Corps. Sample New Model: Deploying Rearden E-Procurement Platform

Several large and midsize corporate travel buyers are pursuing further deployment after the initial testing of a new online employee procurement system from Rearden Commerce that incorporates booking air, hotel and car rentals into a portal with other functions, including package shipping and dining reservations.

About 10 businesses, including Cingular Wireless, Borland Software, Genisys, GlaxoSmithKline, Hewlett-Packard, Motorola and Whirlpool, have begun testing or deploying the new system to hundreds, and in some cases tens of thousands, of employees. Customers said they like the product's calendar-synchronization capabilities and its potential to raise compliance and improve service by creating a one-stop shopping environment.

Other pieces that can plug into the San Mateo, Calif.-based Rearden employee business services solution include ground transportation, audio- and Webconferencing and courier services. Tony D'Astolfo, vice president of travel services, said Rearden would add services to the platform, starting with airport parking reservations and event ticketing.

The one-stop shopping aspect particularly appealed to Borland Software Corp. "A lot of employee services are non-purchase-order-based, making them hard-to-manage spending categories," said CFO Ken Hahn. "What is particularly interesting about the Rearden solution is that employees love it because it's easy to use and, from a business standpoint, it lets us provision services and service levels with mouse clicks." Borland is rolling out the solution to 1,000 employees initially, primarily those in North America. Hahn said the first phase of deployment has taken four weeks, and "was one of the smoothest deployments that we've experienced."

Like some of Rearden's other clients, Borland decided to both deploy the system and select a traditional travel agency at the same time to provide fulfillment and ticketing. When it chose Casto Travel in August, Marc Casto, president and COO of Casto Travel, said, "The synergies between these two entities has a profound impact on the overall success of any travel program. After years in the industry, I've seen Rearden Commerce emerge as the best online travel engine on the market today."

One question posed by GlaxoSmithKline, which intends to have the product in the hands of 250 pilot participants by Dec. 1, and to fully test it in the first quarter of 2006, is whether or not it will work seamlessly with its offices in other countries. "One of the key deliverables for Rearden will be the ability to mirror the United Kingdom, so that the functionality of the United States has to be the same in the United Kingdom," said Janan Johnson, GSK director of procurement for corporate services. "We have many business sectors that cross the pond so the functionality has to be transparent."

Formerly known as Talaris and founded mainly by former GetThere employees, Rearden initially deployed its application about 18 months ago. The travel component went operational at the first of the year, about the same time the company changed its name.

The tool is designed to help business travelers to be more efficient, said D'Astolfo. When booking dinner, for example, "our application doesn't just book it, it sends an invitation to that person you want to have for dinner, and we put a notice on your calendar." If a flight is canceled, a virtual assistant will contact the traveler. GSK's Johnson found that calendar-synchronization feature unique and also was drawn to the platform's wider scope. "This is a more comprehensive tool and because it has a broader application," Johnson said. "I think people will find that their adoption rate is impacted positively."

The system has a data-mining component that creates a dashboard of information on everything purchased, and the client can export that into a reporting system.

The system can be customized through an administrative console. The administrator can bias screens to have certain hotels or airlines listed at the top, or the administrator can even block lower-level personnel from being able to ship an international package, or use weekend shipping, for instance.

"We can also swap out vendors at the click of a mouse," said D'Astolfo.

The breadth of the product could appeal to a variety of corporate constituencies. "Procurement guys want to manage spend, and we allow them to manage more than just the travel spend. The technology officer is interested because it's a total services-on-demand application, and you don't have to install it," said D'Astolfo. "By using a platform, the CIO can stop supporting multiple applications. There is a benefit for three levels of the organization."

The application could deliver savings across many services. Motorola, for example, has noticed that when employees actually see the price differences in front of them, they choose the cheaper option, which has provided the company with significant savings in shipping expenses, said D'Astolfo.

The system is sold on a per-user licensed basis. Rearden charges an annual fee for each person using the system. There are no transaction fees. Part of the value is that as new services are added, the user does not pay more for the upgrades.

Whether or not such a single platform as this is worthwhile for a corporate customer depends largely on how closely tied corporate procurement and travel management are, said Norm Rose, president of Travel Tech Consulting Inc. The overall theme of combining the two is company-dependent, said Rose. "The trend is definitely toward integrating travel into procurement," he said.

Rose questioned the product's appeal to companies that had stand-alone travel departments. For Rearden to succeed, Rose said, it must integrate more content seamlessly into the reservation process.

WorldTravel BTI has been working with a couple of clients to help deploy the platform. WorldTravel has found through working on its own portal solution that what clients want are more solutions in broader categories, said Thomas Lacny, senior vice president of strategic relationships at WorldTravel. "The concept is responsive to what major companies are looking for. What we've found from portal clients is they are looking for more solutions than exist today."

WorldTravel has been talking with Rearden for about five months, said Lacny, and has corporate clients in different stages of deployment.

In working with them, said Lacny, it's clear the calendar updates, to the extent those interface smoothly with a client's internal system, and whether or not procurement is made much easier to an individual, are a "win."

"Directionally, we see clients wanting better integration of end-to-end solutions and you are mixing and matching resources," said Lacny. "So Rearden is right on track with what clients are looking for."

He also cautioned that "the proof is in the pudding," saying that Rearden is going to have to prove that it can deliver not only higher adoption rates, but a system that employees are happy to use."