Assessment of carnival cruise lines competitive position

sound judgement of carnival cruise lines combative positionCarnival Cruise Lines is sure enough the leader of their industry. They be the industry standard for quality, progress to massive revenues, and the largest growth. In fact, the familiarity continues to set refreshful passenger number records. The first social function I depart do in evaluating the companys competitive position is to do a SWOT analysis. Some of the companys main strengths allow in cruise power levels, branding, variety of activities, price comp ared to other vacation options, and their ability to stay economical and efficient. The main weaknesses I film identified were they were still considered to be an costly option for vacations, perceptions of lower-quality (despite major(ip) quality improvements), perceptions of being geared to certain demographics, and almost IT issues. Certain opportunities available to the company include a chance to narrow-minded the gap between quality and perception o f quality, direct marketing d unrivaled hot intermediaries, and to a greater extent growth in their industry. Major little terrors to the company are the economy, fuel prices, and hurri plentye seasons. Overall, looking at the SWOT analysis, it is easy to see wherefore CCL is the industry leader. They take over many strengths, notwithstanding a few weaknesses, opportunities to live on their weaknesses, and threats that affect many industries, non just their own.Looking at the five competitive forces model, I believe CCL is in a quick competitive position. The only threat I call in is a enceinte deal for the company at this put is the threat of fierce competition. ten brands control 95% of the market, and despite the bad economy those companies are likewise showing growth. Not only does CCL compete a buildst other cruise ships, they alike compete against other forms of vacation entertainment. Some examples mentioned in the fount include the vacation opportunities in the Orlando and Las Vegas markets. To make sure they handle this competition, the company must continue to improve in order to dominate the market. The threat of bran-new entrants is weak beca pulmonary tuberculosis of the major start-up costs in their industry and the importance of brand-recognition in their industry. The bargaining power of the buyers is mode set out-to-weak because switching costs for guests are high when considering the nourish they get with CCL despite come-at-able substitutes. Bargaining power of suppliers is getting weaker as give forth agencies are firing a substance and costs of dealing with the guest are being minimized. It is possible that CCL leave open to deal with the threat of substitute products because there are viable options beyond CCL. However, CCL has positioned themselves very surface to deal with this competition by giving the guest abundant cheer for the price.They mentioned in the fount that their ending with each node is to exceed the customers expectations to the crush of their ability. Doing so exit add together value to firm because it lead seeming break inment the customers willingness to pay. Another way to continue to improve the company will include development a virtual value string with online intermediaries rather than expire agents in order to lessen the costs of booking customers and to instanter market to prospective customers. I believe this push aside add great value to the firm by decreasing the cost of doing business through and through intermediaries and increasing customer awareness of vacationing with CCL. If they backside take advantages of their opportunities, their competitive position will continue to be strong.Question 2 Should CCL down a CRM dodge? (Justify your answer). If so, how would you put on it? If not, what other enterprise systems would you recommend instead? (Justify your answer). Perform a protective covering and retirement risk assessment co gitate to your recommendation. For each major risk, what should the company do?There are positives and bans for CCL implementing a CRM strategy. I will use this chance to make an argument for implementing a CRM strategy, highlight the positive prospects of this strategy and explain how this strategy makes up for the negative aspects. They are the industry leaders in almost every aspect of their business except for lagging learning systems. If they improve this aspect of their business, they can possibly increase their strategic advantages for the long-run future.For now, CCL enjoys a strong blood with travel agents who refer their clients to CCL regularly. This has been a very valuable relationship for CCL everyplace the years. The market is changing in the travel and tourism industry because of the knowledge of intermediaries on the internet who make direct connections from customer to business. This trend is going to be the dominant way of doing business in the short-term a nd long-term futures of the industry. CCL management argues in the case that they want to balance this relationship with travel agents with this new wave. I argue that travel agents are on their way out of business and it should not be a focus for the company in the long-term. Having a CRM strategy will improve their abilities to reach out to the customer base on the internet and should transform their value chain completely to virtual means. This will cut their costs dramatically and will financial aid the bottom line. This also allows the customer to ask for services now from CCL. This can result in greater customer service for CCL. It mentioned in the case that the handoff of breeding from CCL to travel agent to customer was often slow. Eliminating the pauperisation for travel agents and dealing directly with customers will also improve customer service by making it a much faster and more efficient adjoin. To me, it makes a lot of sense for CCL. This CRM strategy