After its company grew through acquisition in 2006, the travel team at The Barr Pharmaceuticals Group was given three months to overcome cultural differences and technological barriers in order to develop and implement a global travel program.
Virtually overnight, a $2 million domestic travel program turned into a $12 million global program when Barr bought Pliva, according to travel buyer Ann Dery. Barr has since merged with Israel's Teva Pharmaceutical Industries, where Dery is senior manager for North American travel services as part of a larger but less centralized program.
Speaking at a New Jersey Business Travel Association meeting here in January, Dery said the first consolidation created a challenge of turning a one-person show into a fully managed, centralized travel program with the backing of a travel management company. The company immediately issued a TMC request for proposals.
The company sought an agency that offered Web-based tools, dashboard reporting and brand recognition (a high priority for achieving senior management approval), as well as a strong presence in both the United States and Europe.
"Locally in Europe, we don't have a situation where we can get large airline contracts," said Dery. "For instance, in Europe the airline industry is very siloed, just like the corporate industries, and it was very important to us to be able to work with an agency that had the groundwork in each country we operate in."
Once the TMC was selected, Dery then designated liaisons in each major European city in Barr's program to act as her "eyes and ears."
"A very important goal was account management, because I realized quickly that I didn't have to be overseeing 18 countries in Europe and running a full-blown domestic program at the same time," said Dery.
However, the greatest obstacle was in understanding the cultural differences, especially when working with Eastern Europeans, Dery said, adding that a three-month process would take much longer, maybe six to eight months, which "was really at the speed of light in Europe." She noted that Eastern Europeans "don't work 24/7" and have more religious and secular holidays. "We had to learn how to be more flexible and really understand the European calendar, their work ethic and a lot of other kinds of nuances in working with that part of the world," Dery continued. "One thing you will find in a global program is that there was a lot more hand holding. They are not used to going into a structured and well-managed program, especially in Eastern Europe. This was very unknown to them."
As a result, Dery said she found herself unable to efficiently communicate and coordinate with her European counterparts. Seeking to leverage greater authority, she involved senior management in discussions with suppliers and travel agents to emphasize the urgent timeline.
Dery added that Barr relied "heavily" on the TMC to serve as an intermediary during program implementation. "They were very upfront with us about how we have to kind of calm down and approach things from a different angle, and it took a lot of tact and diplomacy to keep people moving forward," she said.
Attempting to launch the program in 18 countries at once was not ideal, Dery said. However, to her surprise, the program went live smoothly in 10 countries. "If you are going to go global and you are going to go European, you have to try and be a little bit more creative," she said.
Once the program was in place and running, Dery found that tracking data in Eastern Europe was a major challenge due to the lack of available credit card data and use of outdated technology. "You can't track the card data so it's taking this American business model on how to audit an account program and deciding how to fit it outside the United States," said Dery.
To rectify the problem, Barr combined TMC reports and corporate card reports to achieve an all-around view of travel spend, program leakage and policy compliance.