Headline

<H1> Reports Should Focus On More Than Costs</H1><B>A</B>s travel management undergoes very critical changes-not only because of commission cap-stimulated attention to administrative costs but also because of technology-the question arises as to what travel management's function really should be.

A few years ago, Runzheimer scheduled a seminar on business travel data management, a topic on which we hadn't previously focused. About 20 minutes into the first hour of our fully subscribed session, we came to a devastating realization: Everyone in that room had a different expectation from our seminar. Furthermore, our agenda didn't coincide with anyone's expectations or wishes. We stumbled through and salvaged our program by focusing on different kinds of data and sources rather than on what we originally hoped to cover-best practices in travel management reports.

Since that time, Runzheimer has been cautious about offering similar programs because we are now convinced that perceived "best practices" in travel management reports might not be very good practices in terms of furthering executive satisfaction with the travel management function or of enhancing corporate business operations. What is wrong with most travel management reports can be simply summarized:

1. Too much emphasis is on price savings rather than on contribution to the enterprise.

2. Both agency and corporation largely ignore administrative costs.

3. Price comparisons have been based on questionable values.

4. No system captures true travel activity data adequately unless stringent policy requirements have been imposed.

5. Most companies are reluctant to impose rules such as mandatory use of a corporate charge card for travel expenditures.

6. Data evaluation standards usually lack destination differentiation.

7. Nothing in report packages relates to company objectives other than cost control.

One concept Runzheimer now advocates has generated some interest and enthusiasm, but to our knowledge, no system or program routinely produces it. We believe that senior management will welcome a reporting and data-gathering system that answers this simple question: Who went where for what purpose and at what cost compared to a prior period? Travel managers should demand from their agency reports that answer that question.

Too many people have forgotten that travel is a basic tool of business operations. A decision to go somewhere is rarely if ever based on price; it is based on corporate need or opportunity. Until travel management gets involved in corporate need satisfaction and analysis, its mission will be that of control rather than contribution.

Changing travel management's focus may call for its being more strategically placed within a corporate structure. Travel is the glue that holds corporate geography together; most businesses now realize that travel has few substitutes. While travel should always be weighed against less expensive forms of communication, curtailment is apt to diminish or reverse corporate growth.

In fact, some people suggest that leadership in travel reduction or curtailment, combined with a tendency to lemming behavior among corporations and an active grapevine, might actually precipitate national recessions. When an order from on high calls for, say a 25 percent reduction in T&E, travel activity grinds rapidly to a halt, and other employees begin battening hatches for a long period of slow or no growth. These self-fulfilling prophecies spread like wildfire in boardrooms and clubs frequented by corporate executives.

This, then, is a call for travel managers to advance the concept that travel is dynamic corporate geography and that their knowledge of destinations will help corporate leadership define corporate destiny. Back off from a singular goal of cost containment and price management. Move toward trip management and become your company's principal oracle on the best and most productive ways to move from venue to venue.

Be sure to pass along to every key administrator summaries of travel activity. Design and publicize ways for easy and efficient access to corporate destinations; get those trip models programmed so they can be booked as units.

Request participation in strategic planning sessions; your input could very well be critical to proper decisions. When someone says "cut the travel budget," be prepared with correlation studies to show what has happened to your enterprise previously when such mandates were slavishly followed. Who knows? You might just stop a recession from occurring.

<I>Rolfe Shellenberger is a senior consultant at Runzheimer International in Rochester, Wis.