Tesla moves fast. The cars, yes, but also the company. That includes Tesla's managed travel program. Senior manager of global travel, meetings and mobility Steve Sitto has been in the driver's seat of that program for nearly three years. When he joined the company in 2016, Tesla had about 16,000 employees. At the end of that year, however, the employee count spiked to more than 30,000, thanks to the acquisition of SolarCity. By November 2018, Tesla had 48,817 employees, according to an SEC filing. The lesson for Sitto: Be simple, be agile.
"Travelers trust a simple program more than a complicated program," said Sitto. "The easier it is and the more you put their voice in it, compliance is natural." Sitto has achieved nearly 100 percent compliance on lowest logical airfares, and Tesla's hotel attachment rate is a whopping 90 percent.
Three Pillars
Simple Structure. Sitto has been an influencer of BCD Travel's SolutionSource, which brings smaller service providers to the table in a vetted marketplace for BCD clients. Sitto is one of those clients and advocated for the concept. He lobbied for Pana, one of the first SolutionSource partners, to be added to the roster after the startup shifted its focus to recruitment travel. Sitto continues to push BCD to add more suppliers. "It's a little selfish for me, in a way, because I don't want to justify [internally] bringing in another supplier," he said. "On the other hand, it's a way to help smaller providers … get connected into the managed travel space." The model has made Sitto's program more agile, he said. "It allows me to keep the program lean and move quickly as Tesla enters new markets. I can plug or unplug the pieces that I need. Trying to do that with a complicated, multilayered program would be a disaster."
Simple Communications. Tesla uses Concur booking technology, and Sitto has leveraged data-driven dynamic messaging to communicate with travelers during the booking process. Again, he is working with BCD, and its Advito consulting division, as a first mover in this space. "It's relatively new, but it's been effective," he said. "We work from an Advito dashboard to understand where we might be underperforming with a certain partner or on a certain route. We overlay, in the booking tool, dynamic messages to travelers [based on their trip parameters] to help guide them to the most optimized choices [for our supplier agreements]." The messaging also can highlight spot promotions, free checked bag opportunities and other benefits. The messaging, he said, has improved contract performance and made the booking experience for travelers smarter.
Simple Accountability. Tesla leverages robotics process automation to keep travelers in check and drive compliance accountability. The RPA reads expense reports, notes policy violations and sends customized emails to travelers to educate them about the program. Since implementing the technology, Tesla has seen "a sharp decline" in out-of-policy bookings, Sitto said. "In almost every case, travelers aren't being malicious; they just need to be educated. The key is to make the communications short, targeted and totally consistent." That's the beauty of robotics.
Not Done Yet
Sitto's data management and technology strategies are opening new opportunities to simplify the Tesla program, including the contracting process. "The data we use for dynamic messaging may allow us to dispense with the airline RFP," he said. "When you can look at near-real-time data, you make real-time changes to the program. It no longer makes sense—and really has never made sense—to look at historical data to negotiate future pricing. The footprint changes. The business changes." That's especially true for Tesla, so look for more innovation from Sitto.