Face-Offs Debut On TTW Stage

<B> Face-Offs Debut On TTW Stage</B>

<B>Reporter's Notebook: Travel Tech Buyers Kick the Tires of End-to-End Components</B>

<img src="/gifs/FaceOffs.gif" align=left><i><b>Tech tete-a-tete:</b> Clockwise from top left, AXI's Joe Monaghan, E-Travel's Bart Littlefield, ITN's Bruce Yoxsimer, and Sabre's Kyle Moore (not pictured) compared online booking systems with questions coming from a panel of experts consisting of consultant Bob Langsfeld, 3Com's Bob Lichtman and H-P's Jeff Kurn as a packed house on the show floor looked on. The management reporting face-off included, from left, International Software Product's Gil Siler, Maritz's Scott Guerrero, Hi-Mark's Charlie Bradsher and Sabre's Shane Scruggs.</i>

Speed may be king, but when it comes to deciding which online booking system to deploy, it's details that count to travel managers.

In the industry's first booking product face-off at Business Travel News' Travel Technology World this month, travel and technology decision-makers compared such details as interfaces, application of travel policy and negotiated discounts, and the availability of the two-way communications that allow an agency to view bookings and changes made by travelers, and vice versa.

As more than 150 travel technology buyers, vendors and consultants watched, American Express Interactive, E-Travel, Internet Travel Network and Sabre Business Travel Solutions showed their stuff in a forum carved out of the trade show floor. Jeff Kurn of Hewlett-Packard, Bob Lichtman of 3Com Corp. and Bob Langsfeld of Langsfeld Fazio & Associates, helped BTN design a liberal travel policy and a few negotiated fares to load into each system. Then, the panel and audience began firing itineraries, questions and more itineraries at the vendors. When it was over, two vendors acknowledged that the experience was a "little harrowing."

More than anything, the face-off pointed out the need for precision in loading policy, discounts and itineraries. In the first itinerary, the four vendors found roundtrip fares ranging from $134 to $195 for a round trip between Washington, D.C., and New York; hotels ranged from $119 to $298.

It also highlighted variances in how each system was programmed to handle preferred carriers and properties. ITN and AXI showed everything, but allowed travelers to book only what policy dictated or override it with an exception code. E-Travel and BTS showed only what policy stipulated.

All vendors said they're working hard on synchronizing profiles with those in the CRSs and corporate human resources databases, and on facilitating two-way communications between their systems and those of travel agencies, so that reservations made or changed on one are accessible in the other. AXI is the only vendor already synchronizing profiles, but all vendors expect to add the capability later this year.

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BF Goodrich's John Airulla shook up the crowd at a breakout session of online travel pioneers by warning that travel managers who ignore the potential of automated systems risk their careers.

"Online travel products are here, they're real, and travel managers have got to get with the program," Airulla said. "You'd better do it right now, or someone else is going to do it and you'll be without a job."

Predicting that "in three years all major, midsized and small companies are going to be on products like this, and they will handle 90 percent of all bookings," he chided travel managers that "this is your job--and you are the person in the best situation to bring these products online."

His advice for those seeking to "turn cautious optimism into implementation"? Treat the choice of an online system as a system integration issue and not a purchasing one--and lose the formal RFP. Find leaders among your line and staff and lock them into your program. Find a friend and supporter in internal audit, "because these systems will drive them bonkers," as well as in IT, the controller's office, accounts payable and credit card administration.

Then, bundle what you can under the fewest number of suppliers--and move on to bigger and better projects. "This is not rocket science," Airulla said. "Have faith in your ability to bring this project to your company and courage to persevere. If you're a star now, you'll be a superstar after this."

