French companies are giving a high priority to self booking and expense reporting according to a new survey.
The poll found 84% gave self booking a high or very high priority while 83% gave expense reporting similar backing.
But the research which was presented at an Association of Corporate Travel Executives' (ACTE) Power Talk in Paris found that only 54% saw integrating travel and expense (T&E) management as a priority even though it could save money.
Presenting the findings, Todd Kramer, partner in the Paris-based consultancy Business & Alliance, said analysts firms had promoted T&E integration for several years as they believed it would streamline process and give better control.
The benefits for the corporates was that it would reduce costs and consolidate the process, for users, self booking tools (SBTs) provided one click shopping and were easy to use and for agents it streamlined processes and allowed them to give added value.
He cited an American Express survey in 2004 which found that 50% of major French companies and 29% of SMEs planned to introduce SBTs within two years.
The reasons for delay were given as lack of advice, the complexity of installing SBTS, the companies IT infrastructure and a lack of priority.
The surveys carried out by his own consultancy for ACTE questioned both buyers and suppliers.
Of the 15 respondents among buyers, adopting SBTs and expense reporting were the highest strategic priorities but 61% also wanted a credit card programme.
But despite being less enthusiastic about integrating T&E management, 93% of the buyers said that controlling costs was also a high priority. 71% also saw authorisation process as an important way of controlling costs.
The reasons they gave which slowed down change included senior management support, the travel budget, the company culture, its IT infrastructure and communications.
But those companies which had installed SBTs found that 28.6% enjoyed an adoption rate over 60% and 28.6% of between 30-60%.