Đổi mới mô hình kinh doanh nhằm chống lại các tác động của đại dịch covid 19 nghiên cứu định tính đối với các doanh nghiệp vừa và nhỏ trong lĩnh vực du lịch tại việt nam

TẠP CHÍ CƠNG TllrtlNG BUSINESS MODEL INNOVATION (BMI) AS A RESILIENCE STRATEGY AGAINST COVID-19 PANDEMIC: A QUALITATIVE STUDY OF VIETNAMESE SMEs IN TOURISM INDUSTRY • LE THI VIET HA - DANG HONG THAI - VITHI TH ANH XU AN - PHAM PHUONG MAI - DUONG GIA BAO - NGUYEN MINH TRI ABSTRACT: Tourism has been among the worst affected industries by the COVID-19 pandemic in many countries Our study witnesses some successful application of business model innovation (BMI) as an effective solution for firms to deal with the pandemic crisis in the tourism sector Interviews with founders and co-founders of four Vietnamese small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) and an analysis of their business model innovation efforts are conducted to investigate the reasons, process, and consequences of such adaptation It has been shown that BMI improves the financial health of the firms struggling to survive the pandemic by generating new sources of income As a result of our analysis, we also found that BMI in the tourism sector as a result of pandemic focuses on development of new products or services targeting domestic customers, cost-saving measures by substantially laying off staff, and exploiting online channels as a major sales and marketing approach Keyword: business model, innovation, business model innovation (BMI), coVID-19, tourism Introduction Tourism is among the hardest hit economic sectors during the COVID-19 pandemic The authority has proposed drastic regulations such as closing borders and travel restrictions, resulting in massive damages to the entire tourism industry such as 50% of enterprises going bankrupt, 40-60% unemployment rates, and a 60% reduction of total revenue (Hung & Tu, 2021; Thai, 2021) Regarding this, tourism entrepreneurs have put several plans into action to protect and pivot theừ business operations Analyses of some European firms specializing in hospitality, food, finance, human health, etc by Kraus et al (2020) and Breier et al., (2021) revealed that the temporary business model innovation (BMI) could be a potential solution for 158 SỐ 19-Tháng 8/2021 firms to renovate and recover from the pandemic Should gradual changes in the configuration be made to the business model, there may be an uplift in the firm’s performance (Foss & Saebi, 2016), thus an overall recovery However, we found that research on BMI in the tourism industry for SMEs holds a limited amount, especially in the Vietnam’s context This study is the first to examine business model innovations (BMI) in small and medium-sized Vietnamese enterprises’ in the current pandemic situation The following questions pave the way for our research: • What impacts of the pandemic the firms encountered leads to their BMỈ? • What sorts ofBMI the firms made to survive and develop through the pandemic? QUẢN TRỊ-QUẢN LÝ the way how BM factors link together, as a response to changes in the external environment (Teece, 2010) The changes in evolutionary and adaptive BMI are not necessarily new to the industry but they are often new to the company (Saebi et al., 2017) Focused and complex BMI are modular or architectural BM changes, dynamically commenced by the firm’s management to impede market states within a respective industry (Foss & Saebi, 2017) These changes are both new to the enterprise and the industry Methodology Using purposive (Guest et al., 2006) or theoretical sampling (Eisenhardt & Graebner, 2007), we selected four tourism firms (travel agencies) from Vietnam that were vividly influenced by the COVID-19 crisis, but showed signs of recovery and were therefore likely to show BMI (Patton, 2014) We collect the primary data through online interviews with founders, and co-founders of the firms with the contact support of Scopusian, a voluntary non profit student organization specialized in business scientific research The interviews with firm representatives were conducted in May and June 2021 (a period without too strict COVID-19 travel restrictions) The semi-structured interview format helps US adjust our questions to the respondent’s statements (Eisenhardt & Graebner, 2007) With the interviewees’ consent, the interviews were audio recorded.After transcribing the interviews, we independently read the transcripts and openly coded the interview and archival data (Miles et al., 2014) in a within-case analysis, followed by a cross-case analysis Findings 4.1 Within case analysis 4.1.1 Finn A, the social enterprise promoting sustainable local tourism for Figure Conceptual sustainable business model framework international visitors a Overview Firm A is a tourism social Value capture Value proposition Value creation & delivery enterprise established in June Cost structure & revenue Product/ service, Activities, 2019 that supports ethnic minority Resources, Customer segments and streams, 10 Value capture for key actors relationships, Distribution channels, communities in developing ind environment & society Value for customer, society, and Partners and suppliers, sustainably through community ­ environment Technology and product 11 Growth strategy/ ethos features based tourism and protecting the What value is provided and to How does the company make money and