While some in the crowd at first found Airulla's presentation over the top, others noted that as head of not only travel, but also of purchasing, security, facilities and car and air fleets for Goodrich, Airulla's "view from 20,000 feet" cannot be so easily brushed aside."I was put off by him at first, but the more I thought about what he said--and about what Unisys and SAP are saying--I started to really like the idea of turning all our technology over to one supplier and then having time to do other things, things that might get me noticed and promoted," said one travel manager. "The biggest bang for my personal buck is to be the strategic person, to bundle and outsource what I can--to develop my own career by taking on other challenges, instead of just being a travel manager."

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<img src="/gifs/ShowFloor.gif" align=right><i><b>Tech Execs:</b> Clockwise from top left, the panel from the session "What travel managers need to know about IS and what IS managers need to know about travel," featuring Motorola travel manager Richard Wooten, Maritz's Richard Spradling, Texas Instruments IS manager Ian Clark and TTG's Steve Reynolds; attendees from Argonne National Laboratory, travel manager Lawrence McCure with his assistant chief financial officer Beverly Quinn; Robert Evans, luncheon speaker and Unisys vice president of outsourcing for North America; Cooper Industries attendee travel manager Alexander Houston; data warehousing session presenter and Siemens' travel and Fleet MIS analyst Stephan Meyer; and exhibitor from Automated Travel Systems Julie Rigazio with Yellow Corp. travel manager Jim Peterson, who along with Case travel manager Al Derga and consultant Shimon Avish (not pictured) served on the expense reporting face-off panel of experts.</i>

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On the same panel as Airulla, Cindy Heston, who has 1,000 travelers at Thomson Consumer Electronics using World-span's Trip Manager, reported that satisfaction with the online system is running at 74 percent, and 10 to 15 percent of reservations now are coming in online.

For simple trips, the system is improving the productivity of travel arrangers by 23 percent in terms of the time it takes to make a booking, while travel agents are logging 60 percent savings. Fares being booked online are averaging 10 percent less than those booked through the agency, presumably because when offered a wide range of choices, travelers are opting for cheaper ones.

As a result, Thomson this week will mandate use of the online system for travel on 20 percent of its top city pairs, Heston said, and hopes to slash $200,000 from its $10 milion air volume.

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Speculation about the death of the CRS is wildly out of line with reality, said Xtra Online CEO Bill Diffenderffer--who, as the former president of System One, should know of what he speaks. Moderating a panel of CRS executives, Diffenderffer noted that only four players provide the core technology upon which the travel industry, which employs one out of every nine people in the world, is rooted. "And yet experts believe these four companies are pressured by technology. I find that remarkable--and I flatly don't believe it," he said.

On the panel, Sabre's Sam Gilliland obviously agreed. Ultimately, he said, the issue comes down to the fact that "travel suppliers are not particularly happy with distribution costs, but there is still evidence that our business model isn't all that bad," and Sabre's 1997 bookings of $67 billion worth of travel indicate its "incredible breadth." While Internet startups may be cutting off thin slices of the travel distribution pie, "the ones that are successful are aggregating content and driving significant volume--and that sounds an awful lot like the CRS model." Indeed, he is little concerned about the competition from the Web, where suppliers "pay for eyeballs and hope they will drive incremental earnings, where in the CRS business model you pay for customers and get eyeballs for free."

Amadeus president and CEO Jim Davidson said that to survive, CRSs need to develop "tools that know the rules," open systems and partnerships, like Amadeus' recent alliance with SAP. "On the Web," he said,"anyone who is partnering will be a winner."

Worldspan, meanwhile, as the nation's smallest and nimblest CRS, is embracing the new technologies, converting all its agencies to a single frame-relay intranet and browser-based front ends that tie the traditional CRS data with information from the Web, said vice president Jeff Hoffman. It will support multiple channels and "get out of the mainframe business to allow online transactions." As the provider of CRS services for Microsoft's Expedia, Via World Network and Biztravel.com, Worldspan's vision includes developing access and navigation tools for agencies, acting as their Web host, and "enabling corporate-direct purchasing and new commerce models."

