Managing an effective multinational corporate payment
program that satisfies local needs remains a top challenge for travel buyers,
according to an AirPlus survey of 243 buyer members of the Association of
Corporate Travel Executives. The survey, conducted in July and August 2013, was
released this week as part of an AirPlus report.
"Achieving this trade-off emerges time and again in
surveys as the biggest concern for all multinational travel-related rollouts,"
according to the report.
A total of 62 percent of buyer respondents indicated that
their organizations have a multinational corporate payment program, and 58
percent of all respondents listed "balancing a global mandate with local
needs" as one of their top three challenges in implementing such a program.
Forty-nine percent of respondents also cited that balance as one of the most
underestimated challenges of implementation. Regulatory and legal obstacles, (38
percent) and resistance from local management (36 percent) were next on the top-three-challenges
list. Resistance from local management was also the second-most underestimated
challenge in implementing such a program, according to the report.
The survey found that of those buyers with multinational payment
programs, 76 percent have implemented it globally, while the remaining 24
percent had implemented it regionally. About 44 percent of buyers with such
programs have implemented in more than 20 countries, while 20 percent have done
so in 11 to 20 countries.
"We do not have a totally unified IT structure, so we
cannot have the same expense management system everywhere, and therefore using
one payment provider gives us the data we need," Merck director of travel
and fleet Christoph Carnier said of increasing the number of countries in the
company's payment program, as quoted in the report.
While 13 percent of respondents indicated their organizations
plan to implement a multinational payment program during the next two years, 25
percent did not have such a program and have no plans to establish one,
according to the findings. Buyers cited other priorities (30 percent), "don't
have enough spend or employees in other countries to justify the investment"
(28 percent) and challenges of implementation (13 percent) as reasons their
organizations have no plans to implement a global program.
Only 5 percent of those respondents who have not yet
implemented a multinational payment program indicated they saw no advantages in
doing so. Respondents pointed to various benefits including consistent and
comprehensive data for better supplier negotiations, better spend insight and
efficient payment processing, among others.
Poor implementation, however, can lead to "damage"
if implementation is not handled well, such as delays, demotivation, poor data
and wasted resources, according to the report.