In March 2010, Travel
Procurement magazine described social media as a nascent phenomenon in
corporate travel: "Still hesitant about adding to their workloads and
grappling with IT departments, most corporate travel buyers have not offered
social networking to company travelers." The magazine, a BTN sibling publication, cited a January
2010 survey indicating that social media was the least influential of several
trends expected to impact travel programs that year—trailing globalization,
meetings management, mobile technology, expense management automation and
virtual meetings. What a difference 18 months makes.
By this summer, Business
Travel News research found that 7 percent of 260 business travel buyers
were using company social networks to communicate travel policy. That doesn't
sound like a lot, but it's heady growth from basically zero. Travel managers
are finding that, as a recent AirPlus study notes, social networking can "increase
traveler satisfaction through real-time knowledge sharing; encourage and
improve traveler camaraderie and morale; help travel managers understand what
is most important to travelers/anticipate needs and help travel managers select
preferred partners based on information shared by travelers."
Some see social media as yet another piece of work, another
responsibility, and something they're not keen on adding to their plates.
For Sapient global travel manager Michelle De Costa,
however, rethinking how she should communicate has been a boon. For helping
pioneer the use of social media in managed travel and for taking a broader view
of her company role as a communicator, Business
Travel News last month named De Costa its 2011 Travel Manager of the Year.
Many buyers would not know about the potential benefits of
social media if not for the likes of De Costa and a small handful of other
trailblazers who not only implemented such programs but also, in appropriate
fashion, shared their experiences publicly. De Costa's work first came to the
attention of industry media in spring 2010 when she responded to the Travel Procurement article—which
described merely the potential for social media—with a rare actual case study
about it. "We have introduced social networking into our travel program
through Yammer," she wrote. "It has been a great way to push
non-critical information out to our people without bombarding them with
multiple emails. I also have the opportunity to answer questions that people
pose or tie subjects being discussed to travel. It is like Twitter, but closed
to only those people at my company."
While the media hype surrounding social media until recently
exceeded the topic's impact, the emergence of programs at Cisco, Deltek,
Salesforce, Sapient and other firms has helped spark interest from travel
management pros who might otherwise be reluctant. The interesting aspect of De
Costa's initiative is how, as part of a general focus on communications, it
elevated her role within her company and reinforced her position and program.
Freewheeling To Fair Warning
Three years ago, De Costa was an account services director
at Boston's Garber Travel (now FCm Travel Solutions). Down the road at Sapient,
the consulting firm's relatively new procurement department was not managing
travel. "It was unmanaged, or managed on a local level," De Costa
said. "There were some great programs, but it very much was a
do-it-yourself environment. The company grew rapidly, so in 2008 the vice
president of procurement, who is my boss, looked into the travel category. They
selected a global supplier, but didn't have a travel manager or see the need
for one. As the implementation was underway, various people were chipping in to
make it happen, but they realized it was a very large job, so the director of
procurement decided we did need a manager. I was recruited to finish the
implementation of the agency globally, and then manage the program."
De Costa didn't want everybody to stop chipping in; instead,
she started chirping out.
"Once the agency was put in place, my first year was about
implementing but also getting people to use it," said De Costa. "It
was very hard to change the behavior. You know, 'I'm super premier with this
airline and I book on their website.' In late 2008, we started to publish a
quarterly dashboard comparing expense transactions with agency transactions,
and for three consecutive quarters we showed a 20 percent savings for bookings
through the agency. A lot of it is policy, but also we had point-of-sale
contracts in place."
"We gave people opportunity to be in the corporate
travel program or work independently," said Sapient vice president of
global procurement and real estate Stephen Bertolami. "We compared the
results of those two programs. People generally made very good travel
decisions, but lacked any understanding of our travel polices, hotel programs
and negotiations."
By the third quarter of 2009, De Costa secured executive
support for a new policy, effective January 2010, that included a "three
strikes" rule in which a fourth violation results in only 80 percent
travel expense reimbursement. Not using the agency for original air bookings
counts as a strike.
