Lynne Lawrence
Professional services firm MMC in Feb. 2006 began deploying a self-booking system for its travelers in the United Kingdom. The company used mandates and face-to-face traveler training for rapid implementation of KDS Corporate--internally branded iTravel and meant to help MMC better manage £20 million in U.K. travel volume. During a webcast last week, MMC travel manager Lynne Lawrence said she and a colleague personally trained 700 staff to "ensure maximum adoption in shortest time possible." By December, the system handled "84 percent of all transactions and 93 percent of point-to-point bookings," Lawrence said. It also helped to cut travel management company costs by 25 percent through lower headcount, reduce transaction costs by 18 percent and drive down average ticket prices by more than she expected. "The visual guilt that everyone talks about is fact," Lawrence said. "It works." After praising the system for accommodating MMC's "complex approvals process" and for offering "maximum" content from airlines, rail options and multi-currency capabilities, Lawrence fielded numerous questions from webcast listeners. An excerpt follows.
Why was so much training needed, when the tool is so self-explanatory?
Because we wanted to achieve adoption very quickly and because we felt we wanted to offer that service to our people. I spoke to a number of other corporates who didn't take ownership of the training and did not train people face to face. They were not achieving the adoption rates. Some said to me that they would go back and revisit training, were they to roll it out again. I listened to a lot of those people, and maybe we went to the other extreme, but I was determined that I was not going to fail and I was not going to be questioned by people saying we did not train them sufficiently. Yes, the tool is easy to use. Some companies may say it does not even need anywhere near the volume of training, but it depends on the user and depends on the company.
When training the 700 users, did you use classroom sessions or online sessions, and did you use a professional trainer?
We did classroom sessions for them all. They ranged from 15 [people] to 50. That is how we chose to do it, face to face. We are not an IT company. If you were rolling this out to an IT company, it would be a very different approach. We are dealing with insurance brokers. We had to help them as much as we could. We had a roll out of over three months. The sessions became larger as we became more competent in training more people. We did not use a professional trainer. We used a consultant at the time, which obviously had training skills and implementation skills, but not a specific trainer. We do have in-house trainers, but when they saw what the tool was, they felt it was better led by the travel office.
How are you sorting hotel options [in the booking tool] and are there opportunities to display special promotions from hotels?
The hotel program is an MMC program and I work with my colleague in New York to roll that out to the whole of MMC. We prioritize first by our preferred hotels, and then we would show our travel management company's hotels, following that. So we open it up to virtually the whole of the global distribution system but primarily and obviously the MMC hotels are shown first of all. That (display) is by price. Because we do not have hotels in every single city in the world, we would use the TMC rates after that, and that also is (displayed) by price. Provided that [special promotional] information is in the GDS--and loaded against the company's pseudo-city [code]--then the tool can access that. It is what is inputted into the GDS that drives iTravel. So if KDS can read it, then yes, you can show those special rates.
Does MMC only use the tool for trips into Europe or are bookings allowed for trips further afield, and how are Advanced Passenger Information System (APIS) requirements [for travel to the United States] overcome?
It is certainly used globally. It is not now only used for point-to-point, either. People are starting to book multi-sectors on it because they are becoming more competent in what they are doing. It certainly is not just Europe. It is everywhere. If it is a point-to-point trip, or even a simple open jaw trip, even to Australia, they would book it on the tool. As far as APIS is concerned, a high proportion of our business is with British Airways, and we are fortunate that British Airways has a very good online system. We now encourage our travelers to build their profile for APIS within British Airways, if that is who they are traveling with. That service is not offered by all carriers. If APIS information needs to be built for bookings that are not with British Airways--and we do have agreements with other U.S. carriers and others that go to the U.S., as well--then the booking would be picked up by the help desk on fulfillment, and they would check to make sure the APIS information has been forwarded to the agent. That is how we do it, but some parts of our company leave the APIS information to be handled by the travelers, themselves.
What will the role of the travel agent working for MMC be in two years?
You need the travel management company as an interface between what we are doing and the ticket being issued. The TMC will be there until you start to have a direct interface to an airline, with complete electronic ticketing. The TMC plays a very important role in what you are doing [with an online booking tool]. You could not do it without them. They need to buy into the project as much as you need to buy into the project. And they need to accept change, accept that this is the way forward, welcome that, embrace the situation and work with you. As far as the TMC in two years time is concerned, I'd say we will just continue to consolidate.