In order to deal with ways to sustain Wyndham’s competitive advantage built by the ByRequest initiative, we first need to get acquainted with its business values; Wyndham’s ByRequest program created a comfortable and memorable upscale guest experience and shaped recognition in the industry from a customer service standpoint. Being still a relatively new program, the company was limiting its focus on analysis and thus conducted limited historical study and no collection of a typical demographic data like age, income etc. But while its impact on revenues was still small, it was a success in defining Wyndham’s brand. In order to keep and even extend this current competitive advantage over time, the company needs to leverage its growing membership base and better utilize customer service. The hotel guest of the future will be far savvier and discerning; with the world at his feet and a world of information at his fingertips, the challenge for hotels to sustain connections with guests will only increase. Wyndham is an example to a company where IT is tightly intertwined with business operations and strategy. The adoption of the ByRequest program proved recognition for the dual role of IT in creating operating efficiencies while also driving business insight, innovation, and proprietary advantage. But, the way to achieve and also sustain the business value mentioned above will be based on a combination of management capabilities, assets, expertise and technology. Technology itself usually cannot provide the required competitive advantage over time given the fact it can be replicated easily. Using even the simplest and cheapest form of Customer Relationship Management (CRM) software mechanisms will help in attracting and keeping customers. Many of these CRM packages have facilities that help to acquire, retain and grow profitable customers and also maintain healthy, measurable business success. They help to monitor real-time results of marketing campaigns and track…