will not be an overnight process and neither will the demise of the travel agent business, so the strategy they have for now should serve their necessarily well until they develop this strategy to an acceptable level.There were quite a few other key points I read in the case that stand out to me in supporting a CRM strategy. Management dysphoric the importance of fitting their services to customers changing tastes. This is a reasonable goal. If this goal is truly important, developing a successful CRM strategy can overhaul them track these changing tastes in the most effective way. This includes a possible improvement in the check-in process for customers boarding the cruise ship. The modern process requires hours for each customer in order to pass through security. If they can update their information systems to hold security information and some(prenominal) biometrics, security can be quicker and possibly of better quality. The case also pointed out that CCL has a wide variety of custom ers unlike their competitors. This can be a great advantage to the company if CCL can lend oneself their information systems in a way that provides the company with information more or less the mix of customers they have for a certain cruise. Planning for a customer base that is homogenized is much easier than making strategic plans for a customer base that is diverse. It would certainly be an advantage to CCL to have a CRM strategy that helped them with this diverse customer base. They mention in the case that customer dedication is a great strength of the company and they hope to continue to increase customer loyalty. Having a CRM strategy that can help improve customer service and improve the services offered to customers and can certainly create loyalty. unitary aspect of their CRM strategy I would not be as touch on with is developing a highly enlarge rewards platform to go on with it. The company has experimented with this idea and has a simple system they use. I think i t would be fine to continue with something simple like this but do not see any reason to create a detailed plan. I believe the degree of customability is low for this industry and the repurchase rate for customers is typically once a year. Therefore, investing in a rewards program would result in a low payoff. Also, competitors in their industry have tried using rewards programs and the results have not been positive for these companies. At this point, I do not see a major need for CCL to develop their rewards program further.So I have argued for a new CRM strategy. How does CCL implement such a strategy? First, it has to be realized that CRM strategies are only strategies, not technology. In order to effectively implement this kind of strategy, it is imperative that there is an information technology infrastructure in place. This means that the infobases have to be strong and the information has to be reliable. This is the first step of the process for implementation. According t o the case, CCL already has the databases there for use, including Oracle databases called Property Management Systems (PMS) and maneuver of Sale (POS). The problem right now with their infrastructure is issues they have with data integrity and availability, as pointed out on page 412. Regardless of whether or not CCL implements a CRM strategy, issues with data integrity and availability are major issues that should be dealt with to have good information and security. The second step of implementing the new CRM strategy is to change the database design in a way that can improve customer and transactional data so the company can use the information. Having this data funnel into one data store can help the company get the most out of the relationships they build with the various intermediaries they will have online as well as through their website.Certainly, at this point implementing a CRM strategy will require major considerations for funding and how this information system will be created or bought. For funding initiatives within this new CRM strategy, the steering committee will have to figure out what would add the greatest value to the firm and what they will do to create the information systems that fit this strategy. At this point, I do not think I have enough information in order to have an depression on how to do this.As I mentioned earlier in the paper, security and retirement risk seems to be a major issue for this company. It was mentioned in the case that information integrity and availability are not at acceptable levels. This has to be addressed immediately in order to have good information, which is imperative for effective information systems. Security and privacy are not just IT issues they are issues that go the very top of management. Therefore, measures have to be put in place to protect the information that CCL obtains from using this CRM strategy. The information systems created because of this strategy will likely contain very polish ed information such as credit card numbers. In amity with the importance placed on privacy, the company should look to obtain a trust seal from TRUSTe, WebTrust, or the Better Business Bureau. Also, a privacy statement should be drafted for the site in order to help gain the customers trust. Beyond that, I think the major issue will be blocking hackers from getting sensitive information from the companys information systems and I think one step that will help is hiring a third party to conduct an information systems audit. This will help the company identify weaknesses that they can improve. Policies and grooming for employees will also need to be evaluated in order to prevent phishing or social engineering. If they can continually assess their security and privacy needs with the suggestions I have made, their security and privacy should be fine. It will then be up to the company to straighten out the bay window they made with their information quality.