capture other forms of How is value provided? whom? environment Currently, the firm value? has five shareholders who have signed an agreement not to take Source: Bocken et al., 2015 profits from the firm, committing • What consequences of the BMỈ make some firms thrive while others had to shut down their business and even went bankrupt? • What factors may enhance or prohibit the firms'BMI? To answer these questions, we base on data gathered from interviews with four enterprise founders and co-founders, whose businesses, at the time of the review, were doing relatively well during the pandemic and had virtually no sign of having to shut down Although the study investigates a small size of samples, the conclusion is a model for further quantitative research for SMEs’ tourism industry Literature Review Bjorkdahl & Holmen (2013) remark that “a business model innovation is the implementation of a business model that is new to the firm” At the same tune, one could certainly argue that business model innovation must also be seen as new to the customers While used in a growing number of scientific publications, the term “business model innovation” appears to still lack a commonly accepted and generally valid definition (Schneider & Spieth,2013; Zott et al., 2011) At root, business model innovation can be defined as a novel way of how to create and capture value, which is achieved through “a change of one or multiple components in the business model” (Frankenberger et al., 2013) To break down the business model into individual constructing elements, Bocken et al (2015) proposed a conceptual framework as below (Figure 1) BMI is divided into categories: evolutionary, adaptive, focused and complex Evolutionary BMI develops as rather voluntary and prominent shifts (Demil & Lecocq, 2010) in each of BM modules However, adaptive BMI indicates the changes in the whole BM and its architecture (Saebi et al., 2017), so So 19-Tháng 8/2021 159 TẠP CHÍ CƠNG THƯONG 100% of the company’s profits to reinvest for the entire community The long-term goal is to plant frees that make forests to combat the adverse effects of climate change All the members of firm A work full-time in different fields, yet they all have to commit to spending part of their time as a part-time job with firm A The firm has improved the living conditions of these communities, raised awareness on pollution, conserved traditional culture, and built libraries to erase illiteracy The company's products and services are tourism, tourist accommodation Currently, they are developing a model to change ethnic minority people's houses into homestay boarding facilities; the business will support these communities to consult and construct while keeping the architecture of the indigenous dwellings The upgraded facilities will be suitable for tourism, accommodation, and trained ethnic minorities will operate these homestays In addition, it helps to restore local communities' values, such as brocade weaving and agricultural products Company A has a program that allows tourists to plant a free during their travel; the cost of planting will be deducted from profits In years of operation, it has planted 3,600 frees b Business model innovation Before the pandemic, firm A had a modest annual revenue of about US $150 thousand , mainly targeted foreign family customers (mainly from Europe) willing to pay to experience local indigenous cultures; however, foreign customers cannot come in due to foreign travel lockdown since the beginning of 2020 Because of government regulations on foreign and local traveling, the enterprise complained that it had to continuously adjust its plans to fit with the traveling habits of the customers Whereas the biggest problem for the firm is a decrease (about 50%) in revenue, the number of staff remains the same or even increases because the majority of them are part-time collaborators working voluntarily without pay and only two office staff are paid In response to the pandemic's adverse effects, the firm has adopted BMI which is categorized as adaptive as it substantially changed its business model architecture due to the pressure of the pandemic's aftermath The firm had no choice but to shift its focus from foreign to Vietnamese domestic customers, contributing 90% of the total revenue during the "new normal" time Therefore, the firm 1Ố0 So 19-Tháng 8/2021 adjusted its marketing plans and developed new products to attract more domestic customers, such as building new adventure playgrounds and summer camps for families with kids; the firm added an alternative revenue source from selling and promoting agricultural products (contributing to a third of its total revenue), traditional merchandise to potential customers With more free time during travel restrictions, the manager trains the employees to adapt to the pandemic changes Additionally, the BMI helps the enterprise work flexibly and connect with other enterprises to cope with the crisis The firm survived through the pandemic's peak as a result of its low operation cost (majority of its staff are part time collaborators working without pay) and the fact that its operation does not rely on the total revenue; also, its partners, minority communities, have other sources of income, so the drop in revenue had less significant impact on company survival (in the worst case, it can turn into a hibernation