Topic #1 PLUL: What We Would Tell Any Client Wanting B2C Hotel Booking Platform Development

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Project Life Until Live by TRooTech #PLUL

There are innumerable barriers to accomplishing anything that resembles innovation. True is the statement for outsourcing software solutions, wherein the biggest obstacle is client-vendor’s passivity and inflexibility about the application development.

Many a times, the reason of such issues are misinterpretation of each other’s demand and understanding wherein none of them is at fault but the circumstances!

Talking about one such incident, which will let us extract and adopt the aspects benefitting our businesses –

There came an RFP (request for proposal) for a Hotel Booking Application Development Project. You can send one here however before that, we are insisting a small read below that would really help to make the best app for you.

The Application is about an innovative way to book the hotels and vacation rental services online wherein the admin adopts various hotels under its brand name and helps users to get the best accommodation deals.

Having developed applications for a variety of niches under the same idea, we acquired a strong confidence in the development of this project. You can say this one as our ‘practice-to-perfect’ episode.

The journey to developing a productive and feature-rich application began; but little did we know that the project is going to face a temporary pause.

Reason?

Sometimes rare thoughts strike clients for enhancing features which sounds very creative and unique when thought from the customer’s side, but when it is looked from the vendor’s technical side, it sometimes arouses complexity or in most cases are difficult to implement.

The demand we are talking about was to allow dynamic hotel cancellation policy which involved considering the cancellation policy of each and every hotel and adding the same to the application which was a balancing thought from client to make app equally easing for hotel vendors.

This sounds normal but also do consider that this asks for a dynamic refund percentage that the system needs to manage automatically when the customer is cancelling the booking with the Hotel.

Furthermore to just adding percentages of refunds, the number of days accepted for the cancellation requests also came as a dynamic parameter, simply because when the power of defining the number of days and refund percentage is given to the Hotel owners, each one of them would have a different policy!

Even the highly used and popular hotel booking platforms in the domain – Oyo rooms and Airbnb have centralized system-controlled cancellation policies and the hosts/hotel owners need to adhere to them.

Cancellation Policies of Airbnb – A Vacation Rental and Booking System

Cancellation Policies of Airbnb

Cancellation Policies of OYO Rooms – A Managed Hotel Booking System

Cancellation Policies of OYO Rooms

And yes, the requirement is not using any GDS provider. Standard B2C solution is making a hotel booking platform using the GDS (Global Distribution System) like of Sabre, Travelport, Amedius and more. However, in this particular case, the Hotels were to be personally partnered by the owner of this project and thus creating the custom inventory of Hotel listings, just like the Managed Hotel Booking System like OYO Rooms.

When Exactly Such Situation May Occur On Hotel Booking App Development Projects

 

Let’s face it.

We are all free to perceive our thoughts but technology does come with certain limitations.

When a uniquely unforeseen idea strikes a business mind, it is difficult to get over it. After all, everybody is here to exhibit an innovative side to the ongoing developments in the market.

Thus, pertaining to standing out in the marketplaces, many a times, clients may have such demands that don’t fit into the technological molds, and are difficult or in some cases even infeasible to integrate.

The point where any technical genius like us would get stuck is when such a feature is demanded for, and GDS is not an option.

Listen, now this is not something that is practical to customize and the project went into the discussion phase preventing the further development of the project.

Such an ambiguity can be understood with a depth of development knowledge or alternatively a focused observation into the competitor’s applications and features.

But expecting the clients to go deeper into the technology does not work for the ease sake. And therefore we stand out because we hold a knack of explaining the real dilemma to our clients and make them realize-rethink about the lagging technological aspects.

Here is when we realized, we can make good technical teachers as well :D

The Client’s Role

Client’s Role

Before commencing any project, clients are expected to convey all their project requirements clearly to the vendor.

Sometimes the requirements are so ambiguous in nature, that vendors may interpret on a standardized thought considering various aspects including major ones such as budget and timeline expectation that collides with different perspective out of the said requirements.

The one that mostly suffer in such fixed price projects are vendors who shoulders the entire financial responsibility when the time extends the plan.