Hoffman also told BTN that Worldspan is "working on some ground-breaking technology with Microsoft," though he declined to provide details for "a few weeks."

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Nuance Communications' Daniel Ent-hoven noted that speech technology, which now can recognize full sentences, is increasingly catching the attention of the travel industry. American and United Airlines, British Airways, Via World Network and American Express have adopted speech-recognition software. Outside the industry, major players like UPS report savings of $2 per call from having customers talk to a computer instead of a live agent. As the Internet is proving, "self-service done right is a very powerful delivery tool," he said.

But like other self-service products, speech technology is not the solution for every travel situation, noted BBN Hark's Terry Sullo. The right place for speech is in automating routine calls--or even educating travelers about corporate policy while they are on hold for a live agent, she said. And for the travel buyer, the use of speech technology promises speedier and less costly reservations that involve no training and no internal IT resources.

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A face-off of four expense reporting products--Captura Software, Concur Technologies, IBM and Necho Systems Corp.--revealed that while much of their functionality is the same, there are some key differences.

One area in which the systems are uneven is mobility, or remote connectivity. "How they handle remote connectivity--connected to the Web, disconnected and working with a Web browser or through e-mail with a client-server--is very important in terms of getting travelers to use these systems," said the Travel Management Group's Shimon Avish, a member of the expert panel evaluating the face-off.

Norm Rose, president of TravelTech Consulting, Belmont, Calif., agreed. "Captura and Concur both said you can do it on the Web or in Windows in disconnected mode, but disconnected is difficult," he said. "For example, if you violate policy, a Web product won't know that. And if you're the approver and you're on the road, you, too, would have to be able to work disconnected. I like the Java base that IBM, Necho and Extensity offer. It's a small footprint of code."

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Travel buyers considering creating data warehouses of their own might have a rude awakening when they find the process is not as easy as gathering data and consolidating it. At a breakout session, Tom Wilkinson, president of the Travel Management Group, in Alexandria, Va., said the issue is "combining different types of data, formats of data and sources of data that aren't designed to be put together." While the task can be daunting, Wilkinson said the long-term payoff is worth it, and allows companies to "spin, rotate and create new kinds of relationships and a better understanding and control of business."

Stephan Meyer, Siemens' travel and fleet MIS analyst, said the electronics company, which racks up about $1.6 billion in travel spending each year, built its warehouse in 1994 as a tool to help gauge travel patterns and gain leverage in negotiations. First, it had to figure out how to get the data, convert it into something useful and distribute it to its different audiences all over the world. The company currently has 1,700 locations in 185 countries. Then it tapped into multiple data feeds from its vendors and suppliers, cleaned the information and merged everything to create a three-dimensional data "cube." Every month, Siemens creates cubes of information about airline, car rental and hotel business, and makes them available on the company's intranet and Internet sites for departments to analyze.

Data warehousing benefits companies that have diverse needs, diverse travelers and diverse locations, Wilkinson said. But Meyer noted that financial analyses of the value of data warehouses are vague. "The cost-benefit is different depending on where you come from," he said. "From an accuracy standpoint, on the credit card side it is pretty good. From the supplier side it is questionable."

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Terri Powell, travel administration and expense account review manager for BlueCross BlueShield of Illinois, took her expense reimbursement reporting product search to BTN's Travel Technology World to look for an application that would fit her needs. A broad technological learning curve and the task of finding a product that will support the company's need to comply with federal regulations prevent her from settling on an application before the year 2000.

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Three expense reporting pioneers--Barbara Flanigan, expense program administrator of Hoechst Corp.; Tim Arbough, project manager of J.D. Edwards; and Al Derga, manager of payroll and travel processes for Case Corp.--described their companies' processes of global expense reporting implementation.

Hoechst Corp. of Warren, N.J., worked through several steps before settling on its current Gelco-type system that guarantees direct deposit of expense checks within three days and lets employees transfer their travel information via online computer programs or telephone, Flanigan said.

