BBT editor Paul Revel talks to American Express VP and general manager for global business travel UK, Champa Magesh, about digital capabilities, evolution of TMCs and educating travellers.
Events overtake us as I meet Champa Magesh in London, near the Blackfriars HQ of American Express’s business travel division. News is out that a deal is signed that will see the Qatar Investment Authority and an investment group lead by Certares invest US$900 million in American Express Global Business Travel, in exchange for a 50 per cent stake.
The deal has been on the cards for some time – Buying Business Travel reported on the plans in September last year – but with the ink still wet on the agreement, Champa doesn’t go into many details. “I believe it is incredibly exciting for the business – a differentiator for us,” she says. “To our knowledge, this is the largest investment ever made in a TMC [travel management company]. It will be put back into the business – we want to enhance our suite of products and services, and we want to grow internationally – that’s very important.” Amex’s TMC division currently operates in 139 countries.
Champa was appointed to the role of vice-president and general manager at American Express Global Business Travel UK in July last year. Before joining the company’s business travel division, she had been with Amex for seven years; and prior to that, she held various senior roles around the world, including in procurement with Cisco Systems. “I’ve been in the situation that a lot of the stakeholders I now work with have been in. I understand the pressures they face – across multiple industries,” she says.
Industry shift
With all the changes we hear about in booking technologies, distribution, behaviour and expectations, how does a TMC stay relevant? Champa agrees there has been a shift in “the entire ecosystem” of the travel industry, but says Amex is equipped to deal with it. “TMCs have to grow and adapt. I think absolutely there is an evolution, as there always is in any business cycle,” she says. “At American Express we’ve been in business 160 years, and it’s always been about evolution and adaptation.”
She says the TMC is being required more and more to help companies fulfil their duty-of-care obligations and, increasingly, is required to help clients with securing more fragmented data. “You have more third-parties in the data supply chain. Our customers want to engage with travel partners who can guarantee the security of that data.”
Digital capabilities
The other area where Champa sees a strong future is in digital capabilities. “The access to technology in the consumer space is ubiquitous,” she says. “Why would a traveller, who in their consumer life engages with technology, have a different expectation in their business life?”
But does a corporate need a TMC to provide that technology? “What the traveller ultimately expects is an end-to-end service” replies Champa. “It’s the fulfilment of that service – and then the back-end reporting as well. So from an end-to-end perspective, there’s definitely a need for the TMC – and also, it’s the TMC creating the digital ability so the traveller can access the service. It’s not just about the pretty application, it’s about what it does – and being able to rely on it, day-in and day-out. That’s our focus: to deliver the ecosystem of applications, whether we do it in-house or whether we do it with third parties.” But she stresses that alongside technology advances is the trend of increasingly personalised service – which is key for a TMC to achieve success.
Is this a modern, more cost-efficient take on the traditional TMC ‘high-touch’ services? “It’s definitely a modern way of engaging the traveller,” she replies, citing the growth of younger Millennials, aka Generation Y, in the global workplace. “Expectations of service delivery are higher than they were before,” she adds.
Price and value
That’s all well and good – but aren’t clients asking for these personal, premium service standards while at the same time looking for reduced costs? “I think that is true in any business,” says Champa. “As consumers, we’re always wanting cheaper price and better value.” The other key area for delivering that value is on the supply side. “What our travellers really are asking for is for the TMC to be an efficient distribution channel of their content. How we can leverage the digital technologies and capabilities that deliver appropriate content to our travellers, end-to-end?”
On that note, I say that a growing concern for BBT readers is getting meaningful corporate deals from suppliers – particularly air. How can TMCs help here? Champa agrees that airline consolidation, and capacity having been rationalised during the recession, means airlines have better leverage than in the past. She says: “Obviously we have a global footprint and we have the scale. We have the relationships with the suppliers, and the insight. With a consulting arm, we have knowledge through the data to be able to produce sensible peer-benchmarks for our clients.
“But it’s not just about the specific view – it’s about the end-to-end. Clients are increasingly asking how we can help them drive optimisation at a total trip cost level. There’s no point flying to an airport many miles away from where you need to be and then use up those savings by taking a taxi, for example.”
So how do you help with total trip cost? Through data, replies Champa – adding that a big advantage for Amex is a combination of a vast amount of data from the card side of the business, the TMC and the consulting arm. Plus, compliance helps meet volume agreements and use of preferred suppliers.
“We can help drive compliance while the decisions are being made on the trip,” she says, citing the app released at this year’s Business Travel Show that can deliver customised messages to travellers during their journey – for example, prompting them to take a free shuttle bus to the hotel on arrival at an airport instead of a taxi.
Educating travellers
Champa also points to gamification as an effective tool to drive compliance. Amex’s Go Time platform has already been piloted with a US corporate client. Results from the pilot included the fact that preferred air bookings were up 7 per cent year-on-year, and that bookings made more than 14 days in advance were up 12 per cent compared to the previous three months, when the trial began.
“Through gamification, we can make it fun to educate travellers on the travel policy,” she says. “We’ve seen that travellers are well-intentioned but don’t always understand the consequences of their actions. Gamification plays to the innate nature we all have for competition, and it drives transparency. It gives travellers immediate feedback and enables them to do the right thing.”
She says the gamification tool is customisable to the company culture. “Certain companies might take the view that they don’t want to reward travellers for doing what they should be doing anyway.” In this case, she says the tool is providing travellers with real-time feedback, driving accountability. “Or a company can take the view: ‘Actually, I understand the reasons why they aren’t complying, and I’m going to reward them for making that extra effort.’”
She adds: “There is no one-size-fits-all. I think we’ll see a spread across different segments, across different industries and geographies. That’s the purpose around the pilot: to get dialogue going with our clients, to listen and capture the feedback around these different cultural connotations, and find how much compliance and engagement they want to drive with their travellers.” She says Amex is running online focus groups and webinars for clients interested in learning about how to use gamification in their travel programmes.
Different stakeholders
Champa says TMCs need to help organisations meet their obligations to stakeholders. “HR has always been a very important partner and stakeholder,” she says. She believes that, as companies expand into other markets, the increased significance of data privacy and local legal regulations is further enhancing the role of HR, as well as a company’s security department.
“There’s finance, who are ultimately interested in the return on investment. There’s procurement, which is something that has changed over the years – procurement has become front-and-centre in terms of determining who it contracts with. And then, of course, there’s the travel management team, who are ultimately responsible for the key metrics around the travel programme.
So there are all these different stakeholders, whose objectives have to be met through the travel management programme.
“And, of course,” she adds, “let’s not forget that, ultimately, it’s about engaging the travellers. Traveller satisfaction is key to all of this. Otherwise we haven’t done our job.”