Sarah-Jayne Aldridge is category group manager, indirect procurement, at Anglo American, and a judge at the 2016 Business Travel Awards. She talks to Bob Papworth about cost control, understanding compliance and what she will be looking for in those entries...
Interesting job title! Apart from buying travel, what other areas of procurement fall within your remit?
My role is to support three global categories, one being travel, but also consulting and IT. I also have responsibility for the procurement of the corporate offices in London and Johannesburg, which includes spend on areas such as facilities, HR and professional services – so, very broad and challenging, covering more than 2,000 suppliers.
Who travels where at Anglo American?
Depending on the region, we have hundreds of frequent travellers, using air, road and rail because of Anglo American’s mining locations. Our most regular destinations are London to South Africa and South America, and within South Africa. However, with our suppliers and our exploration teams all over the world, we have some very infrequent and interesting locations too.
Has cost-control become more of a challenge?
The mining industry is under great stress, with the commodity prices as challenging as they are, so cost-control is a focus and is the top priority after safety. Travel volumes have remained the same, but the type and length of stay has changed, and we now encourage our travellers to think differently about travel with a more robust policy sitting behind it.
Do your travellers understand the importance of policy compliance?
Yes they do. Policy fundamentals include advanced booking on our online booking tool and utilisation of lowest logical fare – but our duty-of-care responsibilities are our No1 priority. With our safety drive and the remote locations of our mines, remaining in policy supports both the operations side and the traveller. The policy is built with safety in mind, and the organisation comes down very hard on travellers that we cannot support due to out-of-policy travel.
How do you endeavour to ensure employees’ safety and security?
We have a number of ways to support them. Firstly, they must book on our system so we can locate them quickly. We use International SOS’s services as well as providing travellers with information before they travel, on things like insurance and vaccinations, injections etc. When our travellers are going to some of our more remote destinations we provide them with personal first aid packs, which are collected up at a local site and replaced for each trip.
During the recent outbreak of the Eboli virus we were very quick to react and were able to locate all our travellers to alert them and bring them back home as soon as possible
But we also go beyond this with our “at home” travellers in South Africa – anyone travelling by road for business needs to obtain pre-approval and undertake a 14-point car check for safety reasons. If there are any incidents they are thoroughly investigated and any lessons learnt are embedded for future travellers.
If you could change just one element of the corporate travel procurement industry, what would it be?
Reduce the technical jargon – I would love this to be simplified.
What advice would you give to anyone contemplating a career in corporate travel management/procurement?
Buying corporate travel management needs someone who can balance commercial understanding with the needs of the business. Don’t go in there thinking that this will be an overnight success; you need to understand what drives the behaviours and how you can work within the commercial agreement but still achieve a high service and savings – all without impacting the welfare of your travellers
As the 2016 Business Travel Awards judging process begins, what qualities will you be looking for in the entries?
Have the courage to be different and challenge the status quo. This is not an environment to continue within an old mindset, what I am looking for are teams and individuals that are building the foundation of the future travel industry.
What were your earliest ambitions, and how do you see your career future?
They say you have three careers in your lifetime – I am on No 2 and thoroughly enjoying it. Holding a senior position with people management you never stop learning so I hope to continue building on my last years’ successes.
The great thing about procurement is that you need to be a chameleon – one day a negotiator, one day a project manager, one day a communications manager – so whatever my ambition was when I was younger (which was a pathologist) I suppose I achieve something every day, but by dissecting data rather than brains!
When you’re not focused on work, how do you relax? Are there activities that you wish you had more time for?
I am a home-body. I have always travelled for work – career No1 was a flight attendant for Virgin Atlantic – so being at home is where I relax, just sitting still and enjoying the English weather. If I had more time (and money!), I would like to do more leisure travel, be it beach, city or adventure. Maybe that’s career No3 – a travel critic…
Founded in 1917 by Sir Ernest Oppenheimer, Anglo American is a global mining business which “provides the raw materials essential for economic development and modern life” – everything from coal and iron ore, through copper and nickel, to platinum and diamonds. Its mining operations, growth projects and exploration and marketing activities extend across the Americas, Europe, Asia, Australia and southern Africa. The company has more than 150,000 employees worldwide.
Entries are now open for the 2016 Business Travel Awards
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