<B>BTC Takes On E-Business</B>
By Cheryl Rosen
<I>Lafayette Hill, Pa.</I> - The experience travel managers have garnered in online purchasing and expense reporting uniquely positions them to take a lead role in B2B e-commerce initiatives at their companies. But that's not to say that they all can't use a little help in working out strategies for an environment that's new to both buyers and suppliers.
To that end, the Business Travel Coalition--a group that has been experimenting with leading-edge purchasing strategies in the industry for five years--today will announce the formation of its E-Business Forum, designed "to provide corporate travel managers with access to E-Business expert knowledge and best practice insights" so they can "create opportunities for their corporations within e-business ventures."
Corporate travel buyers will have to ante up $125 to join the group, but the e-commerce experience of those who already have signed up seems to clearly point to a valid return on this small investment. Committee chairs include a group of key travel executives from the auto industry, which is building a huge e-commerce purchasing exchange to supply parts and services that range far beyond the travel industry. Twenty-one corporations already have signed on.
The group's mission statement notes, "DaimlerChrysler, Ford and General Motors recently announced a joint initiative of momentous proportions that will harness the latent power and efficiencies of Internet technologies and propel e-business into the commercial mainstream. Through e-business, buyers and sellers in an industry can be vertically integrated and aggregated with great efficiency (similar to group purchasing).
"As more and more corporations embrace e-business, they likely will turn to their travel managers for participation because it is widely perceived among senior purchasing and finance executives that business travel is fertile ground for e-business. Moreover, many travel managers have been involved with the aggregated buying concept, or have embraced emerging e-business technologies, such as Internet-based travel booking solutions."
Global travel managers from the three car makers--DaimlerChrysler AG director of global travel management & business services Charles Braswell, Ford Motor Co. director of global travel and events Robert Magnus, and General Motors Corp. director of employee business travel worldwide Kevin Killeen--are in the group, and Killeen will serve as its first chairman. Braswell and Magnus will chair the strategic initiatives and education committees, respectively. Black & Decker Corp. director of travel and meeting services Peter Buchheit, will chair aggregated buying.
Membership in the Forum is limited to travel executives, each of whom must join at least one committee. Members will get quarterly conference-call briefings, an educational forum featuring best practices, research on issues of interest to the group, and access to E-Business white papers and an interactive technology showcase on BTC-online.com.
The group's first event will be an April 19 teleconference to establish priorities for this year. To join, travel managers should e-mail
[email protected].
For Killeen, volunteering to lead the group was a relatively easy decision. General Motors is moving rapidly into e-commerce, supporting both the Auto Exchange and the E-General Motors business-to-consumer site. Internally, it has consolidated under a single purchasing card and is about to roll out online expense reporting and booking systems.
"E-commerce provides a tremendous opportunity for travel managers to come to a new level of managing and purchasing. At General Motors, we now have the full backing of our corporation to embrace this technology and to make sure that we're not only keeping abreast, but pushing the envelope," Killeen said.
Agreed Braswell, "Travel managers have an unprecedented opportunity over the next 24 months to establish themselves as leaders in the new e-business environment," Braswell said. "A lot of companies are looking at e-commerce to be more efficient and lower costs."
Daimler Chrysler already has 17,000 U.S. users on the AXI online booking system, and is piloting Concur's automated expense reporting. Said Braswell, who spent last week "talking about initiatives relative to expense reporting on a global basis" at corporate headquarters in Germany, "when we started thinking about online booking and expense reporting, I wouldn't have labeled what we were doing 'e-commerce.' But it was certainly the start. Whether we use AXI or a portal, it is e-commerce, absolutely."
Indeed, Braswell, Magnus and Killeen have cooperated on a number of travel initiatives over the years, and "worked together looking for purchasing consortia opportunities for quite a while," Braswell said. By pulling together the larger "brain trust in the travel industry as a whole, we can share ideas at a single table. I'm coming not with a preconceived way of how things ought to be done, but to share information and understanding that will help all of us."
Black & Decker's Buchheit joined the Forum "because I think e-business can be the necessary enabler for successful group travel purchasing."
A member of BTCC since its inception, Buchheit "remains enthusiastic that group, or consortium, purchasing will become a reality with benefits for both buyers and sellers," he said. "I hope the forum will provide travel managers with the skills to capitalize on opportunities for the application of e-business to travel management. Travel managers can either sit on the sidelines and let it happen to us, or we can play a proactive role in helping shape these applications.