mode and will be reactive once the local and international travel restrictions are removed) However, the marketing strategies did not operate effectively due to the regulations imposed by the government 4.1.2 Firm B, the tour operator for foreigners coming in Vietnam and domestic visitors going to the world a Overview Firm B was established in 2017; up to now, it has had over four years of operation in the travel business Before the COVID-19 came, the major field of activity of the company was exploiting outbound travel programs (70% of its total annual revenue of US $1.5 million - US $2 million) - travel programs for Vietnamese tourists traveling abroad to European, and Asian countries The second biggest market that firm B targeted was domestic tourism, which brings Vietnamese tourists to travel within the territory of Vietnam The firm mainly exploits businesses' customers, state agencies, and conference guests Finally, the smallest part of its customers was inbound - foreign visitors to Vietnam The company's founder is a person with a strong background in tourism with a master's degree in this field From 2020 to May 2021, the company's major and only revenue comes from the domestic customer market due to the COVID-19 and foreign travel restrictions Before the pandemic, the company had employees QUẢN TRỊ-QUẢN LÝ b Business model innovation The part-time staff hold a large number since the tourist guide that the company uses is part-time employees From 2020 until now, due to the pandemic, the firm witnessed a 50% reduction in total revenue and the loss of both inbound and outbound customers due to tour cancellation No revenue comes from foreign visitors to Vietnam or outbound Vietnamese visitors to other countries Therefore, the financial crisis forced the company to cut 50% of its employees Currently, the company has four employees to operate and handle the work related to the delay, cancellation or reschedule, handling customer requests Compared with its primary business model, the firm currently focuses on only one segment of customers - domestic tourists due to international travel restrictions The firm knows that excellent customer service can establish loyal clients; thus, vouchers, discounts, combinations of tours for small groups are new approaches to draw on domestic travelers While waiting for outbound tourists, the firm propagates domestic tours via online platforms like Google ads or Facebook ads, personal networks, and its website It also encourages staff to promote the company's services on their personal Facebook pages to acquừe more customers The firm can attract potential customers with the right marketing strategy as 60% of these came from online platforms The pandemic is an opportunity for the firm to revise its business model and plan tours carefully as the firm concluded not to draw in customers before their sales staff carefully explain to customers about theứ risk of not being able to cancel services so that the company can reduce the financial loss and remain prestige once travel restrictions were imposed The firm moves to work utterly online to reduce office rent cost and encourages its employees to look lor part-time jobs since the business now only pays 20% - 50% of its employees' salaries before the pandemic Also, the company creates part-time jobs for its agents as collaborators of other businesses to reduce maintenance costs The firm BMI is evolutionary as its changes are new to the firm but not new to the industry, as well as made rather voluntary and emergent in some individual BM components (marketing and sales strategies, enhanced customer relation and service qdality) 4.1.3 Finn c, the tour operator for domestic organizational customers a Overview Firm c was established in 2018 by a person working in education and currently also an international guide The business has three principal founders, initially operated with ten full-time employees and its revenue was less than US $1 million After the COVID-19 epidemic, it was reduced to employees working both part-time and full-time The company has organized some experiential ữavel for companies or the local government organizations (eg People's Committees) at the end of the year; it also organizes tours for students and customers that have needs The main activity of the firm is organizing experience tours in the country The company's revenue is kept at medium-small level The company focuses on a group of customers that are somewhat older than many other companies in the market, including customers belonging to the government and state agencies b Business model innovation Due to the uncertainties of the tourism industry during the crisis, the firm is facing tremendous problems The firm reduces expenses by lessening employees and minimizing operation's scale; however, operating costs, especially rent, are significant obstacles The firm moved its office to one of its agents' houses and operated utterly online Hence, BMI is a crucial factor for the company to survive through the crisis and in this case is evolutionary with a modular change in value capture (cost structure) The most important factor was to seize opportunity in the crisis and second important is to downscale the firm 50% of staff were dismissed The firm abandons its traditional working envừonment, working mainly in the office, to fully operate online That