"We tried to avoid that," said De Costa, outlining
an area where communications alone is not enough. "We had tried a number
of carrots. We reimbursed the Amex Rewards [membership fee] for top travelers
using their corporate card and booking through the agency. We offered upgrade
status only for those using the agency. We were randomly upgrading people. We
held travel forums to understand why people were not using the agency. We did a
lot of enhancements in the booking tools. But, unfortunately, it came to the
point where we had to do a mandate, which was counter to our culture."
Once underway, the new short-reimbursement policy was "very
effective." With each strike, De Costa personally talks to the traveler.
Only two employees in 2010 were penalized.
Having heard travelers complain about the booking tool and
also claim that the agency was not offering the lowest fare, Sapient used Topaz
International to audit bookings and found that while the agency attained the
lowest fares 98 percent of the time, online booking tools did not perform as
well.
De Costa worked with procurement to develop a TMC RFP,
source and vet suppliers, and choose a new one. She included a committee of
stakeholders from each country to be affected by the new global agency
relationship. They held conference calls and relied heavily on external
references in each market. This quick process in June resulted in Sapient
implementing Travelocity Business in Europe and North America, with an
Asia/Pacific implementation to follow. Sapient is using Travelocity Business'
Radius partnership for local support in some markets.
Getting Social
With the new policy and new TMC came a new means of communicating
to travelers. De Costa in early 2010 became one of the top contributors to her
company's Yammer site, which can be accessed only by company employees. "It
has been a great way to push non-critical information out to our people without
bombarding them with multiple emails," De Costa said at the time. "I
also have the opportunity to answer questions that people pose, or tie subjects
being discussed to travel."
Within a year, Yammer became "a collaboration tool for
the entire company, built on a small idea from travel," De Costa said this
spring. "I'm excited that in an IT and business consulting company, travel
had this idea that went gangbusters through the organization, and we have been
credited with that."
In fact, De Costa was asked to be part of an evaluation and
sourcing committee set up to choose a new companywide social media tool.
"The communication team reached out to the procurement
team to do a full social and business collaboration RFP—the next level of
Yammer to really collaborate across business units across the globe," said
De Costa. "The team started the sourcing, and the communications team—not
the procurement team of which I was a member—asked me to participate with the
business owners" and representatives from information technology, senior
management, communications and procurement.
Sapient used Ariba Sourcing and generated five bids, but
found the selection process more challenging than, say, a TMC RFP, because many
of the social enterprise tech providers were new at dealing with a procurement
process.
"For some, it was the first time they ever answered an
electronic RFP," said De Costa. "Some gave good detail; others just
linked to their websites. The answers really varied, so it required a lot of
clarification from team members on the answers." After a bidders' call
that featured what De Costa considered a very small number of questions from
the bidders, Sapient narrowed the field to three, including incumbent Yammer.
Following in-person presentations, Sapient chose Jive Software.
Broadening The Role
Asked how other travel managers might view their positions
vis-a-vis enterprise social media, De Costa said, "I don't think they
would normally be included, so I definitely think it's about figuring out a way
to be included. Travel managers could even lead the charge and have the company
do this. This is important to the organization, not just to travel." Like
remote conferencing, social media intellectually can be put into the same
bucket as travel itself—all are communications tools. "There's a piece of
that to it," she said, "The idea is to help you collaborate and take
away some of that need to have a meeting."
One concern about corporate social media among travel buyers
has been that it could damage compliance as travelers gripe about preferred
vendors, but De Costa has found that even in a culture that until recently was
unmanaged, "My travelers are my greatest champions of the program. If they
mention a hotel they love and someone else reads it, it puts more visibility
into our preferred suppliers and our programs, and what's working, and also
into who I am. I'm not in India. I'm not in Russia. Now they realize someone's
running the travel program and who that person is, and they can reach out to us
directly."
In turn, De Costa's approach has further validated her place
in the firm. "I have taken the track of growing from a communications
standpoint, which has definitely worked," she said. "Now I handle
communications for travel, for the procurement team, and now for the entire finance
department. They approached me to be the communications champion for the
finance team, writing articles, talking about anything new. I have started a
series of articles for real estate about office changes and openings."
Originally published in the Sept. 12, 2011, issue of Business Travel News.