Remote conferencing and other new technologies that serve as substitutes to travel can help free up travel budget dollars for more revenue-generating trips and improve employee quality of life. Speaking here at an Association of Corporate Travel Executives conference, representatives from such global firms as A.T. Kearney, PricewaterhouseCoopers and United Technologies explained how they increasingly are using new technologies as part of demand management strategies. ACTE itself is focusing on "telepresencing," which it said can help travel management professionals expand their roles within organizations.
"We want to make sure travel managers are leading the charge to say, internally, 'I want to help my company understand strategic travel versus non-strategic travel. I want to be there as well to look at these alternatives,' " said Greeley Koch, TRX vice president of corporate solutions and outgoing ACTE president. "It really is a collaborative effort within companies between travel management, the technology folks, the finance folks, etc., to make sure they have appropriate plans in place. Using my own experience, having been on the buying side before, companies are really looking for someone to step up."
At PricewaterhouseCoopers, alternative technologies are part of a companywide "travel less" initiative launched a few months ago, according to travel procurement leader Kim McGlinn.
"The largest opportunity for us is regarding same day and overnight travel," McGlinn said, noting PwC's $784 million global travel and entertainment spend (including $188 million in net U.S. air expenditures and $179 million in U.S. hotel costs). "We sent a communication out to all employees from senior leadership, asking if it was really necessary to take the trip and to consider using alternative technologies such as videoconferencing or web casts in lieu of travel when possible."
According to McGlinn's presentation, PwC between July 2006 and March 2007 conducted 318 web casts, up from 298 during calendar year 2006 and 82 in 2004. The number of participants in such virtual meetings exceeded 70,000 in the July-March period, compared with fewer than 50,000 in 2004.
"The number of our trips is down 1.8 percent compared to the same period last year," McGlinn continued, noting that senior leadership support, traveler education efforts and a white paper on alternative technologies that was recently published by the company's IT department have helped boost remote conferencing. "The technology is working and we are seeing a positive trend."
United Technologies Corporation is "heading along the same lines as PwC," said Yolanda Villa Icea, the company's travel commodity manager. "Do we really need to travel? Our policy says in the first statement that the employee and the supervisor are the ones who make the decision on what is the best way to meet business needs. Maybe teleconferencing is another option and you do not need to take that flight as frequently."
Marc Hochmann, vice president of global operations for A.T. Kearney Procurement Solutions, discussed "collaboration tools" as another means to reduce travel. "I can now work online, track what is going on and build workflows in there so that maybe so I no longer have to get on a plane and go to India for a two-hour meeting," he said. "It takes away some of the frictional costs."
Hochmann specifically cited Microsoft Office Groove, which Microsoft's Web site describes as "a collaboration software program that helps teams work together dynamically and effectively, even if team members work for different organizations, work remotely or work offline."
Because the software allows for peer-to-peer computing, Hochmann explained, co-workers can update each other's workspaces in real time. "From what I have seen, this is going to have a bigger impact on how we operate as companies than [Microsoft] Word, Excel and Powerpoint," he suggested. "I realize that is a pretty bold statement. If you can visualize how you can use this to help manage down your travel, you will become a much more valuable person to your organization. This is very powerful and we see it reducing our travel tremendously. As we get more comfortable using it internally, we see it as a quality-of-life improvement for our people."
Koch also noted that better insight into trip purpose can be derived from corporate self-booking tools: "Some companies have said, 'Check the reason for your travel. Is it administrative? Is it revenue-generating?' That is already happening today and we will see it become more prevalent."