Amex Unveils Global Advisory Services Unit

American Express Business Travel has created a global advisory services unit comprised of 200 consultants focused on providing services that deliver a return on investment in the form of purchase and process savings and heightened program controls, the company today announced at the Association of Corporate Travel Executives conference in Atlanta.

The unit differs from Amex's Eclipse Advisory Services both in its global scope and by delving deeper into a travel program than simply air, hotel and car, said Andrew McGraw, senior vice president and general manager of American Express Business Travel for North America. Advisory Services—which has been in place with some clients for one year, but was formally announced today—specifically integrates three travel practice lines: policy management, strategic sourcing and process management.

"Eclipse is clearly an area that delivers savings," he said. "We brought every other area that could possibly deliver savings to a client into the organization together. It really brings us another opportunity to do business differently than it traditionally is done today. Policy today is very culture-oriented, so it's using knowledge that we have across the organization and looking at how that company operates around the world versus just looking at the headquarters, then looking at other opportunities, which may be things as interesting as duty of care, which is around how policy treats a traveler or environmental practices."

Pricing for the services that the new division will offer to American Express Business Travel clients will depend on the size of the customer organization and the breadth of their needs. Midmarket clients will be able to purchase toolsets that will help them calculate savings and internal investment.

Amex named Mike Streit vice president of the new Global Advisory Services division, which has folded in all of the company's non-transaction services including strategic meetings services, although not meetings logistics. McGraw said 30 analysts in India would do much of the behind-the-scenes work.

McGraw said that the move to unbundle advisory services reflects an industry-wide reduction in transaction pricing as a result of online booking, and a renewed focus on value-added travel management company services.

Amex invested millions of dollars into its new offerings, McGraw said, because it believes such services are ultimately the direction of the travel management business, given that transaction fees only make up 3 percent of total offline and online travel spend. "I don't want to underestimate the need for high-quality transaction processing," McGraw said, "but clearly, around the savings side, this is the future of the business and where we can add real incremental value. We feel good about that space, because we've been at it for a very long time and in a lot of variations. Now, we've officially globalized this, and we're taking that data, building it into one data knowledge warehouse, using resources like those in India, to deliver it clearly and effectively to clients."