A PESTLE analysis is a useful way for travel managers and buyers to shape their strategy, according to the Royal Mail’s procurement chief Corin Mcgrath.
Speaking at the ACTE London Executive Forum in London, he suggested buyers analyse key influences on business travel in terms of six key areas: political, economic, social, technological, legal and environmental (PESTLE).
A method of auditing what influences an organisation, to then guide strategic decision making, he suggested it as one of the ways that procurement executives can learn from travel, and vice versa.
McGrath, best practice director for the Royal Mail’s groups procurement department, said this would help buyers to better understand the business environment they’re working in.
“What are the industry drivers and influencers that we need to be taking into consideration?” he said.
Alan Ryan, regional travel manager at SITA Aero was one of the delegates at the event, and took part in a round-table PESTLE analysis of air fares.
Afterwards, he agreed it was important to try and minimise surprises, and said analysis tools such as PESTLE can help “really highlight some of the things that may happen in the future for us”, he said.
“If the CFO suddenly says why has my air fare gone up, we can answer that. And we can brief him beforehand, so there’s an expectation.
“We can also have some background information to say these are the factors that are influencing this – the price of oil has gone up, or whatever it is.”
PESTLE can be used to understand the current environment to be able to shape a travel strategy and how that is communicated with stakeholders, agreed McGrath.
“That’s the main purpose of it… The more you can focus on this type of thing, the more you control the process, the more you can communicate and be seen as a strategic advisor,” he said.