Experience, Relationships Aid In RolloutCompany: ON Semiconductor Corp.
Headquarters: Phoenix, Ariz.
2002 global booked air volume: $3 million
Since joining Motorola spinoff ON Semiconductor in 2000, Colleen Guhin has turned a blank slate into a global travel program, yielding high online booking adoption rates, innovating travel policies, as well as expanding duties beyond travel management.
Within the past year as strategic sourcing manager for travel and telecommunications, Guhin brought online booking adoption to well above 90 percent and last week rolled out the newest version of GetThere, expecting the success to continue.
Guhin joined the company one year into its infancy, at a time when the company piggybacked on many of its former parent's travel initiatives—contracts, agency support and policy, among other factors—but the company set the goal for autonomy within a year. "When they spun this business off, they had a two-year agreement with Motorola for their shared services, whether it was travel, accounting or payroll," she said. "For two years, we kept the same travel agency and used the same agreements that Motorola had." While the company leveraged support, Guhin went to work forming a global travel program that would become a separate entity with her own marks of differentiation.
"I had a deadline of one year, and I had to have everything in place to flip the switch in August of 2001, so I had to do the travel agency, corporate card, online booking system, expense reporting system and all the air, hotel and car contracts." Guhin's first step, though, was to institute a travel policy.
As a travel industry veteran and former BTN Travel Manager of the Year
(BTN, Aug. 19, 1996), Guhin leveraged her knowledge and industry relationships to mold a policy unique to her company. "We looked at the Motorola policy, and we didn't want to just copy it since we were a different company now," she said. "We had questions as to what other companies were doing, and it was very easy for me to send messages out to travel managers all around the world. We did a lot of benchmarking, and there were some things that we did where we wanted to be best in class."
Guhin said one provision in the policy that separates the company from most others is an allowance the company offers to pay for additional childcare when employees travel. This family-friendly approach extends itself to other areas as well. The company does not limit the number of phone calls travelers are allowed to make while on the road. "Our CEO encouraged that and said, 'Make as many calls as you want to make,' " she said.
After putting in place a "softly mandated" policy, Guhin moved to put all the other components of the travel program in place. "I didn't have the luxury of doing them one at a time," she said. "I couldn't implement any of them until I had them all in place."
Guhin, with the aid of a hired consultant, rolled out Amex One in the United States, while using the larger American Express travel management company to address the global nature of the program, extending it to such regions as Europe and Asia. The company also selected American Express as its corporate card provider, while an Oracle rollout in accounts payable was extended to T&E expense reporting.
Moving from a Corporate Travel 100-size company to a midmarket firm, Guhin knew she could not leverage her smaller volume to secure the same deals she had in place at Motorola. However, she used her industry connections and reputation to secure the best contracts a company of her size could achieve. "Vendors knew that I was going to put a good program in place and that I would honor the contracts," she said.
After a tumultuous year, Guhin rolled out an autonomous travel program by her August deadline. Since then, online booking has become one of the most successful aspects of the program—as the company uses the tool both for travel booking, as well as for meetings.
When she rolled out GetThere last year, Guhin used a soft touch to ensure its penetration in the United States. "We did it in stages," she said, noting that she sent out an e-mail in April to notify travelers of the GetThere tool and offered education. At first, she encouraged travelers to use the tool for "simple bookings." Guhin also used department heads and unit managers as conduits through which to drive booking penetration down to travelers. "They keep the travelers in line," she said. "So if I can keep them informed and keep them involved, then they'll take care of the rest of it." Adoption quickly grew to 60 percent.
In June, Guhin took the next step by telling Amex agents to send travelers back to the Web for travel requests that could be handled online. "Whenever they booked something through American Express, I'd tell them how much money they could have saved," she said. "All it took was that awareness." Through this combination, Guhin was able to bring adoption to beyond 90 percent in recent months.
When Guhin inherited an unformed travel program, the duties occupied 100 percent of her time. However, once everything was in its right place she found the time to acquire other disciplines outside of travel. Guhin estimated that travel now accounts for only about 30 percent of her time.
"We had long-term contracts with all of our providers. It was only the hotel program that I had to do every year," she said. "We got the penetration up on the online booking tool, so that took care of itself. It wasn't as big of a task anymore since I was maintaining rather than building. The policy was in place, everybody understood it and all the communications were done. It got to the point where I saw the writing on the wall: I needed to be doing more, and I needed some additional responsibilities. I got what I asked for."
A program running almost on autopilot coupled with significantly reduced travel gave Guhin the opportunity to explore other areas in sourcing and management. While travel "still requires attention," Guhin in February picked up telecommunications duties and in recent weeks became the sourcing director for company computers.
However, 2004 holds increased travel activity for ON Semiconductor, with Guhin forecasting a slight rebound in meetings: "The meetings are going to start growing in 2004, so I need to stay on top of that." While the company's meetings remained dormant this year, Guhin took the time to compose a meetings policy and fine-tune the GetThere meeting tool so when the floodgates opened, she'd be ready.