific needs, but you can also take advantage of features that you might not think of spontaneously. The Saas brings to your knowledge its expertise of the market at the moment.

A technical support is also possible, which takes the form :

• A dedicated chat in real time
• Emails
• Video tutorials
• Training provided by a customer success manager

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4/ Because you require a good developer for your SaaS

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Fewer people are staying with the same company throughout their career. Your developer is no exception to this desire to move on. His or her departure can be made in good conscience, the software documentation can be very well updated. However, you are not immune to being confronted with technical problems that will make you realize that your software depends on the person who created it 😱. 

"One person is missing, and everything is depopulated”. This quote is not from Steve Jobs, or Mark Zuckerberg, but from a 19th century French poet who knew nothing about the source code of your software. Keep this phrase in mind, however, if you persist with the idea of building software in-house and keeping the system operational alone 😉. 

Before you embark on creating your own travel software, ask yourself if you have the time, budget and experienced staff with various skills to complete the project. 

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