money and resources. We want to make that decision and make it really quick.” Having this dedicated team and start-up focused on specific projects also moves the start-up quickly from concept to minimum viable product and through to pilot stage.
A further challenge in the early stages is how much risk to take. Tcheng says the risk from a corporate point of view has to be far more calculated. “There’s definitely a difference in the approach to risk,” he says. “In small start-ups they don’t have the choice, whereas we are trying to find the balance. There’s risk versus the existing business you have.” He also adds “human scalability” to the list of challenges. While start-ups thrive on
forming small teams to develop products,
big companies sometimes need a product delivered quickly. “In large companies we can divert resources, but in small compa- nies it’s hard; it’s not part of their DNA,” says Balcom. “It’s a matter of the small company knowing that this can happen because when we find something that works we want more immediately.” He adds that sometimes CWT encoun- ters a lack of business maturity. Some start- up founders have built up and exited prior businesses, but others have less experience. Balcom has also observed a lack of understanding about the potential of the corporate travel market. “The world of corporate travel is a significant $26 billion marketplace that we open them up to. We need to get them to shift off that consumer- only vision to corporate managed travel, and listen to the pain-points that you don’t need to account for in the consumer
marketplace.” Then there’s the issue of when to involve other stakeholders so that start-ups can understand the dynamics of corporate travel. Tcheng says some customers are already forward-thinking when it comes to innovation, and the TMC can use this community to pilot services, to become partners in developing the services from start-ups, or simply to provide valuable feedback. But not all companies will have “the time or the appetite” to work through pilots, some of which will fail. He adds that more mainstream customers seem to be happy to be presented with a fully packaged idea.
Others – the early adopters – will want
to have input from the beginning. “The partnership starts really early,” explains Tcheng. “Assimilating them to the idea early is really important because it almost becomes their idea, and everything becomes a little bit easier because you’ve got the buy-in.”
Balcom wholeheartedly agrees on the importance of bringing customers in early for their perspective on ideas. He says the Plug and Play partnership enables CWT to have an innovation lab in Silicon Valley, where its team sits, and it can bring travel buyers in on a one-to-one basis.
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