Travel Risk Management for Small & Midsize Enterprises

With or without a budget, small and midsize enterprises have to keep their travelers safe while on the road. Broadridge Financial Solutions VP of procurement and travel John Wohlleber and Informatica global travel manager Rick Wakida spoke with BTN associate editor JoAnn DeLuna.

BTN: As SMEs, what do your travel risk management programs look like?

Rick Wakida: It's a work in progress. I've done mostly non-budget stuff that's easy to address in the travel policy that doesn't cost anything. Our policy provides that all travel arrangements must be booked through an authorized channel, either our single global TMC American Express Global Business Travel or the online booking tool, which in most cases is Concur and fulfilled by the TMC. Since all travel must be booked through those channels, we're able to have traveler tracking. If they're booking outside of the system, they're booking outside of policy and we have no visibility. Other policies are that all employees must wear seatbelts if available whenever they're traveling in any form of transportation, whether rental car, bus, etc. This ties back to our BTA, business travel accident policy, which usually resides in human resources and which states that you must wear a seatbelt to make a claim. We have a typical limit on the number of employees and executives allowed on any conveyance. We also don't reimburse for cash withdraws from ATMs. It's a safety issue because in certain countries people hang out at ATMs to watch visitors withdraw cash and then mug them. On the program side, we adopt our TMC's country risk rates and block the extreme risk countries so they cannot book those on- or offline.

John Wohlleber: For us, it starts with a single agency, Egencia, covering our three largest markets: U.S., Canada and U.K. By having a single agency covering those three markets, we have eyes on their travel whenever there's an incident. It's looking at booking data and saying, "Hey, these folks could be impacted." Outside of that, travelers are using different agencies or booking on their own. We have travel risk insurance through AIG. If associates are traveling into a region that's not stable and outside of normal business travel, we will call the head of our physical security department, as well as our risk management team, to get an assessment, which comes back fairly quickly. Often, they don't recommend travel to those areas. We'll go back and challenge the traveler's manager. If travelers are potentially going into harm's way, we want to make sure there is some familiarity with the market or adequate security like armored cars and armed guards for transportation.

BTN: John, do you require those traveling to areas not covered by the TMC to forward their itineraries to Egencia so you can account for them that way?

Wohlleber: We do not take in their travel information, even on an ad hoc basis. For all intents and purposes, they're off the grid; we don't have visibility. That's unfortunate because every employee should be as important as the next, but based on scale, the head count drops off significantly outside of the three regions I mentioned. In the unmanaged regions, we leverage the associate, manager and HR leads to assist with the communication, and ultimately, they would request assistance from [the] travel, risk management and/or physical security [departments], depending on what the need is.

Wakida: Our TMC is supposedly working on a service that will facilitate the forwarding of email itineraries to an email address, which will incorporate [those off-channel bookings into] the travel tracking database. It's one of the things I asked for last year, so I expect to have that sometime this year. We don't want to encourage someone to book outside the system, but if you have to and you still have a valid business reason for doing so, then you must forward your itinerary to this email address so it's captured in our traveler tracking database.

BTN: OK, so what do your systems do when an incident actually occurs?

Wakida: Amex has all the bookings. If anything comes up, we're able to get a report and contact travelers for a safety check through emails and phone calls to confirm their well-being, but it's a manual process.

Wohlleber: The agency is not contracted or compensated to [reach out to travelers when an incident occurs]. We take it on ourselves to do the follow-ups. We will send out an email to travelers to say, "You were on a list of travelers who may be in a region or may have been impacted. Please get back to us to let us know you're safe, if you were impacted and where you are." When we do that, it's very fulfilling because the associates think less about Big Brother and more about, "Someone is actually looking out for me." That allows us to have a good one-on-one connection with some of our travelers. [The agents] can certainly provide advice or, depending on the severity, if the traveler or associate contacts Egencia for assistance and if it's travel related to get them on the next flight, they would certainly provide that. But any medical [requirements] or extractions, they would defer back to us.

BTN: Does your insurance company deal with the travelers who need to be extracted or need medical attention?

Wohlleber: Yes, that's exactly what would happen. We've had a handful of medical emergencies that were handled that way. The medical insurance provider opens a case, gets a little deeper in the incident and provides guidance, assistance and whatever resources are necessary. We do not presently have relationships or services provided by the likes of International SOS or others. I have proposed and pitched those types of services to senior management, but I've not been able to get buy-in at that level. Budget is one aspect. We're certainly leveraging media outlets and informative emails from our agency about current events and the impact on travel on ground and air.

BTN: What would improve your ability to manage travel risk?

Wakida: I've talked with our HR person about getting a single point of contact in place, maybe through our broker or insurance company, that can triage the calls or coordinate coverage. Amex GBT has an app that we want to deploy. You can book travel and it has potential for mass communication and traveler tracking. From a security perspective, I'm hoping it can be like a check-in tool and maybe get push notifications for high- and medium-risk countries and some standard reporting. We don't have a third party like iJet or ISOS. However, we're hoping that through the agency's tool, mobile app and partnership with a third-party security and risk provider, we can have that [process] more automated with push text messaging or a check-in button. The other avenue is if HR has the budget for [an iJET or ISOS]. Eventually I'd like to integrate a registration tool to see who's attending meetings.

Wohlleber: Introducing a service like ISOS or an equivalent [would help]. The company is growing globally, so we're going to be finding more of these outer regions that our folks have never traveled to before or traveling to more regularly. Having information or resources to help acquaint them with the customs, currencies, dos and don'ts, the kinds of immunizations that are needed, medical advice for a given market and a time frame to be able to get those taken care of so that you're not impacted—that's certainly a pitch that I brought up in an executive risk management meeting not too long ago. Expanding the footprint of our managed travel program would be ideal, as well, but that would take some time [to get] resources and coordinate.

BTN: John, have you considered implementing tools like TripLink or Traxo to capture more off-channel bookings?

Wohlleber: It's not one we've explored just yet. Like with most new technology, we're not on the leading edge of it. It's more wait and see. There's a counterintuitive idea that if we allow for open booking and or consolidating the open booking data ala TripIt, people will deviate and want to book on their own outside of the managed travel program. It's a catch-22. In terms of markets outside of the three I mentioned, that may be a good interim next step to at least capture data and have eyes on them.