Focus on local expertise and education
A new consultancy service for the EMEA region is to be launched in London next month by GetThere.
The company, which provides online travel procurement solutions, said the service would be global but would use local expertise as well.
It is currently drawing up a team of three local experts from its European operation to advise and helps clients.
The launch of GetThere Consulting for the EMEA will be held in London on September 28.
The service has already been launched in the US and will also be offered soon in Asia and Australia and Latin America.
Duane Futch, GetThere's vp for travel procurement strategy, said the new service was targeted at medium to large companies.
But he stressed it would have local expertise and also focus on education.
"If you are a US-centric company, they do not want that in Australia. They want local expertise as well as global expertise," he said.
"It is all about being customer-centric. It is not just the US coming to help but of listening to what the clients think they need."
GetThere said the service would offer the "full range of advisory programmes - from short-term projects to complete programme reviews."
Mr Futch, a former travel manager with US supermarket chain Wal-Mart, said the service would also be educational, hopefully for both sides.
"It will be a learning curve. We might be highly critical of a company but everything that we are doing for the customer should be about education.
"We want to road map their progress and we shall also be monitoring them after implementation of any changes."
He said there were five steps to the service offered: measuring problems, partnering the customer, evaluating the situation, delivering solutions and then implementing them.
"We want a lot of customer involvement. We shall be learning about their business. They might have best practice which we can use and we might be able to suggest best practice to them.
"We shall also be contacting them on a frequent basis, at least by telephone or through e-mails as often as necessary."
www.getthere.com