E-Business Models In The Travel Industry

Drawing on recently published data, this report examines some of the trends in travel e-commerce. Using a case study approach, the author examines in detail some of the e-business models impacting on the travel industry both in the Business-to-Business (B2B) and Business-to-Consumer (B2C) markets. Although B2C leisure transactions currently account for just 1% of the value of global travel, there is real potential for future growth. However to be successful both new entrants and existing players will need to ensure their e-business model adds value for the customer, otherwise their position in the value chain will be threatened. The most immediate potential for growth and profitability lies in the B2B market, particularly in the development of vertical portals or community extranets. These are virtual spaces enabling travel buyers and suppliers to trade online. The integration of legacy systems with Internet Protocol (IP) technology is taking place across a range of travel sectors and will provide the platform on which a wide range of e-business applications can be developed. This development will lead to the ultimate catalyst for travel e-business -- the convergence of data (internet), voice (telephone) and video (television)

Computer-aided verification in mechanism design

In mechanism design, the gold standard solution concepts are dominant strategy incentive compatibility and Bayesian incentive compatibility. These solution concepts relieve the (possibly unsophisticated) bidders from the need to engage in complicated strategizing. While incentive properties are simple to state, their proofs are specific to the mechanism and can be quite complex. This raises two concerns. From a practical perspective, checking a complex proof can be a tedious process, often requiring experts knowledgeable in mechanism design. Furthermore, from a modeling perspective, if unsophisticated agents are unconvinced of incentive properties, they may strategize in unpredictable ways. To address both concerns, we explore techniques from computer-aided verification to construct formal proofs of incentive properties. Because formal proofs can be automatically checked, agents do not need to manually check the properties, or even understand the proof. To demonstrate, we present the verification of a sophisticated mechanism: the generic reduction from Bayesian incentive compatible mechanism design to algorithm design given by Hartline, Kleinberg, and Malekian. This mechanism presents new challenges for formal verification, including essential use of randomness from both the execution of the mechanism and from the prior type distributions. As an immediate consequence, our work also formalizes Bayesian incentive compatibility for the entire family of mechanisms derived via this reduction. Finally, as an intermediate step in our formalization, we provide the first formal verification of incentive compatibility for the celebrated Vickrey-Clarke-Groves mechanism

Public eTendering in Portugal: vortalGOV® Case Study

Vortal is the leader in electronic platform operations for public and private market contracting in Portugal and one of four international reference points in electronic public contracting. In 2004, after having achieved a wealth of private market experience acquired through electronic market operations within the construction sector through its brand Econstroi, Vortal launched a new brand, vortalGOV, which is specifically aimed a the public sector and indeed the first ever electronic public tender in Portugal was launched through this Vortal platform. In 2008 a new public contract law came into force directing all entities linked to electronic contracting platform use to formalise pre-contracting. Furthermore, that same law specified that platforms should not charge the economical operators, the suppliers, any fees to access their basic services. In other words, revenues from the Public eTendering platforms should only come from public entities awarding the contracts. In 2009, order to meet these new legal requirements, Vortal launched its free Universal service. In 2010, Vortal decided to contract the services of a specialist company to carry out a satisfaction survey of its Universal clients. The Vortal Board of Directors sought to evaluate possible scenarios for the development of the public sector market drawing on the experience the company had acquired in the private market. The vortalGOV case study aims to stimulate reflection on the innovation surrounding the legal limitations of business operations, based on an analysis of customer value.A Vortal é a empresa líder na operação de plataformas electrónicas de contratação nos mercados público e privado em Portugal e uma das 4 referências internacionais em Contratação Pública Electrónica. Com uma vasta experiência no mercado privado, adquirido através da operação do mercado electrónico para o sector da Construção, o econstroi, a Vortal lançou em 2004 o vortalGOV, para o sector público. O primeiro concurso público electrónico em Portugal foi lançado através da plataforma da Vortal. Em 2008 foi publicada a nova lei dos contratos públicos que obriga todas as entidades vinculadas à utilização de plataformas electrónicas de contratação pública para formalização dos procedimentos de pré-contratação. Esta mesma lei indicada ainda que as plataformas não poderiam cobrar qualquer valor aos operadores económicos, os fornecedores, para acesso aos serviços básicos das mesmas. Isto é, as receitas das plataformas de contratação electrónica seriam apenas provenientes das entidades públicas adjudicantes. Para fazer face a esta contingência, a Vortal lançou logo em 2009 o serviço Universal, gratuito, de acordo com todos os requisitos da lei em vigor. Em 2010 a Vortal decidiu solicitar os serviços de uma empresa especializada para fazer um inquérito à satisfação dos seus clientes Universais. A Administração da Vortal pretende avaliar os cenários possíveis para desenvolver o mercado do sector público a partir da experiência adquirida no mercado privado. O caso de estudo do vortalGOV pretende estimular uma reflexão em torno da inovação em torno de limitações legais à operação do negócio, em função da análise de valor para o cliente

