BCD Travel Consulting this week communicated to clients its new name, Advito, and its decision to move away from parent company BCD Travel, attributing the changes to client demand for a more independent consulting unit with unbiased advice. Advito, however, is not entirely divorced from BCD, as the consultancy will remain part of BCD Travel and will continue to use BCD client account information for benchmarking data. However, Mary Ellen George, general manager at Advito, said the consultancy is in discussions to broaden its database and expects to make a partnership announcement in the coming months.
George said the new unit would fulfill current customers' existing consulting contracts with BCD Travel. Meanwhile, Advito will look to contract new short-term and long-term consulting projects with existing, new and non-BCD Travel clients, she said. Currently, non-BCD Travel customers account for 5 percent to 10 percent of revenues for what is now Advito, which-under its new direction-is responsible for generating its own profit. "For the three- to five-year plan, we'd like it to be 30 percent of our revenues," George said.
The new division operates in a similar fashion to BCD Meetings & Incentives or, as an external example, to how Rosenbluth International ran Eclipse. Yet, George noted some differences. "We're taking a different position from Amex or Carlson in that they're forging more of a path to bring consulting services in as part of the TMC," she said. "We believe the independent approach makes more sense to really maximize any opportunity. That's what our clients have told us. They want the independence and we believe we're sending a strong message that that is the case by having the Advito brand."
As George acknowledged, the Advito brand is not entirely new
(BTN, Feb. 9, 2004). It stems from a previous collaboration between TQ3 Travel Solutions Management and Deloitte Consulting.
The current consulting management team remains in place, albeit with a few title changes. In addition to George, it includes Mark Williams, vice president of global business development; Bob Brindley, vice president of the Americas; Maria Chevalier, vice president of global business intelligence; Victor van Tol, vice president of Europe, the Middle East, Africa and Asia/Pacific; and Torsten Kriedt, senior director of global practice development, who came to BCD from the original TQ3 Advito.
"We'll be adding consultants in meetings and expense management," George said. "My management team is set and now it's more about beefing up the subject matter experts."