The opportunities for integrating programmesfrom various corporate departments and disciplines into travel are varied. Meetings and events (M&E), risk management and expenses are obvious contenders; while another is the ‘total hospitality solution’, where mobility, relocation, facilities and HR are all integrated with travel for procuring and managing accommodation. Integration at any level provides greater visibility, leading to better duty-of-care and compliance, creating a benign circle.
While at the moment there is little evidence of organisations approaching ‘total hospitality’ integration, there are certainly degrees of integration being practiced, and the benefits are being recognised.
At software giant Citrix, travel and meetings work with HR where the need arises. “Temporary accommodation for transient and M&E is slightly different from longer-term accommodation for relocation, but we still work together to look at different areas,” says global category manager Jef Robinson. “If someone is relocating from one office to another, there is a wealth of experience locally concerning that office. It is a manual process and integration is cultural rather than technological.”
Meanwhile at telecoms firm Alcatel-Lucent, the mobility programme resides with HR, and tickets are booked through the global travel policy when moving people to or from the UK. There is also a degree of overlap with processes such as the expense management system, where city caps are programmed into the expense management tool, so that claims for an amount above the cap are flagged up. “They are stand-alone policies and tools, but there are areas where we have overlap and integration,” says regional travel manager Mike Butcher.
At serviced apartments firm Oakwood Worldwide, EMEA managing director Debbie Lundon says: “We are seeing the blending of corporate travel and mobility programmes, resulting in more companies turning to serviced apartments in lieu of hotels as an option for business trips lasting longer than a week.”
Root and branch
Risk management and M&E tend to be the elements most commonly integrated into travel policy. The risk factor was debated at a BBT Forum earlier this year. There, Matthew Judge, managing director of security specialist firm Anvil Group, said travel safety policy should be an integral part of other company policies, and this can be achieved through “branching” – where all company policies that impact each other contain a “reference branch” to the other relevant main policies or procedures, to ensure consistency.
Integrating MICE (meetings, incentives, conferences and exhibitions) is challenging – travel managers face difficulties and resistance when rounding up sufficient data from disparate bookers around an organisation.
However, those who achieve it end up with control of meetings space inside and outside the organisation, and get to see opportunities to combine transient and meetings requirements to negotiate better rates. And in different ways, Citrix and professional services company Capgemini are going for broke, with global integration, giving ultimate visibility.
Citrix is about to launch Cvent event-management software, which will allow the company to customise meeting request forms and work flow. “In addition,” says Robinson, “I have worked with International SOS [ISOS] and Cvent to ensure that security has visibility of M&E in a proactive way. This way, the security team can work with meetings owners, and potentially myself, to mitigate risk at a destination or even move a potential meeting or event to a lower-risk destination where necessary.”
“For the larger value events, it also allows security to evaluate a particular hotel and check issues, such as unauthorised access, particularly where senior executives are attending or those from partner or client companies,” says Robinson. “We are selling Cvent on the basis that this is a major aspect – and to mitigate risk in general.”
Eliminating meetings in risky destinations where Citrix has offices is not an option. “We take the political climate and various factors into consideration, and work with stakeholders, meeting planners and travellers before they go to these places so they understand various risks,” he says. “Greece is a good example but Turkey and many other southern European destinations, and all the Middle East countries, not to mention other areas of world, all involve risk, so to have a degree of integration is extremely important, if not vital, for corporates and international companies these days.”
Citrix launched its programme with ISOS a year ago and, at the same time, introduced a new travel management company (TMC). All bookings with the TMC are automatically highlighted within ISOS, including those that are out-of-policy, so travel and security programmes “are not separable”, as Robinson puts it. “When negative situations occur, we have the ability to initiate our ISOS service to help repatriate people affected by them.”
