For many corporate travel departments, arranging ground transportation is the most labor-intensive and time-consuming part of the booking process. But now two ground transportation companies-Empire International and Nationwide Airport Express-have developed automated systems that link corporate travel departments or their agencies directly to the vendor, saving corporations time and money.
Although each company's system is being used by only one client at present, both Empire and Nationwide hope to offer their systems to other clients in the near future.
In early April, Bristol-Myers Squibb contracted with Empire International, a ground transportation network based in Norwood, N.J., to automate all its limo and car service bookings in the Northeast. Using a customized software system, Empire has created a seamless link between Bristol-Myers Squibb's travel agency, McGregor Travel Management, and the company's 12 ground transportation vendors, enabling all bookings to be made and confirmed without picking up the phone.
Bristol-Myers Squibb's corporate travel department had employed five full-time staffers just to handle ground transportation. "We felt booking cars was our biggest source of problems," said Don Murphy, Bristol-Myers' corporate director of meetings and travel services. "It required a lot of phone calls, and what should have taken 30 seconds became a three- or four-minute conversation." Yet, despite the time and labor spent, "people were not getting picked up, or a flight change somehow wasn't communicated to the vendor," he said.
The new process is simple: A McGregor agent inputs a booking in its Sabre terminal, which includes pickup and destination information, the company's corporate American Express card number and any special requests. Empire, which has installed a Sabre terminal on its premises, retrieves the booking and inputs it into its customized software system. It is then sent to one of the 12 vendors, each of which is equipped with a terminal with Empire's software.
For individual bookings, "we make the vendor choice based on availability and price," said Robert Van Ess, Empire's director of sales. Special needs, such as a limo for the CEO, already would be input into Empire's passenger profile system.
Bristol-Myers Squibb pays Empire a monthly fee for the service. Its rates are negotiated with each preferred vendor.
Each vendor does its own invoicing, but because all transactions are billed on the corporate card, the payment process is already centralized through American Express. Empire can track all transactions. "That gives us a better handle on compliance," Murphy said. Bristol-Myers Squibb had looked at one other automated system; it chose Empire because "it was more sophisticated, and the firm was more service-oriented," he said.
Although the contract is limited to cars in Connecticut, New York and New Jersey, each of the firm's 10 travel centers, located in different regions of the country, has access to the Empire system for bookings in the Northeast.
The company hopes to eventually establish similar links through Empire in other parts of the country and overseas, Murphy said. The company also is considering employing Empire's network of affiliates to consolidate its volume and negotiate a competitive, contracted rate, Murphy said.
One major advantage of consolidating its bookings through Empire is the opportunity for employees to share rides, which wasn't possible when five different people were handling the bookings.
The booking system at Nationwide, which on Feb. 1 took over the management of limo and car for a U.S. Army base in Eaton, N.J., is different from Empire's in that it does not have direct links to the vendors. Instead, it sends reservations to the client's six preferred vendors through a Website.
Nationwide now books 525 rides a week for the base, said William Geiger, executive vice president of the Holmdel, N.J.-based firm. It receives reservations from Carlson Wagonlit, the base's travel agency, through Sabre and inputs them into its own system, GroundSpan. "We've been able to demonstrate preliminary cost savings of 10 percent as a result of the consolidation," Geiger said.