meant that the company’s office could not be seen physically, it appeared more unreliable to potential customers who reached out to the firm However, this was carried out well in practice Thanks to digitalization, the company reduced costs, and the enterprise therefore planned tours with more competitive prices, also they believed that the demand for traveling would increase once the authority removed restrictions The firm's strategy was to seize the opportunity to operate tours as the situation is less tense instead of SỐ 19-Tháng 8/2021 1Ĩ1 TẠP CHÍ CŨNG THtííNG finding customers cluelessly; the firm will contact customers via social media or phone calls when travel restrictions are removed Being flexible during the crisis, the firm survives by cutting down redundant expenses The company operates at the minimum cost, expecting the demand for traveling to reach its peak The government supported the firm by reducing taxes commensurately with the situation the firm is in The firm therefore could survive with its own revenue (which was a significant shortfall), extending its longevity until the crisis ended The profit in the first half of 2021 rose compared to that of the last fiscal year 2020 4.1.4 Finn D, the giant tourism firm serving both domestic andforeign travellers all over the world a Overview Firm D is a long-time tourism enterprise established in 2012 with stable revenue of US $3 million - US $5 million in the years before the pandemic The company has three principal shareholders The board of dừectors consists of four people They are young entrepreneurs, none of whom have expertise in tourism, but they all have good business management skills and knowledge from colleges The board of directors manages the company's activities, including the business department, executive department, marketing department, and accounting department The firm’s long-term goal was to expand its size, diversify products and services to serve a wide range of customers nationwide and worldwide The company has long-term development plans with travel companies from Thailand, China, Korea, Japan with travel services, car rental, tour guides The industry operates all year round and is most active in the summer months and Lunar new year holidays b Business model innovation Before the pandemic, the company had sttong momentum The proof is that the revenue continuously increased for many years of operation, with a huge number of familiar tourists and major tourism partners After great success in the domestic tourism business, the company shifted its development dứection to the international tourism business In 2016, the firm had an international business license and launched more outbound tours With foreign guests resulting in more inbound tours, the company expanded a branch in another city However, in 2020, when the pandemic broke out in 162 So 19-Tháng 8/2021 the world, originating from China - one of the neighboring countries with a large number of travel partners of the firm, its business was affected heavily Firstly, the government announced the closure of flights from China, limiting the company's revenue Not only that, when the overseas flight routes were completely closed, or in other words, commercial flights were stopped because the epidemic had now spread to the whole world, the ambition to expand foreign tourism business was lost because the government faced a major setback The firm therefore stopped that plan Not only was the company obstructed by the airline, but it also encountered a sharp decrease in tourists Most of the company's tourists are business customers, instead of individual guests They themselves also faced financial problems besides having to ensure the safety of employees during the epidemic season That is why the policies that allow employees to go on vacation, camping, or work were limited The majority of customers still maintained a relationship with the firm, but they temporarily chose not to use firm D's services at that time That resulted in the massive revenue shortfall with firm D Recently, the enterprise has reduced its employees from 70 people to 30 people Half of its employees work from home during the crisis, and it sent the other half on furlough Its employees work both part-time and full time depending on the situation and allocation of the company During the crisis, the firm has applied many strategies throughout the pandemic, starting with improving customer service and recruiting experienced employees from big businesses, and even planned to expand the business by renting a new office, opening a new agency because it was confident to own enough capacity to cover and take advantage of the lower costs whereas other firms in the market struggled The company believes that extending the business services when the economy is plunging will save future investment costs when the market is steady However, the practical result was disappointing The recruitment was admitted not to be a wise solution to the problem at that time The firm soon realized the main obstacle in the crisis was the financial pressure faced owing to the shortage of customers and the governmental travel restriction policies After that, the second BMI was adopted By QUẢN TRỊ-QUẢN LÝ adjusting its current BM, the firm scales back the operating expenses Its manager director's resilience is to diversify its current services