We have two types of models to adhere to, Fixed Price Projects and Dedicated Resource Hiring (Time and Material)

Clients mostly get impressed by the glam of similar application functions and point out the requirements which are sometimes so advanced; there isn’t any technology yet for its implementation without a GDS provider.

Understanding the trend of following the popular in 21st century, we have come up with a creative campaign called Similar Apps Development wherein we share business model to technical aspects to marketing actions of popular businesses which are present as mobile apps or websites. Follow the campaign on Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter and Medium with #sadbytrootech.

We really wish to make a big contribution to this industry with this campaign. Pertaining to this campaign, we made a very comprehensive page on our site for UBER

Coming back, the best part about such issues and projects is when clients understand the boundaries of the demanded feature and agree to adhere to the technological norms.

Yeah, even technological discipline is meant to be followed for a seamless development!

The Vendor’s Role

Vendor’s Role

When such issues occur, it is the vendor’s responsibility to dive deeper into the specific requirements of the client without assuming even a bit.

Thus, because of the difference in perceiving the final output, the project in most of the cases is put on hold in its peak stage i.e. the development stage till a feasible solution is met with.

Had this incident occurred to us, we would have needed to put extra time and resources for analyzing the project.

But then the TRooTechian principles would have got us concerned about our client and we wouldn’t have had charged for those extra resources.

This would’ve been all worth for us – the vendors, to learn from such unexpected occurrences; after all, going deep on the proposed project requirements is what our clients acknowledge as our unique feature.

Here, have a read of what we are proud of.

Suffer of the Related Process, Resources, Time and Cost

Suffer of the Related Process

Analysis & Strategy

The only possible solution could have been brought by re-analyzing the entire project flow, altering the codes and the already developed modules where needed. So, revising the completely established analysis and strategy took more time and resources than required.

UX Planning

The only possible solution could have been brought by re-analyzing the entire project flow, altering the codes and the already developed modules where needed. So, revising the completely established analysis and strategy took more time and resources than required.

UI Designing

Our creative designers were just wondering about the changes in the however there were few additional options to be added on respective related pages connecting to the flow of the booking

Database Architecture

Only the best executors know why it is important to go setting up the database architecture parallel to the UI designing. Here the time-consuming process of changing the tables of the database gave the new cancellation policy.

Sincere apologies to our DBAs.

Derivative: Once the time of the project increased with our plans for execution of development tasks, the effect was reflected on the related resources and cost.

Ultimate Solution For Similar Project Issues

 

In case such situations exist, both the client and the vendor should act professionally and try to understand and collaborate in order to come to a common ground wherein the solution that is met is best in the interest of both the parties.

In our scenario, we found the solution that best serves the purpose of the client. We proposed our client to provide the application with half automated cancellation policy i.e. the hotel owners can set different refunds of percentage however we fixed the number of days for which the hotel owners can accept cancellation and the customers can apply for the cancellation within.

Thus, when the client gets stuck in such a technical maze, it is the responsibility of vendors to guide the clients into the right direction. The best that any client could do in such a situation is respond in the least possible time.

This is the way any solution can be met.

What next! After arriving to common grounds, the venture to developing innovative applications began once again.

Precautions Always Save You A Lot

The client should always dig deeper into the industry and should try to understand the complete modules before assigning the project.

Not to get tempted by the futuristic approach of their imagination yet gives exact and precise requirements for their application.

At the end, what really matters is a healthy business relationship between a client and the vendor. After all, both cater economical value to each other.

More About Author

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Vishal Nakum

Vishal Nakum is a tech enthusiast with a passion for exploring the latest developments in the world of technology. He has a keen interest in emerging technologies such as Artificial Intelligence, Machine Learning, and Blockchain, and enjoys keeping up-to-date with the latest trends and advancements in these fields. Vishal is an avid learner and is always on the lookout for new ways to expand his knowledge and skills. He is also a creative thinker and enjoys experimenting with new ideas and concepts. In his free time, Vishal enjoys playing video games and reading books on technology and science.