Sat by a pool in the sunshine waiting to hear about how I’ll get home now Thomas Cook have gone bust, I am reading the news and scrolling through Twitter hashtags thinking about how many companies have stumbled and fallen with the rise of the internet of now.
One of the main causes being attributed to Thomas Cooks’ demise is there inability to adapt to the digital era. With more and more people choosing to book their holidays online from the comfort of their sofa, Thomas Cook kept investing in their travel agencies made of bricks and mortar.
My personal experience of the app and website were clunky and unwieldy on mobiles, an instant off putter for me. We have reached a point in time where website need to be mobile and tablet focused more than they need to be working on laptops and traditional computer screens. In fact 2015 is when Thomas Cook themselves acknowledged that they had more traffic from mobile devices than traditional computers. It only takes a quick look at the App Store ratings for the app against its competitors to see it had issues.
TUI App Store 
Jet2 App Store 
OnTheBeach App Store 
Thomas cook app store
In my local, struggling, shopping centre, amongst the Poundland’s and charity shops, there was still a large Thomas Cook travel agency, but very rarely did you see anyone in there. The people inside were always lovely but sadly that can’t compete against people’s 21st century lives where finding time (during standard retail hours) to spend sat in a store to book their holiday was depleting. In the modern world of comparison sites, last minute deal websites and apps; Thomas Cooks high street store model just didn’t fit.
When Thomas Cook online was launched in 2010 it was one of the first travel companies to do so. So why did it go so wrong? What did they miss?Having been involved in a lot of business and digital transformation programmes over the last decade, there are answers there if you dig.
This article by @iankingsky, business correspondent at Sky News, describes the decisions made by one of the CEOs a few years ago to keep investing in their physical architecture over their digital one as part of the companies end. Citing particularly the take over of MyTravel (air tours) in 2007 and the Coop travel merger in 2010 which added to their physical portfolio while consumers were turning towards digital outlets.
It was only in 2015 that Thomas Cook gained a CDO, and by that point the company was already beginning to show signs of struggling. A struggle that they sadly could never overcome.
To me, and I’m sure many others, this is a clear example of a lack of vision from the top, and of a strategy and vision that has failed to iterate and been left to stagnate rather than adapt with the times.
The sides of the roads on the way to the On demand era are littered with the remains of business who have failed to learn from the mistakes of those who have gone before.
Blockbusters is often used as one of the first casualties of the new digital era, many people lay that blame at its CEO’s feet, but that is a very simple summation of a more complex problem. As Greg Satell in Forbes says, for Blockbusters to have survived it would have had to change it’s very business model, and that was where it struggled. It’s not that its CEO simply didn’t have a vision that included digital, it’s that the company didn’t know how to transform its very foundations.
In my experience this is where most companies struggle, they want to adapt to the digital era, and so they build a digital front end, as Thomas Cook did, but they don’t realise that digital is more than just a shiny front end. To ‘be Digital’ you have to change from the inside out, your commercials, your finances, your governance structures. Changes to the very culture of the business.
This holistic understanding is key at all levels of the organisation, from the people delivering customer services to the Chief Excs and Directors. To be digital requires breaking down organisational silos and for all the different departments in an organisation to work together to deliver a vision of what is possible.
This is where the CEO is responsible, for ensuring that vision is agreed, and that they have the right team in place, at all levels through the organisation, to deliver it.
A good Chief Digital Officer (or someone with similar skills and experience if not the title) is a critical appointment in this time, because they understand the art of the possible and how to deliver it. It took 5 years for Thomas Cook to appoint that person after it began Thomas Cook online. In any business that 5 years can be an eternity, especially one that relies on consumers in a competitive market. In that time their competitors has outstripped them, changed their business models, transformed their offering to meet user expectations.
The lesson here is that digital is not something you can pay lip service to, you have to understand it and how to ‘be’ it. Without that vision and willingness to iterate and change, you will find your users will move on to somewhere else that can meet their needs better.
The ripples of Thomas Cooks fall will be felt for a long time yet, not only in the thousands of holiday makers like myself who are inconvenienced by this, but also the staff who are now out of work and for whom this is a time of heart break and uncertainties. Many other companies around the world relied on Thomas Cook for business, and their futures too are now uncertain.
There is a lot we can learn from this, to ensure this is not a bit of history doomed to repeat itself. Again.
Comments
21 responses to “Thomas Cook and how not to go digital.”
Hi Zoe,
I think you’ve got that spot on.
I’m also not a fan of their Lyk app – for currency exchange. It quite simply doesn’t work. Real shame.
Leadership paying lip service to digital is tragic.
I’ve been really impressed by large scale public services managing to grasp the points you made and getting it largely right for years now. We can’t get arrogant or complacent about it though, as there’s so much more we could do…faster!
Do you mind if I quote a couple of your posts as long as I provide credit and sources back to your weblog? My website is in the very same area of interest as yours and my users would definitely benefit from a lot of the information you present here. Please let me know if this ok with you. Cheers!
Hey that’s fine, no problem at all. 🙂
great pᥙblish, very informatiｖе. I ponder why the other experts of this sectߋr don’t understand this.
You must continue уour writing. I’m sure, yⲟu hɑve a huge reaɗers’ base alгeady!
Good day! I just want to give you a huge thumbs up for your excellent information you have got here on this post. I will be coming back to your web site for more soon.|
Hello! I know this is kinda off topic however I’d figured I’d ask. Would you be interested in trading links or maybe guest writing a blog article or vice-versa? My site discusses a lot of the same subjects as yours and I think we could greatly benefit from each other. If you happen to be interested feel free to shoot me an email. I look forward to hearing from you! Superb blog by the way!|
Always happy to collaborate and share. Thanks. 🙂
Greetings! Very useful advice in this particular article! It is the little changes which will make the most significant changes. Thanks for sharing!|
Hello there, just became aware of your blog through Google, and found that it’s really informative. I am going to watch out for brussels. I will be grateful if you continue this in future. Many people will be benefited from your writing. Cheers!|
Admiring the persistence you put into your blog and detailed information you offer. It’s nice to come across a blog every once in a while that isn’t the same out of date rehashed information. Excellent read! I’ve saved your site and I’m adding your RSS feeds to my Google account.|
Appreciation to my father who shared with me about this web site, this weblog is actually remarkable.|
Greate article. Keep writing such kind of information on your blog. Im really impressed by your blog.
Everything is very open with a very clear explanation of the issues. It was really informative. Your site is extremely helpful. Thanks for sharing!|
Very nice article, exactly what I wanted to find.|
There’s definately a great deal to find out about this issue. I like all the points you’ve made.|
Howdy! This post couldn’t be written any better! Reading through this post reminds me of my previous roommate! He continually kept preaching about this. I’ll forward this article to him. Fairly certain he will have a good read. Thank you for sharing!|
It’s actually a cool and useful piece of info. I’m satisfied that you just shared this helpful info with us. Please stay us informed like this. Thank you for sharing.|
An outstanding share! I’ve just forwarded this onto a coworker who had been conducting a little homework on this. And he actually ordered me breakfast simply because I stumbled upon it for him… lol. So allow me to reword this…. Thanks for the meal!! But yeah, thanx for spending some time to talk about this matter here on your site.|
There’s definately a great deal to know about this subject. I really like all the points you’ve made.|
Good day! I could have sworn I’ve been to this blog before but after browsing through some of the post I realized it’s new to me. Anyhow, I’m definitely glad I found it and I’ll be bookmarking and checking back frequently!
I like this web blog its a master peace ! Glad I found this on google .