and promote vouchers and discounts through online platforms and websites The digital marketing activities were focused, despite the decrease in the number of staff, taking advantage of the mass number of potential customers online Indeed, these policies have resulted in better total revenue compared with others in the market The firm’s capacities, including experience in strategic management in response to crisis, good preparation and outlook, reputation which brings firm D a large number of loyal business customers, persistence and agility helped the firm in the BMI to not only survive, but also exceed other businesses and exceed its own recorded outcomes The evidence was in June 2020, when the revenue experienced a sudden surge that had never been seen before, when all potential customers turned to use the travel services to satisfy their long-waiting demand, combining with partnerships who used different sales tactics to attract customers The BMI was considered evolutionary, since it was most likely taking all capacities of the business to its upgraded level with more productivity and fewer costs, applied on the available market The government actually took an important role in the decision of the firm's BMI, because its regulation inhibited the whole tourism industry, leaving the survival chance only to strong and dynamic firms On the other hand, it controlled the pandemic situation relatively well at the beginning of 2020, offering the ndustry a resurgent period before the next lockdown interval The company’s activities therefore were I lot delayed for a long time 4.2 Cross case analysis The cross-analysis will be based on the analysis of individual cases Insights can be gained because cf the diversity of four cases (Table 1) For this part, we will consider whether four cases agree on the same points about BMIs, whether they differ a id whether they contradict each other The following analysis shows that the firms have a very similar understanding and approach to the cmsis It seems that neither the age of the firm nor the number of founders, nor the owner's highest educational level or gender had an effect on how it dealt with the crisis 4.2.1 Importance ofBM1 to overcome the crisis According to the findings, financial pressures are the most critical factor in establishing a BMI, since all businesses report significant revenue losses They needed to come up with fresh concepts as the businesses' financial pressures increased In the majority of cases, the decision to scale down the operation costs is the important urgent measure that creates a short term condition for the firms to adapt to the crisis and start to change theh business models In fact, whereas most of the cases layoff employees, only case A with its heavy reliance on volunteers did not The firms deciding to lay off employees creates a short term solution for the owner to get away from the financial burden Moreover, most of the firms started to allow theừ staff to work online from home (Case A, B and C) or move from big offices to smaller and cheaper ones (Case B and C) to reduce the physical office expenditures as well as better protect their staffs health As a result of the crisis, four firms (Cases A, B, c and D) established BMIs which produced and executed innovation ideas BMIs were established after analyzing the overall situation of COVID-19 in all cases All four BM examples (cases A, B, c and D) incorporated fundamentally novel approaches, but were widely accepted within the company's industry It is found from the report that Case A represents an adaptive innovation, but cases B, c and D represent an evolutionary innovation The majority of companies we interviewed that applied BMI remained financially stable by utilizing flexible business strategies during this unique era a Value proposition - New products, services, new customer segments Four out of four enterprises that we interviewed reported heavy losses in the international customer segments due to international travel restrictions The domestic customers pool was also reduced due to the uncertainty of the pandemic situation in Vietnam However, to keep the businesses afloat, all of them decided to adopt BMIs and rely on the domestic guests to create revenue Firm A’s respondent emphasized the importance of utilizing domestic guests who they did not serve as target customer segment in the pre-COVID-19 period By managing new business lines, goods, and services with strong actions and flexible resources, Case A has been able to keep its firm viable during this economic crisis The findings reveal that the crisis in case A had a substantial impact on its value proposal Rather than promoting national tourism, this company promotes SỐ 19 - Tháng 8/2021 163 TẠP CHÍ CƠNG THƯƠNG Table Case analysis overview Company overview Company Name (anonymous) Firm A FirmB FirmC FirmD Type of enterprise Social enterprise (Joint stock) Normal (Limited) Normal (Joint stock) Normal (Joint stock) Number of founders 3 Founded year 2019 2017 2018 2012 - Tour operator (Inbound, - Tour operator - Tour operator - Tour operator Domestic) (Inbound, (Domestic) (Inbound, Products & Services - Homestay Outbound, Outbound, - Local agriculture Domestic) Domestic) products Pre-pandemic (2019) Annual revenue $150K Post-pandemic (2020) Annual revenue decreased 50% Change in Value Proposition Engaged in BMI $1.5M-$2M