Following its entry into the travel space with a car rental supplier agreement, indirect procurement organization Corporate United plans to pursue deals with other travel categories, deepening its involvement in the segment, executives told Business Travel News.
The Cleveland-based purchasing group earlier this month announced an agreement with Enterprise Holdings to create a car rental program for its member companies, a roster that it claims numbers 240 and includes such companies as Pentair, Cargill and Eaton Corp. The four-year agreement gives members access to a set base rate for both National Car Rental and Enterprise Rent-A-Car, Corporate United sourcing manager Dustin Cochran said. Alamo Rent A Car, also under the Enterprise umbrella, was excluded, as it focuses more on leisure travel, he added.
"Rental car is a category our members have been asking about for at least eight years or more," Cochran said. "Rates are set, and as more members join and add more volume, they can and will go down."
Corporate United does not act as an affinity group, with all members using a common code to access discounts, vice president of operations Gary Como explained. Rather, each member company must sign its own contract to join and gets specific codes unique to itself.
Once enough member companies sign on, Corporate United will be able to provide a comparison group for benchmarking reporting, according to Como.
With the Enterprise agreement in place, Corporate United now is in an "exploratory phase" to secure agreements with other travel supplier categories, Cochran said. Both hotels and travel management companies are "potentially key areas for which we've gotten good feedback from our members," he said.
"We want to make sure that we’re able to deliver an agreement, but we're definitely looking at that now that we've set our feet in the space," he added.