The category of business travel is one of the largest controllable categories of spend within the average enterprise. It remains one of the most complex to manage and it is supported by an industry that has seen more dramatic change in the past few years than almost any other. On Wednesday, I presented Six Trends in Business Travel, here on CPO Rising. In response to that article, I’ll spend the next few highlighting a “resolution” or two (i.e. recommendations) on how to improve your T&E Management that I shared in a recent webinar.
Resolution: Work to ensure that your travel policy remains relevant and dynamic
Does anyone think managing paper supplies is easier than managing travel? Has there been perpetual innovation in the packaging and pricing of office paper in recent years? Innovation? yes. Perpetual innovation? no, not really. Has there been perpetual innovation in the packaging and pricing of travel services in recent years? Absolutely.
In our last article, we identified many new, and often hidden, fees lurking and ready to strike the unprepared business traveler. We also discussed the growing sophistication of the overall industry and how many vendors are developing new, great, and often expensive services designed for the business traveler. If the enterprise travel policy is not updated regularly, it may not address the new fees and services in the market; as a result, many travelers may unknowingly make costly or unwise choices. A travel policy must keep pace with the market if it is to stay relevant to the travelers.
The reality is that for many enterprises, the only “changes” ever made to their travel policies are of the stoplight variety: Red light: no travel. Green light: back to normal.
Globalization is a fact of business that will begin to impact more and more companies and not just large multi-billion dollar revenue ones. As new destinations gain more traffic and prominence for your travelers, what is being done to make sure that the new markets are understood and how is this new knowledge being captured in the travel policy? More importantly, how is this new information being shared with employees? While I’m sure that some top sales people would gripe about a $75 or $100 per diem in New York City or SF; I’ll bet that same per diem lets you live like a king in Krakow. Travelers should be treated well, but not like royalty . What new destinations require different rules?
But this is not solely about saving money or control. Consider Cairo, which was considered a “top-ten” global location for business process outsourcing. Clearly the events of recent days will require a different level of consideration and support if future travel to Egypt resumes.
Case in Point:
According to a recent Wall Street Journal article:
“A battle to reshape the way airline tickets are sold escalated last week, in what could become an industry-wide showdown between carriers and middlemen. In a retaliatory move against American Airlines, Sabre Holdings Corp., a middleman for many carriers’ seats, said it is raising the fees it charges American to distribute its fare information and sell its seats through thousands of travel agents. Sabre also said it will display American’s flights less prominently than rival airlines in its vast booking system.”
The article goes on to quote an owner of a travel agency as saying “I can’t have an agent spending all day long checking airline websites for an airfare.” What? You can’t?
What does this issue mean to your TMC or online booking service? Does it create a significant risk that you’ll start missing the best fares? It is probably too early to answer that question and I would imagine that even with full information, we will see very different answers from different companies.
Who in the department is on point to track issues like this and start monitoring the potential impact on the travel program and policy.
Policies are generally built for compliance but, this needs to be rethought. Policies should also be built for support and enablement
Postscript: To view the webinar discussion/presentation of this and other resolutions that will help improve T&E management, click here (registration required). The webinar was sponsored by Concur.
