Agents As Integrators

<B> Agents As Integrators</B>
<I>Clients Seek Added Value As They Tech Up</I>

By Sarah Welt

While many travel management companies long have offered technology and systems integration consulting, the decline of commissions and rise of e-commerce rapidly are making such services more important in the overall agency mix.

Mega agencies and some smaller ones have reported substantial increases in this area as more clients seek help in implementing corporate intranets and self-booking, management reporting and expense processing systems.

"Basically folks want to be able to implement an end-to-end system," said Rosenbluth International's general manager and senior business systems architect DeAnna Fabricius. "A year ago, we'd get what we think of as the technology leaders asking for that information and now it's standard across the board. Pretty much every RFP asks the how and why regarding technology solutions available." Additionally, technology has been included as a line item in a growing number of client contracts. "Three out of five contracts include some sort of technology offering."

Whether they prefer a one-stop shop or component parts for their technology solutions, corporations are eager to have input from the agency. And when they do select a tool, the agency often is involved in some part of the integration process. This especially holds true in the online booking arena since so many more corporations have embraced that technology in the past year. American Express @ Work's vice president and general manager Mohit Mehrotra said Amex now has about 250 clients using the AXI Travel booking engine, up from about 50 a year ago.

Northwestern Travel Management's COO Art Dahl said 20 to 25 clients are using an online booking system, whereas a year ago it was about five.

At Carlson Wagonlit, "We are getting a lot more requests for integration services that are more Internet-focused than in the past," said CIO Loren Brown. "I see that trend line continuing because clients realize that unless we get the right level of integration, they don't get the value from a lot of technology used to support their travel program."

Systems integration involves both the consulting arm and the core travel agency. Solutions Group vice president Russ Howell said the company is involved with both custom system integration--linking corporate intranets with the company's profile management systems to give clients the ability to manage their own profile data--and the integration of existing third-party tools. Solutions Group has been able to connect ProAct to corporate intranets for more than a year and launched its own Internet product this month.

Carlson, like many of its agency counterparts, works with corporate IT departments to determine how best to approach integration. Corporations typically "engage their IT with ours," Brown said. Still, he noted, the primary customer base for systems integration services is small, involving only the agency's 50 largest clients.

Rosenbluth, meanwhile, has a process flow it follows for implementing technology. The first step, said Fabricius, is to engage the client's IT department to validate expectations and systems requirements. Then Rosenbluth has a document readiness assessment it asks clients to complete to ensure that there aren't any red flags. However, scenarios for implementation vary depending on whether the product is a Rosenbluth solution or from a third party. For example, when installing @Rosenbluth, its implementation support team builds databases and performs acceptance tests before the client gives it the green light.

Fabricius said some systems are easier to implement than others. "Browser-based is a little easier. An expense management solution becomes a little more detailed--if they are going to be hosting the application and so forth--so in that arena, we'd look for the expense management provider to provide the primary support function and we'd be the ancillary element."

Maritz Travel Co. also views systems integration as a value-added service and has set up self-booking support services as a product line with three core components: product selection, implementation and ongoing maintenance. It has certified implementers. "We really don't want account managers doing that because it is not necessarily their area of expertise," said vice president of technology marketing Becky March.

Setting up online booking involves working with a company's IT department to determine the capacity of its Internet Service Provider. "It may be maxed out before we add on another Web-based application," March said.

Navigant International president Tom Nulty said the role of the agency as a systems integrator is very important now because as time goes by, an increasing number of companies will forgo traditional travel processes and switch to e-commerce. Therefore, becoming a systems integrator becomes more and more critical. "I firmly believe the e-commerce train was rolling down the track at a fast pace no matter what, but I do believe that the ongoing commission reductions have accelerated that process."

Nulty said when it comes to systems integration, agency involvement depends on customer requirements. "We have done a 100 percent turnkey operation. On many occasions we work with corporate IT in an integrated fashion. On other occasions we have provided all the vendor contact information and tools information, and their IT departments have taken on some of the responsibility. Some companies don't allow anyone on their network other than their own people."

Northwestern's Dahl said the most in-demand systems integration piece is e-mail. "Clients want our agents to be able to talk to their travelers and travel arrangers via e-mail and there are a zillion e-mail systems, so there is a much higher demand for integrating that."

Dahl said the desire to implement expense reporting systems with clients is "not what I expected it to be." However, for those clients that do want them, Northwestern will facilitate the process, "but it's the third-party vendor and the client that does most of it."

VTS Travel Direct has a team that deals with corporate IT departments to ensure everything is secure when implementing online booking or e-mail systems. "We find clients will have more concerns about security and some are downright paranoid," said president Vincent Vitti. On the other hand, expense reporting has not been in high demand. Vitti said that VTS's clients tend to be in the $2 million to $5 million range, and in his estimation, "automated T&E is for clients of much larger companies."

One role that many travel agencies have found valuable is helping corporations either develop Web-based Internet or intranet travel pages or provide them with customizable out-of-the-box solutions.

Maritz, for example, has made this a core competency. "We host the site on our Web server but corporations often want it to be accessed through the corporate intranet so we work with IT for that," March said. The company has three custom sites in production and has signed another three clients to build their sites later this year. Maritz last fall put together a dedicated staff to support this solution.

For the past two years, American Express has offered clients what it terms a "gateway page," which can be customized and comes with the AXI Travel application. It enables the travel manager to send messages and alerts, via the travel application or the entire intranet. While it can be connected to the corporate intranet, the page is hosted by American Express.

VTS Travel has helped several clients design intranet pages and has a team of three full-time Web writers, compared with just one a year ago. "We've helped quite a few companies design intranet pages and their basic Internet approach, incorporating not only travel, but other areas," Vitti said. "A year ago, basically we were begging and pleading with companies to come on to the Internet, and now it's more of an even match."

Nulty, noting that Navigant was one of the first companies to build travel Web pages for corporate intranets, said the agency has done so for several clients, while others remain elusive, concerned with firewall issues and don't want outside help for security reasons.

Fabricius said it's a mixed bag when it comes to corporate intranets. Some companies want help designing them, others just want an agency link.

Carlson Wagonlit, meanwhile, offers an Electronic Travel Advisor, an out-of-the-box, customizable solution, though it hasn't evolved much during the past 12 months. Instead, Howell said, companies tend to want to do their own intranet sites. "Rarely is it acceptable from a corporate IT or intranet perspective, nor does it make sense to bring that in because it is not going to be compliant with the underlying architecture technologies and the look and feel of the existing corporate intranet." Rather, "We are being asked quite consistently from the appropriate owner within the corporation to play an advisor role in defining and specifying the travel piece of the overall corporate intranet."

SatoTravel's vice president of strategic relationships Michael Premo had a similar opinion, noting that most clients are very large entities that have their own travel sites internally and the work for those sites is being done by travel management teams within the corporations.

Northwestern Travel's Dahl simply believes that developing corporate intranet sites is something in which the travel agency should not get involved.

"We certainly wouldn't try to help a corporation set up their intranet," he said.