Demand for more accurate, predictive and timely global travel management reporting is rising as more companies enter the realm of transnational travel management. Suppliers are responding with dashboards, data mining and more distributed, real-time reporting than ever before.
While some global travel managers rely on their travel management companies to aggregate data, several thousand companies and even some TMCs pay one or more of the half-dozen third-party data consolidators to format, normalize and help make sense of their data. A synopsis of the latest developments follows.
Visual Analytics
Companies like Hi-Mark Software, Cornerstone Information Systems and Tri-Pen TravelMaster have introduced customizable dashboards designed to allow travel managers--or other company executives--to monitor travel data. To assess risks, for example, security directors may need real-time access to international bookings. Following general business trends, visualization typically transforms travel data into charts, graphs or indicators that quickly and clearly display performance against a goal, whether it be policy compliance, supplier utilization, budget or another measure.
"Increasingly, customers are looking for tools that will help them measure their business performance right now," said Todd Kaiser, vice president of product and marketing at Hi-Mark Software. Business unit managers need that data added to dashboards or alerts that refresh as often as necessary, he added.
Payment and Booked Convergence
Years after it was first promoted, the concept of marrying booked travel data with daily or weekly credit card feeds to generate exception reports is gaining acceptance and offering a more accurate portrayal of travel behavior.
"Our clients tell us there are huge benefits in consolidating payment and travel data, particularly when there are multiple agencies, global distribution systems and card issuers involved," explained Joe Monaghan, senior vice president of global business development with Tri-Pen TravelMaster. In merging this data, managers are able to gain insight on the booked rate or number of room nights, as well as clues that travelers may be getting walked from a preferred hotel, he added.
"Data is clearly the centerpiece to understanding your travel program," Monaghan said. "If the data is missing or incomplete, then the travel team is taking action in the blind."
Risk Management
One of the biggest areas of new reporting is in traveler tracking. Whether through their travel management companies, online booking agencies or third-party providers, travel managers need to be able to pinpoint the location of all travelers at any point in time. Due to concerns about health pandemics, corporations are now asking for reports that detail where all travelers are today, where they'll be tomorrow and where they were yesterday, said Alan Minton, vice president of sales and marketing for Cornerstone Information Systems. Cornerstone this month plans to announce a new partnership with Control Risks Group to integrate its travel data into Control Risks' tools, so joint customers can more easily learn of travel risks.
Noting data trends, Minton said, "this month, it's risk management, but overall demand is for tools that can help them analyze data and make decisions more quickly."
What Ifs
New modeling options are providing global travel managers with the ability to answer "what if" questions with a few clicks of a mouse, rather than days spent building spreadsheets. Travel Analytics has been offering modeling that helps executives understand the impact of "contracts, suppliers and policies," said CEO Scott Gillespie.
At the National Business Travel Association convention in mid-July, Hi-Mark plans to introduce its new Air Contract Management tools that allow customers to use sliders and other easy tools to forecast the impact of adding a second airline contract in a market, or switching preferred carriers, based on the company's historical travel data. Another aspect of the reports allows managers to see how their airline contracts are currently performing.
Despite advancements in global travel data consolidation, some continue to worry about the quality and accuracy of the data.
"I don't think people understand that there are problems with the data that might impact their reliance on it," said Mark Walton, principal with Consulting Strategies. His partner David Hillman added that while "no one really knows whether their data is accurate when it's consolidated from multiple TMCs or agencies," the need for accuracy depends in large part on the intended use of data. Financial and regulatory reporting, reporting to senior management and reporting used to comply with airline or GDS segment contracts require precision, but he said analyzing trends or developing policy could be accomplished regardless of missing pieces.
Data consolidators note that they've built their businesses developing--and in some instances patenting--methods to clean and normalize data from disparate sources. The Prism Group has taken data from 166 countries for more than 8,000 corporations, noted president Michael Whitesage. Hi-Mark is taking data from 80 different sources in about 25 countries.
"A lot of what we do is to use technology to implement a standard process to capture data from different GDSs and other sources," added Cornerstone's Minton.
"What is hot is truly integrated information that takes pieces of information from a variety of sources and generates the 'complete picture,' " said Susan Hopley, TRX executive vice president of emerging markets. "Such systems will do verifications, as well. The data is then more accurate, complete, and frankly, useful." Hopley also said some corporations are asking for benchmarking data and reports on transaction costs and fees. "Dashboards are growing in popularity because there is just so much information available it makes it impossible to use solely linear reports to garner anything useful," she added.
Geographically, Whitesage said he's seen improvements in the data quality from Asia, to the point where it is leading Europe in the quality of exports. Besides consolidating data for corporations, Prism has contracted with seven major airlines to monitor corporate contract performance agreements.
But if the data coming in is missing fields, or not being updated with refunds, the output is poor. Recently, Prism has begun rejecting data from some agencies that have consolidated data from other agencies for corporate clients. "They're not handing off IATA numbers or invoice numbers, and not updating data properly when there's a refund or exchange … they're just doing a horrible job," Whitesage said of some agencies hired to submit data to comply with corporate airline contracts. Prism has been unable to determine whether one agency is neglecting to pass the data to the agency hired to consolidate it, or if the agency consolidator is not importing it properly. But, it's unusable without those fields, he said.