Different platforms
Capgemini is integrating the Concur expense management tool into its global travel policy and its TMC, Egencia. “We have one agency and standard platforms across the world,” says senior purchasing manager Roger Peters. “A global platform for expenses will align the process so that everybody’s expenses data is in one format and we have a consistent measure.” In the UK and US, this is integrated into the American Express card programme, which has 70 per cent adoption.
The firm’s M&E is handled by Capita in the UK, and it is looking at whether it can be centralised globally through a tool such as Lanyon or Cvent. “That will consolidate the booking process, but providers go to country level and M&E is not integrated into travel,” he says.
Capgemini also works with ISOS. Risk assessments are managed on site, and relevant information sent to ISOS to allow security tracking. “There is a plan to link M&E to security because not all meetings are booked through the same channels, and some of the data might be duplicated,” says Peters.
Travel is integrated directly into procurement and Peters controls that. Travellers have to raise a purchase order before doing anything, so that procurement always has advance notice of any activity. In addition, all relevant data is automatically fed from Egencia to ISOS, which integrates risk management into travel policy.
At engineering firm Sparrows Group, both risk management policy and meetings are aligned with the travel programme meeting requests are managed through the travel department, which handles contracts, rates, and terms and conditions. Where possible, meetings are held in the same hotels as are used for transient travel in order to leverage better rates.
However, seamless integration does not happen overnight. “You do have to invest in it,” says Peters. “Capgemini sees ROI [return on investment] in consistent policy, and processes ensure we have a controlled and managed programme; if someone goes and does what they want, we cannot manage caps in the tools. And consistent data is great: if you use multiple agencies, you might get the Hilton London Metropole, Metropole Hilton, the Metropole, the Hilton... How can you make sense of that? We save on productivity.”
While some travel managers have a strong grip on their programmes, Judith Gledhill, director at consultancy Bouda, has observed a mixed bag of control over meetings policies. “There is a big focus around business continuity, the number of senior management or board members on one flight, and that does relate to M&E. But if there is a meeting in a local hotel, there is not a lot of risk attached to that and it slips under the radar,” she says. “However, buyers can look at their consolidated volumes and try to get a better 24-hour rate when they have got transient volumes going through a property.”
Making profits
Tax is an area not often considered when integrating programmes but Chris Pouney, partner at Nina & Pinta, recently helped an energy company integrate systems in order to satisfy HMRC that appropriate amounts of tax were being paid on expenses following media allegations that the company was making excessive profits.
Meanwhile, Northamptonshire Police has integrated travel and fleet transport. Anyone needing to travel completes an electronic form, for anything from bicycles to accommodation and air tickets. “It gives us good savings because people are not doing their own thing,” says head of transport and travel, Graham Crow.
The force also gets reductions from selected rail operators; and Crow has reduced use of government-issued warrants, which give authority to the user to buy items such as a rail ticket or accommodation, because going through the travel office is likely to be cheaper. “We keep them for emergencies,” he says.
Although technology facilitates the gathering of data, good MI and the integration of policies, incompatible systems can be a hindrance. “The technology used for M&E is still very different from that used in the traditional corporate world, where travellers are able to make their own bookings through online services provided by TMCs,” says BCD Travel director Tony McGetrick. “Meetings and incentives still require a phone call to a specialist company or agency, where the technology sits. The whole process is far more time-consuming and specialised.”
Lanyon director Jean Squires notes that mobility, training and moving people in groups is the least developed – therefore least well-managed and integrated – part of a business. Lanyon’s ‘smart cloud’ provides total hospitality spend management, a platform where buyers and suppliers meet and transact business in an online marketplace. Lanyon recently merged with Active Network’s Business Solutions Group (BSG), and brings the meetings sector knowledge of Starcite, now branded as Lanyon Meetings, to the mix.
The effort required to integrate several programmes can appear to be an overwhelming task. Squires recommends taking it in stages. “Start with one element and, like a Lego train, you can take another carriage and bolt it on. That way, you have a system that is scalable and you can grow it as required.”