Using the telephone to transport travel data initially was a concern for the company, where management worried about employees keying in the information over the phone, but the ubiquitous accessibility the phone offered was too good to pass up.

The system also simplified travelers lives after they received their reimbursement checks. Employees now have an option of receiving direct deposit into their bank accounts or direct deposit into their credit card accounts. The new system conversion also coincided with the replacement of the American Express credit card with Visa.

The company went through several steps before attaining its current system. Hoechst initially shifted from having employees e-mail their expense reports to their respective account managers for check reimbursement. The "cumbersome and time-consuming process" took between two and three weeks before travelers received their money. Hoechst then issued the American Express corporate card to better capture traveler data, but the card provided limited access to purchases. Hoechst moved to travel cash advances, but it encountered difficulties in reclaiming the money after employees left the company.

J.D. Edwards, based in Denver, is deploying Interpro Expense Systems worldwide as it continues in the second phase of a three-part automated expense reporting process, expected to be complete by May. Interpro was chosen based on its multi-lingual, multi-currency and strong travel policy compliance capability, Arbough said.

It wanted an expense reporting system to help eliminate duplicate entries of expense reports and improve travel policy compliance. Before the system, travelers transferred expense reports, either on paper or in Excel, to the accounts payable department, where they were re-input manually. "Expense reporting was pretty much a hassle for us," Arbough said. "We did duplicate versions of most expense reports."

After selecting Interpro as its expense system vendor, J.D. Edwards completed the first phase of its rollout in July. The system interfaces with the accounts payable division, and manager approval is no longer required. Expense reports automatically run through the system unless a usage exception is detected, Arbough said.

Management encountered one unexpected surprise when in January some employees turned in as many as 64 expense reports. Now the company asks employees to turn in reports weekly if they are for more than $500 and biweekly if they are for less than $500.

After completing worldwide deployment, J.D. Edwards will further enhance its system by prepopulating expense reports with travel data from its American Express corporate card and pay Amex centrally, Arbough added.

Meanwhile, Case Corp. of Racine, Wis., saved about $1.5 million in employee work time by moving to the Quick Expense System by Concur, Derga said. Now employees spend less than 10 minutes per report.

Case also wanted to eliminate duplication of data entry, bypass supervisor approvals, simplify its process and offer travelers a standard expense reporting form. "We got all these expense reports and they weren't in any system," Derga said. "There was no way to analyze how the money was spent or control what travelers were doing with the information."

Case began with Quick Expense's version 9.0 and later upgraded to an e-mail version. Now, supervisor approval is required only for expense reports exceeding $2,000 in cash or including home entertainment and spouse travel charges. "It was generally perfunctory," Derga said. "They never thought about it anyway."

To further cut costs and time, Case reimburses travelers along with their regular pay checks. While employees complained about the switch to semi-monthly reimbursements during the first six months, these complaints soon dissipated, he said.

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PlanSoft executive vice president Ted Frank, speaking to an audience of planners and software suppliers on meeting technology, said the time is right to incorporate e-commerce into meeting products that integrate "software, information and communication." His company's product, the much-ballyhooed PlanSoft Ajenis, "saves planners 25 to 35 percent of their time. That's a substantial reallocation of that resource," he noted.

At the same session, Hewlett-Packard meetings program manager Rich Del Colle spoke of the challenges of establishing a corporate intranet dedicated to meeting planning at one of the most decentralized corporations in the country. "We made some mistakes initially," Del Colle acknowledged--particularly after some major suppliers backed out of agreements to help H-P fire up the intranet. But, with the help of a 20-year-old H-P rookie, company employees planning meetings--70 percent of whom are administrators or administrative assistants--today can set up and edit their own meetings; search for other H-P meetings on which to piggyback by location, date, property or room rate; and communicate with other company planners, all on the intranet.

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TTW will return to Chicago next year in October.

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