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Therefore, it is critical that TakeMeTour have the tools to detect Fig. 10’s opportunitiesfor Vertical Progress to do new things as a point of differentiation if they are to growalongside one of the world’s most recognisable brands (Thiel, 2014).In terms of a company culture, I have observed features of a startup environment thatwould be familiar to those associated with a startup in a Western context, yet I have alsorecognised some of the obstacles to managing staff highlighted in previous chapters.For example, there is an open plan office where the founders and the team all sit, flexibleworking hours, and occasional ‘breakout’ sessions to discuss projects. However, thereis little by way of a defined culture and promotion of dialogue between and acrosshierarchies.Through the Literature Review, Expert Interviews, and the perspective of the founders,distinct patterns emerge about the future of travel and the necessary direction for thecompany to direct its innovation efforts towards.The purpose of this research project is to help TakeMeTour gain a competitive advantageby being able to better detect opportunities for innovation specific to their tourismsegment and within their local context. In this regard, the following three companyinsights are particularly helpful in leading towards the ultimate challenge statement:• There is a strong bias towards tech and big data as the primary vehiclefor innovation.• There is a need to form partnerships as part of their growth strategy.• More established international sharing economy platforms are movingin to their market space.5.6 DEFINING THE CHALLENGECertain insights from the research align with how TakeMeTour understand their context,yet there are other areas in which they may benefit from a new perspective. Beforedefining further it is helpful to establish a hierarchy to the findings (Underwood, 2015):• Internal management’s view of the future issues is usually the least accurate.• The data-mined view of the future based prior to interviewing the experts isusually more accurate.• The experts’ view of the future is usually the most accurate.Applying this hierarchy reveals two core themes that help shape the ultimate challenge:1. All travel firms are trust intermediaries, particularly those operating in thesharing economy where the providers’ platforms allow trust to be realised as aunit of value (Diekhöner, 2017). Further, it can be shown that trust is an importantcompetitive advantage in tourism (interview P Morrell). Thailand is a low trustsociety, which may be problematic for TakeMeTour’s long term prospects as growthand an ability to compete are conditioned by the level of trust inherent in a society(Diekhöner, 2017). Further, awareness of trust as a unit of value appeared to be lowwhilst interviewing Thai experts, which could potentially be obstructive if attemptingto form partnerships to grow a business, or if an Open Innovation approach is to beadopted to encourage the sharing of ideas with other companies (Chesbrough, 2003).422. Research also shows that whilst efforts are made by startups in Thailand to harvestBig Data and prioritise tech, there is little awareness that this reveals what it is peopleare doing, not necessarily why. Dealing with customers only as data points may leadto missing an opportunity to understand a problem and designing a solution throughdetailed observation of people in the context in which they will be using a service
(Hilton, 2016). In a particularly human pursuit such as travel, empathy aids innovationas it allows businesses to uncover, create, and integrate around what it is a customer istrying to get done through the understanding of behaviour (Christensen, 2016).Given the intrinsic value of a travel company is trust, and that both trust and empathyare necessary components of the innovation process, due to low awareness of both ofthese in Thailand, the challenge for this project is defined as follows:HOW MIGHT WE ENCOURAGE GREATER AWARENESS OF TRUSTAND EMPATHY AS UNITS OF VALUE SO THAT TAKEMETOUR CANBECOME MORE INNOVATIVE AS IT GROWS?43
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Page 16 and 17: Whilst each ‘Job’ may contain t
Page 18 and 19: 2.2.7 INSIGHTSRecent innovation thi
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Page 29 and 30: Futurist. Mike’s expertise in pre
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