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Richard Johnson is the Senior Director of CWT Solutions Group, the mega travel agency's consulting division. Connect with him...
Corporate
travel has historically been a procurement or finance-owned category. Having
one or both functions at the decision-making table aligns to the ‘old school’
view of business travel being a controllable cost, that must be kept as small
as possible. Who better therefore to manage an organisation’s travel strategy
than those departments holding the purse strings?
The
challenge with such a siloed business travel management strategy, however, is that
it becomes self-fulfilling. Think only within cost terms and employee travel
will never achieve its full potential for the organisation. What may have
worked for the business traveller of yore no longer reflects today’s evolving
workforce.
A degree of
cost control will always remain integral to a corporate travel programme, but
it now needs to co-exist alongside
The evolving expectations of
today’s workforce – who are tech-obsessed, sharing-economy-loving and
sustainability conscious. It’s these employees who expect a much more
progressive approach to business travel that aligns to their own values and
beliefs
Highly sophisticated data modelling
– which quantifies the impact of travel on employees and customers
Factoring in
these new considerations, it becomes clear that siloed corporate travel
strategies are becoming archaic.
The most
progressively-managed programmes are geared towards enabling wider business
outcomes because in doing so they deliver return on investment many times over.
This is something rarely achieved by slashing costs.
Corporate
travel is a vital differentiator to help attract and retain talent. This means
that the level of employee focus in a travel policy can be directly linked to
productivity and wider business success.
Undoubtedly,
corporate travel priorities and strategies are gradually and healthily
expanding beyond cost and this is good news, for both employees and anyone
involved in managing a travel programme. But it raises the question of how the
role of travel teams needs to adapt to meet expectations. Beyond distributing
TMC reports and monitoring the cost of a supplier, today’s travel manager needs
to wear multiple hats. Aligning to internal stakeholder goals, minimising
environmental impact, navigating through technological and process changes – and
all the while doing so in a cost-effective way is now the norm, not the
exception. In fact, travel teams today need to be populated with
- Project managers
-
Finance experts
-
Human resources leaders
-
Technology specialists
-
Strategists
-
Problem solvers
-
Negotiators
-
Sustainability specialists
Having ready-made
experience across these disciplines takes time to acquire in-house. Furthermore,
recruiting such specialists with the necessary skills can be a daunting,
expensive and uphill challenge, especially when the demand for results from the
business can’t wait, which is why travel category leaders’ appetite for
strategic consultancy, expertise and resource from outsourced travel management
experts continues apace.
The most
common motivations for outsourcing from a client perspective include
- Access to specialist resources such
as sourcing experts able to deliver quick and effective results
- Speed of deployment whether it’s
technology integration or implementation of a new TMC
-
Cheaper solutions compared to the
total cost of hiring, training and retaining
-
Ease of management
-
Fixed durations without ongoing
commitments
Evidently,
the days of specialists only providing singular lines of business such as air
and hotel sourcing are diminishing. Instead, the ability to source, implant and
manage specialist resources and skills into an organisation – specifically,
experts in strategic sourcing, OBT management or TMC integration to name just a
few – to accelerate a customer’s business is becoming de rigeur.
Fear of relinquishing
control and perceived lack of impartiality of partner resources can mean that
corporate travel outsourcing is too daunting a step for some organisations. The
reality is, however, that all businesses are likely to benefit to some degree.
A biproduct of outsourced partnerships is that they enhance and grow the
profile of a company’s travel category. Being recognised as an enabler for the
achievement of results, stronger business growth, talent attraction, retention
and reduced risk is a terrific endorsement of our industry and the roles that
people play in managing programmes.
If I were
to leave you with one piece of advice it would be not to view outsourcing with
apprehension, but as a viable option for resourcing key positions and
delivering optimised results on projects without breaking the bank. A careful
approach in choosing an outsourcing partner is vital and, if applied with the
aim of achieving a ‘whole skills’ balance within a travel team, then the
payback should be significant and will serve to heighten the profile of the
travel category.