As businesses evolve, there’s a growing need for support with core tools and travel technology software to help scale the business and support future growth. We, too, have asked ourselves several times when we saw a need for additional software, “Can we build this solution in-house? Or should we invest in third-party software?“
In-House Solution: Expensive, Complex and Slow
More and more businesses avoid building their custom, in-house solutions. From our point of view, there are several reasons why not to build the core travel technology software solution on your own.
- Budget – Building and then maintaining your solution comes at a high price. It generates higher upfront costs and a much longer ROI.
- Technical expertise – Companies often lack technical expertise in building travel technology software solutions. This means you’ll have to hire the talent and focus much of your financial and human resources on building the software rather than your core business as a tour operator or DMC.
- Time – It takes time to build a core travel technology software solution. Even when applying agile methodologies, the time until a complete product is developed is substantial. Companies must ask themselves whether they have the time to build in-house travel technology solutions.
Keep the Focus on Your Core Business and Let Travel Technology Software Experts Help You Improve It
Building software solutions in-house can steal precious internal resources from high-profit opportunities.
Let’s say you’re selling excursions; how many more tours could you sell with the resources you’re dedicating to building software? And how much market share could your competitors gain if you divert your attention to a non-profitable activity?
We’ve spoken to many customers on this topic. Many of them moved away from an in-house solution to a third-party vendor. The main reason is to get a software solution regularly updated and built by professionals.
Our client, Asian Trails, shared their opinion about in-house solutions.
Trust the Experts
Here are some of the advantages of buying an off-the-shelf solution:
- Lower cost than a custom implementation.
- Easier to stay up to date with industry trends. Quality vendors make sure they constantly improve their products. Having a customer base of businesses like yours allows the vendor to test, ask for feedback, and implement new features that bring value to their customers. Additionally, vendors are usually up to date with different industry trends through their user base. They will bring that expertise to their product.
- Faster implementation than when you build it yourself. Along with the budget, this is probably the most significant advantage of buying an off-the-shelf product.
- Vendors usually have support teams to help you onboard and support your team during your product usage. Such support efforts sometimes come at an additional cost. However, they are undeniably essential as they ensure smooth product use.
- Better integrations as vendor systems will usually be easier to integrate with other systems, such as accounting systems, third-party products, payment gateways, etc.
Building a complex travel technology software solution in-house can last for a couple of years. After seeing the benefits of the off-the-shelf version, can you afford to wait that long?
Investing in a core software solution is a cost and time-effective approach. It will ensure the growth, development, and scaling of your business.
We created a free ebook to help you prepare for the search for a perfect solution for your travel business. Excellent preparation can turn your search into a fulfilling project that will kickstart your company’s growth!
