Amex To Bring Savings Calculator To Europe

American Express Business Travel plans to expand its account management and consulting methodology and technology for savings calculation and forecasting to some European markets later this year, company officials said. The travel management company plans to deploy the method and corresponding tools outside of North America as it aims to standardize its benchmark and savings measurement for clients globally.

The methodology applies to an internal automated savings calculator and an "opportunity forecaster," which provides analysis of possible savings on improvement of key performance indicators such as online booking adoption, nonrefundable ticket usage and class of service.

The tools aggregate benchmark data primarily from Amex's management information reporting platform Axis @ Work, which houses Amex Business Travel client and commercial card data.

In use since 2005, the automated systems and method was designed for midmarket account managers to provide clients with calculations and benchmarking data being used among its larger clients with more dedicated resources. Since then, the methodology has been extended to the large-market segment.

"A lot of midmarket client general managers wanted to be able to deliver services that previously would have likely been delivered to larger customers because there would have been more resources dedicated both on the client side and on our side," said vice president of global marketing Jennifer Friedman. "The need was identified in the middle market where they wanted the same level of service that previously could have only been achieved by throwing a lot of bodies at the problem."

Friedman would not disclose details of the methodology. The company has filed a patent request for the methodology with the United States Patent & Trademark Office.