ConTgo, the company best
known for facilitating two-way mobile communications between companies and
their travelers, is expanding beyond its core security management role into policy
compliance management. The new version of its Mobile Travel Assistant tool, released
this month, links to a travel data warehouse and alerts companies to overpriced,
noncompliant travel bookings, according to chief executive Johnny Thorsen.
ConTgo every
four hours takes booking data feeds from clients' global distribution systems
and travel management companies for tracking purposes, and now is using the
same passenger name record information to view expenditures. "Other
companies use different tools for functions such as security or procurement,"
Thorsen said. "In the conTgo environment, we only have one set of data.
The PNR is used for many different purposes."
Thorsen claimed
that the conTgo data warehouse handles data generated at point of booking
rather than at point of ticketing, allowing noncompliant booking behavior to be
detected at an early stage. The next release of Mobile Travel Assistant—scheduled
for July and currently in pilot with a small number of clients—will let
managers analyze how closely reservations are complying with corporate policy.
"It
typically takes a Fortune 500 company
two to six weeks to get this level of data, by which time it has zero value for
them," said Thorsen. "It is very strange that people are so focused
on lost savings, which are always looking backwards. They are looking at things
that weren't done correctly, so they are highlighting failure. I believe this
is one of the reasons chief financial officers have never been interested in
travel. If you can calculate the likely loss of savings next week before it
happens, then you can go to the CFO and say ‘I could save you $100,000 next
week. Will you let me?' I would like to see the CFO who could ignore that kind
of saving for three weeks."
Examples of
the reports conTgo could generate include setting targets for the number of
bookings in which the average booked fare is a fixed percentage higher than on
the same route 12 months prior, or exceeds a simple price cap. If the target
number of overpriced bookings is exceeded, Thorsen said MTA then can be used to
ask employees who have exceeded the limits to justify their spending. As a
further refinement, parameters could be set to communicate only to travelers
whose tickets are sufficiently flexible to allow changes.
Although
this is conTgo's first foray into strategic travel management, MTA can
automatically text travelers when they land at selected airports to remind them
that their corporate policy stipulates that they transfer downtown by rail, not
taxi.
Thorsen said
the data warehouse is being made available to direct corporate clients and to
conTgo's agency and GDS resellers.
Other features
in the new version of MTA include a social networking tool called MTA Share,
aimed at allowing a company's travelers to share information with colleagues in
the same location. The Share facility is set so that messages only can be sent
or received by travelers in the same airport location or with flights arriving
within two hours or departing within four hours. It is intended to allow
travelers to communicate on issues such as disruptions or transport-sharing
options.