Whether it's years of experience in managing travel for the legal sector, planning team travel for the sports sector, or understanding why retailers travelling to Hong Kong may prefer (in our experience) to fly Virgin Atlantic, but bankers prefer British Airways — sector specialism is highly relevant to the products and services provided and the way that they are delivered to a company and its employees.
Sector specific
Servicing a law firm is very different to servicing an energy and marine customer. If the DNA of a TMC is in the legal sector it is unlikely that it can transform itself overnight into a marine and energy expert. Although an "alternative" to the usual suspects can be a welcome change and opportunity in a specific sector, this is where the question of products and services expertise becomes ever more significant.
Any travel management company (TMC) worth their salt is able to issue air tickets, book hotels, provide some kind of out of hour's service and offer an online booking tool solution. However, the first question any buyer should ask is "are there any specific products or services my sector requires that are not available to all TMCs?"
The logical next question is whether the agency in question is set up to offer those products and services — in simple terms, do they have the experience and expertise to deliver them effectively. Just because you carry a plumbers toolbox doesn't mean you can fix someone's leaky pipes.
When placing their business, a legal firm or a marine company would have to be satisfied that the TMC has the unique fares and content available to these specific industry sectors, plus the expertise and ability to deliver them.
The charity and education sectors are equally interesting in this regard. The charity sector has unique fares offered by airlines to specific TMCs, much like the specialist legal and energy fares. Some airlines offer these fares if a TMC demonstrates it looks after a charity, others only offer them to a very small group of specialist TMCs, thus keeping this sector relatively niche in terms of potential TMC options.
Changing times
A final point to consider is whether sector experience or niche service providers are the right longer term solution to sectors during periods of change. The sports sector and specifically football and rugby have traditionally been serviced by small niche providers. These agencies have often had long associations with the clubs, either through the local nature of their business or the relationships within the clubs themselves.
Increased overseas activity from football clubs, whether it's travel, marketing or otherwise, are impacting programmes.
We are now seeing a significant period of change in this sector as clubs become more focused on the running of the club as a business, rather than always team-first. The other major change has been the desire of clubs to extend their brand overseas, either through acquisition of overseas clubs or pre and post season tours to ever more far flung destinations. This provides both opportunities and challenges. A global TMC with a wide range of products and services would fit this new requirement well. However, they wouldn't have the years of experience and knowledge suited to the unique travel requirements of a football club that a niche expert has spent many years perfecting.
Any big global TMC could book the corporate travel requirements of the club and the events department might be able to cope with the team travel. However, I am not convinced the global TMC would have the staff with the right experience to source a private venue for a player to have a party and ensure that DJ decks are there for him to show-off his skills with.
It is not the products and services one provides and the inherent quality of them, but the way they are delivered and applied to the sectors.
The professional services sector tends to have incredibly high service demands. A TMC without experience in this sector would potentially think that the service standards and expectations are unreasonable. Things that could seem even outrageous are often that way because in their business, the high expectations on their own staff are the same.
An executive assistant in a law firm who books travel will work similar hours to his or her boss and be remunerated accordingly. They will demand of their TMC what their boss demands of them. A travel booker in other sectors might not have the same out of hours demands on them and therefore on the TMC.
So any good agent could serve the practical demands of the law firm or investment bank in terms of booking a flight and hotel. However, will the out of hours service be fully briefed on bookings so that when an executive assistant calls at 19:00 hours to make multiple changes to earlier requests they can be smoothly implemented?
Unless the TMC has flexible working agreements with its own staff to adapt to these unique timing challenges, things will be difficult. The TMC will also need a formal process and a comprehensive handover to the out of hours team (and of course, a single booking and profile system). A TMC set up to process online transactions where the online and offline services are transacted in different locations or even in another country would find the servicing of a law firm very difficult to manage, compared to perhaps a manufacturing company that want the lowest cost transactions fees and book travel accordingly.
These are small and detailed points but illustrate how something as simple as "out of hours service" needs to be set up and managed differently, sector by sector.
Service and the right price
Sector expertise also determines the service on offer and the way it is priced. For example, a highly commoditised travel bid might require every element carefully documented and priced so that each element is at the lowest possible price. However, if the out of hours service is complex does the TMC charge it as a premium service or charge higher overall fees to reflect the fact that it is actually just an extension of the daytime service?
For example, a TMCs air-fare audit team may recommend an alternative transatlantic flight for a legal customer, changing to a codeshare on an alternative carrier (the same plane, the same benefits!) for a £500 saving per passenger. In this instance it isn't about the cost, but the service and experience of the traveller. A traveller who has already been checked in online with their boarding passes delivered to their desks won't appreciate the hassle of being un-checked and re-booked with only a day to go.
Those involved in servicing the legal sector will recognise that turning down apparent cost savings can regularly be the case. In another sector such as construction, even a board member would have the "lost saving" tracked on a probable pre-trip report and be challenged on why they weren't accepting the saving.
Specialist consultants maximise their sector expertise to understand the nuances of each area of its business. Understanding that risking travel plans not running smoothly is more detrimental to a legal business than a cost saving is part of the knowledge that goes with offering a true consultancy service. A good TMC will always flag a cost saving, but they might not recommend that you take it. This kind of consultancy approach is what delivers true value and long standing partnerships between TMCs and their clients, and it only happens when a TMC gets inside a business and learns about bespoke needs.