University Of Nottingham Completes Fast Travel Program Rollout

The expense management situation was no better. The university operated a very limited card program for senior management and required paper invoices for every transaction—each associated with a purchase order number. Travelers manually filed expenses, which meant they had to be re-keyed by the administration department.

In this challenging environment, Harrison labored for several years to achieve limited efficiencies and supplier agreements while urging the university's management to authorize a more comprehensive travel program. She credited two factors as catalysts for sweeping change: a decision by senior management to introduce electronic procurement and payment across all purchasing activities and her conclusion that travel technology tools finally had evolved sufficiently to meet the university's needs.

Harrison cited online booking tools as an example of the progress in automation. East Midlands Airport, the nearest to Nottingham, is dominated by low-cost carriers that previously were not readily bookable through corporate booking tools. "We had to wait for them to catch up," she said. "We wanted low-cost carriers on the same display as traditional airlines." Concur now sources budget airline content from Travelfusion, a U.K.-based travel content aggregator.

After conducting tenders for a TMC, payment solutions and booking and expense tools, Harrison staged a phased rollout for the new travel and expense program covering the university's staff of 7,000. She divided the faculties and other departments into three groups and introduced the program to each in two-month intervals. In spite of her previously limited ability to manage travel, Harrison said she had set up good lines of communication with the faculties, which built trust and helped ensure a relatively smooth implementation.

Feedback achieved through pre-implementation communication also encouraged Harrison to make a crucial change to her rollout schedule. Initially, she had planned to introduce only the new travel program (mandated TMC, booking tool and lodge card), leaving to a later date the expense program (corporate card and automated expense management system). But stakeholders made clear that a big-bang approach was preferred so travelers could reap from the outset all the benefits of an integrated solution, such as pre-populated card data in expense reports.

Harrison said the university's immediate gain was reduced TMC fees through online booking. The online adoption rate has reached percentages in the high 70s. She also is beginning to receive for the first time comprehensive management information, which already has helped her negotiate reduced rates with local hotels and improved her bargaining position with other suppliers. Another benefit of improved data is a better understanding of where travelers are located, thus helping the university to meet its duty-of-care obligations. In addition, there are signs of the booking tool pushing down average ticket price through the well-documented phenomenon of "visual guilt."

Because official booking channels do not always provide the best pricing options, Harrison is keen to make the new program flexible enough to allow travelers to use alternative booking sources when appropriate. One recent example occurred when a traveler found domestic China flights at a lower price on the Internet. "We are telling travelers if they find something like that, they should let us know so we can publicize it to all travelers for them to make informed decisions," said Harrison.

Despite the enormous strides the university has taken in recent years, Harrison still has more improvements in mind. These include the introduction of e-receipts and possibly Concur's mobile app, which would allow travelers to change bookings and file expenses through their phones, and line managers to approve expense reports remotely.

However, some remaining frustrations regarding limitations of existing technology are unlikely to be resolved anytime soon. The London terminus for cross-Channel rail service Eurostar is St. Pancras, which also is the terminus for trains from Nottingham, yet it is not possible to buy via Concur (or any other corporate booking tool) an integrated through-fare from Nottingham to Paris, because U.K. domestic train operators are not fully present in global distribution systems.

In consequence, Harrison must show the flexibility she considers so important to maintain the credibility of the travel program. "We advise travelers they are better off using the Eurostar website for Nottingham-Paris tickets," she said.