A Case for a New IT Ecosystem: On-The-Fly Computing

The complexity of development and deployment in today’s IT world is enormous. Despite the existence of so many pre-fabricated components, frameworks, cloud providers, etc., building IT systems still remains a major challenge and most likely overtaxes even a single ambi- tious developer. This results in spreading such develop- ment and deployment tasks over different team members with their own specialization. Nevertheless, not even highly competent IT personnel can easily succeed in developing and deploying a nontrivial application that comprises a multitude of different components running on different platforms (from frontend to backend). Current industry trends such as DevOps strive to keep development and deployment tasks tightly integrated. This, however, only partially addresses the underlying complexity of either of these two tasks. But would it not be desirable to simplify these tasks in the first place, enabling one person – maybe even a non-expert – to deal with all of them? Today’s approaches to the development and deployment of complex IT applications are not up to this challenge. ‘‘On-The-Fly Computing’’ offers an approach to tackle this challenge by providing complex IT services through largely automated configuration and execution. The configuration of such services is based on simple, flexibly combinable services that are provided by different software providers and traded in a market. This constitutes a highly relevant challenge for research in many branches of computer science, informa- tion systems, business administration, and economics. In this research note, it is analyzed which pieces of this new ‘‘On-The-Fly Computing’’ ecosystem already exist and where additional, often significant research efforts are necessary

Trusted operational scenarios - Trust building mechanisms and strategies for electronic marketplaces.

This document presents and describes the trusted operational scenarios, resulting from the research and work carried out in Seamless project. The report presents identified collaboration habits of small and medium enterprises with low e-skills, trust building mechanisms and issues as main enablers of online business relationships on the electronic marketplace, a questionnaire analysis of the level of trust acceptance and necessity of trust building mechanisms, a proposal for the development of different strategies for the different types of trust mechanisms and recommended actions for the SEAMLESS project or other B2B marketplaces.trust building mechanisms, trust, B2B networks, e-marketplaces

The power to flourish: Unearthing the roots of Kenyan flower producers' market access strategies

Powering Kenya’s agricultural economy, the Kenyan flower industry is prided as an example of successful African integration into global agricultural trade. Export markets are bifurcated due to a marked shift from the Dutch flower auctions and an increase in trade within ‘direct markets’ which includes supermarkets and florists. While flower production is dominated by a few vertically integrated, large scale flower farms (>100 ha), mid-scale (20-80 hectares) and small-scale (>0.25 hectares) flower farms which are the focus of the thesis, face a unique set of challenges in terms of navigating access to the more stable direct markets. The overall narrative is that even in a buyer-driven market, Kenyan cut flower producers at the mid and small scale have agency, and they exercise their bargaining power for favourable export access by diversification and differentiation in strategies and networks. Two meta-narratives framing the sector coalesce around the development angle which showcases contestations around labour and environmental abuses and the political economy angle focusing on governance structures and power relations of production. This thesis goes deeper than these meta narratives by introducing micro-level, relational perspectives using the GPN framework, and asks what strategies Kenyan mid and small scale cut flower producers employ to navigate the shifts in export markets as producers diversify from the Dutch auctions towards supermarkets. My findings identify diversification as the common factor in mid and small scale producers’ strategies for securing a range of lucrative export markets. Producers’ enhance their bargaining power to access diverse markets through adaptable production, relationally through collective action, and in the regulatory sphere by circumvention, compliance or contestation for more favourable ‘rules of the game’. Going beyond labour and environmental analyses, the thesis uniquely analyses the knowledge economy originating from the cut flower sector as an undertheorized aspect of its development impact.The Cambridge Commonwealth European and International Trust, the University Field Work Fund, the Smuts Memorial Fund, the African Studies UAC of Nigeria travel fund, the Centre of Development Studies PhD fieldwork fund, Jesus College, the Cambridge Political Economy Society Trust (CPES), and the Christian International Student Network (CISN