The world’s attention has been on the CERN particle physics laboratory on the Swiss-French border in recent years, as it sought and found the mysterious Higgs boson. Mark Frary talks to the organisation’s travel team to find out what goes on behind the science
There are three of you in the team, so who is the lead for travel, and how did you get here?
Jean-Marc Saint-Viteux (JMS): There is no team leader – we each come from different departments. I am deputy department head of human resources [HR]. I joined CERN in 1983 and led the implementation of the first external financial ERP [enterprise resource planning] system. In 2005, I joined the HR department as group leader of services, procedures and social groups, taking on responsibility for travel claims management.
Gabriele Thiede (GT): In 2009, I was put in charge of the programme to develop an electronic official travel process, which led to running a pilot of Amadeus e-Travel Management. In 2012, my group was transferred to the director general’s unit [effectively CERN’s chief executive] to give it independence and neutrality, and renamed as the administrative processes unit.
Boi-Lan Lemoine (BL): I joined CERN in April 2013 after 20 years with the United Nations, managing the procurement of goods and
services in construction, IT, administration and consultancy. And I now look after one of the sections in the finance, procurement and knowledge transfer department.
What is CERN, and what size is the workforce?
GT: CERN was founded in 1954 to be a world-class fundamental physics research organisation in Europe, and it now has 21 member states. We directly employ 2,400 people to build and run particle accelerators, and analyse experimental data.
CERN is funded by public money from member states – what does this mean for travel?
JMS: The main principle is using the cheapest logical means of transport, and this is enshrined in the staff rules and regulations – but these do evolve over time to adapt to changing circumstances.
What does CERN travel look like?
GT: Last year, the total spend was 11.5 million Swiss francs [approximately £7.71 million], which includes air, rail, car rental, subsistence and conference fees.
JMS: If you look just at the travel element, we spent between 4 and 5 million Swiss francs [approximately £2.7-£3.4 million]. We handled around 10,000 transactions during the year.
Who has the CERN account and how is it serviced?
JMS: We have used Carlson Wagonlit for a number of years, but we are currently in a re-tendering process. We retender regularly, but there is no rule that prohibits a contractor from being reselected.
BL: CERN does not use European public procurement regulations but has its own rules. For a large contract worth over 200,000 Swiss francs [approximately £134,000] there is a substantive, formal procedure and we let individual member states know about opportunities, so that we don’t miss any potential supplier.
GT: We have a dedicated team of travel managers based in an implant at CERN. Even if we want to push more for an online booking solution, we need to have a physical presence to deal with special requests.
BL: We have been through a benchmarking exercise to see whether we should rethink the strategy on implant/outplant, and it continues to work for us.
JMS: It is also worth mentioning that one of our requirements is that we won’t accept a call centre located outside the member states.
A cheapest-logical-fare policy presumably means you use low-cost carriers extensively, and business class is not widely used...
JMS: Easyjet is the biggest client of Geneva airport, and we use it if it’s the cheapest option – which is often the case. Low-cost carriers represent 20 per cent of the number of air transactions but only 7 per cent in terms of cost. We also do not have a business class policy for longer flights.
BL: We have corporate agreements with several major airlines, but cost is the only factor – we do not favour one particular airline. The destinations change every year – we try to obtain route deals on those destinations and they do offer them to us, because, presumably, CERN is seen as a desirable client.
CERN is a very tech-savvy organisation, so presumably you book online...
GT: We are running Amadeus e-Travel Management as a pilot project with 300 people in the IT department. The idea is to implement a computerised system that covers authorisation, booking and the reimbursement of travel expenses. The adoption rate is already between 80 and 90 per cent of travel booked.
JMS: Other departments currently work in a more traditional way, with the secretariat organising travel with Carlson Wagonlit. We believe it makes complete sense to have an online booking tool though and this is part of the current re-tender – 70 per cent of all of our travel can be qualified as ‘simple’ travel.
GT: The pilot project was more focused on the ability for people to use these kinds of online booking tools, rather than focusing on the tools’ specific features.
BL: We expect to implement a system organisation-wide by the end of 2014 or early 2015.
How do you manage travel expenses on the road?
BL: We take the United Nations’ figures for per diems, which are adjusted every year.
JMS: We have no corporate cards – we advance the money before the trip and after they return the traveller submits an expense claim.
What are the future challenges in terms of travel?
JMS: The most important is the geographical enlargement of CERN: there is a lot of interest in joining from non-European countries, such as Brazil, India, Russia and the Ukraine, meaning more long-distance travel.