5Q With Lesley Harris of Travelocity Business

Travelocity Business in October began offering travel management services in Australia, Hong Kong, Singapore, South Korea and Taiwan. Aided by sibling company Zuji, Tbiz can "answer a lot more of the requests for proposals available in the marketplace," said president Lesley Harris, "and so many more are globally focused." Harris this week spoke to The Transnationalabout expansion in Asia-Pacific, growth in Europe and multinational client support. An excerpt follows:

Can you detail what Travelocity Business has accomplished outside the United States in recent months?

We have been focusing on expanding in the Asia-Pacific region. We have been trying to respond to customer demands and go where our existing customers have wanted us to go first. We are definitely hearing a lot about all the Pacific Rim countries. It seems like more and more in the procurement world, everybody wants to at least talk about a global bid. Even the smallest companies, mostly in the United States, tack on something in Asia. It was time for some of that expansion for us. We have started moving some customer business there. For every customer, we look at them as mini implementations all over again. For most of our customers, the corporate travel managers are U.S.-based and as they expand their international contacts, there is a little more networking involved from the corporate travel manager's perspective as they do their implementations. It is not just, 'Hey, we switch on the functionality and we are ready to roll.' We are really looking at it from the full end-to-end perspective.

Is there much of an effort to pursue local clients in your new markets, in addition to U.S.-based multinational companies?

Not in Asia. In that region right now, we are just basing it on U.S. multinationals. As time goes, there may be some different kinds of organic growth, but right now it's not quite the right fit.

Since the initial Travelocity Business foray into Europe last year, what difficulties have you faced in marketing to potential clients, in competition with the mega travel agencies?

There are so many pieces to the puzzle. Every single global bid ... let's say they add Europe. Well, Europe is not one country. This is often run from U.S.-based procurement and they are in charge of the global bid, but they also have their stakeholders that they report to. What we find works best is if we establish the global relationships more on the local level. We have to respond with a true global team. You can have a global bid that is just run out of the U.S., and you can get all the answers you need and give them the numbers, but it's not really going to sell if you are not establishing those relationships with a global front. So we have to work with our U.K. team to do some of those pieces. The European stakeholders want to have had some buy-in, in the process, even though it may have been run from the U.S. procurement side.

Can you discuss how the sales effort is progressing in Europe and the degree to which the U.K. service center is being used?

Obviously, in the U.K. we go after local accounts. This year we have had some really nice successes. We have more of a hybrid model there, because they are not as far along in online adoption [compared with the United States]. They are just a few years back on the curve. We service some of our big U.S.-based multinationals in the U.K. When we sell on the street, we have the online tool and the offline support, as well. We actually have two centers in the U.K. right now, one up north and one closer to London. That's the question of the day with call centers: Are you using them to their highest productivity? That is something we're always analyzing. We are definitely working on more cross-training between the centers so each of the groups is fully trained on the work in both places.

As far as configurations for fulfillment and call centers, Travelocity Business has all types: facilities and staff that you own, facilities and staff furnished by a sibling company (Zuji in Asia-Pacific) and outsource arrangements such as the partnership with WNS (which provides call center support from India). Can you discuss the pros and cons of each?

Control is really a pro when you own. But that is also one of the things that gives you some of your headaches in terms of management sometimes. For us, and you see it also with the other larger travel management companies, you can't own it all everywhere. It is just too much. So you need to take advantage of where you do have good relationships and good, solid service levels where you can hold people accountable. Even though we are using partners and combinations, it is a very similar infrastructure on the technology side. That consistency of delivery is important, both online and offline. That gives us more a sense of control. But you have to go where your reach is, and with WNS for instance, Travelocity has had a very solid working relationship on the leisure side, so we have good credibility with them to make sure we get what we need to deliver to corporate customers. Same with Zuji. Clearly they have been in the marketplace and some of their leadership team comes from the corporate side, so we are very comfortable. And in the U.K., they have their own levels of expertise. There is a lot to learn out there for everybody. The only con is that you have to marry up the pieces and parts, just like data integration. From my customer's perspective, this is my issue, not their issue. I have to make sure their delivery is seamless.