FCM's McDonough talks:
- Standing out in the TMC field
- Following the customer with AI development
- An unusually strong start to the year
FCM Travel sees an opportunity, amid the ongoing mergers and acquisitions in the travel management industry, to position itself as a "true alternative" for travel buyers. With the Big Three travel management companies now a Big Two, FCM says it sees a chance for customer growth with its focus on "reliability, innovation and flexibility." Billy McDonough, president of FCM Travel Americas, recently spoke to BTN executive editor Michael B. Baker about the TMC's marketing and technology strategy in the changing market. An edited transcript follows.
BTN: What do you mean when you say FCM is positioning itself as the "alternative?"
Billy McDonough: We've always positioned ourselves as the alternative. This helped us lean into what is current in the market. There's been a lot of recent mergers, acquisitions and general disruption. When those things occur, it just increases the level of uncertainty, and we wanted to make sure we capitalized on that position, to show that we are an actual alternative for companies looking for stability, innovation and a continuity of service.
As part of the campaign, we aim at businesses who are looking for partners that are after a blend of technology combined with the human experience, because that's important for us as an organization to keep that balance. Our approach has always been customer-first, showing how we can tailor our strategies and our processes to help organizations move forward and achieve their objectives, and not worry about the ownership levels or merger or acquisitions. It's about making sure we're there to provide what they need and offer some baseline commonalities between companies. Every program is slightly different, and it's about letting people know that we're there to assist them to achieve their own objectives.
BTN: How are you differentiating FCM as a competitor?
McDonough: The big thing is transparency. That can cover a variety of specifics for a company, [such as] helping them analyze which preferred suppliers they should lean toward based on their footprints. [It's] not only their current needs, but when organizations are expanding into new markets, there's sometimes a lag between them working with their suppliers to have the best deals for those new destinations or emerging markets. Our approach is always to be as transparent as possible and highlight the opportunities that these things create for people.
It's also knowing and being in tune with the fact that business travelers expect clear communication and real-time support. The logistics of getting from A to B is only one portion of it. It's looking at the travel experience in its entirety, whether that's working within different layers of approval processes or travel policies all the way through to expense reporting. Those things are important to all customers.
Things like duty of care, depending on the company's travel profile. It's making sure we're not relying just on technology alone. It's critical we can provide access to humans. You have people traveling to areas where things could be volatile or uncertain and they need to lean on a person for recommendations. As the geopolitical situation gets a little tricky having a friendly voice on the end of that phone can make all the difference.
It's also taking the time to distill, because there's a lot of information out there. Productivity is important, and giving people a level of confidence to travel is critical. We see that in the feedback when we survey the actual travelers. There are usually two components of successfully managing the program: It's meeting the needs of the corporation via the travel manager, but then you have all the actual travelers, and sometimes their needs are different, so it's being agile enough to achieve both.
BTN: How has the role of the TMC changed?
McDonough: It's a combination of being that trusted advisor, that source of truth, and that's to counter some of the massive volumes of information, whether it's choosing which type of airfare works best for your program when it comes to flexibility, or information about certain destinations and to know what to expect before you arrive.
The ability to handle disruption has become pretty critical, because we've seen a lot of that. The third and fourth quarter, especially with domestic travel with government shutdowns and things that were impacting massive amounts of travelers, knowing that we were able to assist them when they had a trip planned, and the next thing they know, multiple flights are canceled in a certain airport. It's making sure people can get to their destination or get home.
Being there when the customer needs you has always been [important], but it's becoming more critical, because there's such a focus on self-service, you have to have that balance. Sure, there are lots of tools that make it easy to answer your questions or facilitate the planning of your travel, but it's equally important to have all of that power supported by people who understand the situation that the traveler is experiencing.
BTN: How is AI shaping your strategy?
McDonough: We like to be at the forefront when it does create an opportunity for our customers and us as an organization. We started to invest heavily in AI quite some time ago to figure out the best way we can harness this innovation. Across the entire industry, it is a big driver of business travel, and our approach has been about having our own propriety tool.
Our proprietary AI, which we call Sam, is not just a virtual assistant. It's a living, evolving agentic intelligence, and how we continue to evolve it is really shaped by customer insights. It learns from our customers' behavior, and you can see what is valued by the customer. With things that are new and innovative, it's easy to have your own preconceived ideas about what you want it to be.
One position we take as an organization is to balance and sanity-check our plans and strategies with what our customers need and want. That's definitely been a driving force for us and has allowed us to take a different approach and make sure we're meeting customers' existing needs and use our experience to highlight a future benefit or positive outcome. If you're always checking back with your customer, it helps cement that path.
We partner with a lot of our customers to do beta testing and various initiatives. We have a wide breadth of customers who are interested in exploring opportunities along with us. That's really helpful because you can do things that are solving actual problems. It's not a white-label approach. It's taking our own tool and trying to continue and refine and keep on that path of pushing boundaries.
BTN: What are some of the key use cases you see?
McDonough: We do a lot of work with proactive messaging. That's been really helpful, because sometimes, all you need is a heads-up to know traffic to the airport is tough right now, so you may need to adjust your departure time. Weather events and things that change very rapidly. The January snowstorm was a really good example of how we were able to inform people as the situation was evolving, because availability was decreasing rapidly as so many flights were canceled. Just to give people information in real time, so they could make decision to continue their trip for work or get back home. It's no longer just a cost center or investment. It's being that strategic lever to help us grow as a business and to keep our employees and travelers engaged with things that are important to them.
BTN: How is business in the Americas starting out this year?
McDonough: It was surprising. The first quarter of the calendar year is usually not the greatest, at least historically. This year, we had a really strong December and followed up with a really strong January. Part of it was pent-up demand from disruption we experienced with shutdowns and lots of flight cancellations in November, but we definitely saw a spike in December that we haven't seen in quite some time.
We onboarded some significant new customers as well toward the end of the year. We've also increased the breadth of our services, so we have a meetings and events division as well as a consulting division, so when people want to take deeper dives into analyzing their programs and have a little more interaction with selecting suppliers, we've seen a lot of growth in that division of our business. There's also been a trend to utilize our consulting business to help supplement some of the gaps in our customers' organizations in their travel department, outsourcing either on a project basis or as a full-time dedicated resource. That's been a trend for the last two or three years.
BTN: What's driving growth on the meetings and events side?
McDonough: FCM Meetings & Events has been on a steady growth trajectory for the past several years. We've seen a lot of customers start to consolidate transient travel and meetings and events requirements into one division within their own organization. It's been beneficial for us to partner and handle that type of travel, which has different policies and budgets and decision makers. Being one provider that can assist our customers with both types of travel has been a good opportunity for us.
BTN: Will you continue to grow New Distribution Capability content this year?
McDonough: That continues to move toward being a standard in the industry. I don't foresee that slowing down. For us, it's about delivering value to our customers. We've always had a proactive approach to NDC. Content and choice are always a good thing for our customers, so putting in front of them options that make sense in their program has always been a priority for us. As airlines increase the volume of NDC that's available, we work with various suppliers to make sure it's available for customers and our travelers.