Home Depot Swaps Rent-A-Plate For CTD Accreditation
<B> Home Depot Swaps Rent-A-Plate For CTD Accreditation</B>
By Sarah Welt
<I>Atlanta</I> - After a decade as rent-a-plate, Home Depot in June switched to the Airlines Reporting Corp.'s new Corporate Travel Department designation.
The company, with $26 million in U.S.-booked air volume, first hired consultancy Troilo & Associates of Westerville, Ohio, to conduct a feasibility study. "We wanted to self-manage the cash flow and internal processes, and as a rent-a-plate, absorbing headcount and payroll was not an issue for us," said travel services manager Cathy Spivey.
The company expects to save $300,000 a year under the new arrangement, despite outsourcing back-office accounting to Travcom and 24-hour services to Thor Inc.
Home Depot also has mandated e-ticketing and switched online booking systems from WorldTravel Partners' Res-Assist to Worldspan's Tripmanager, which is being used by 300 travelers. Spivey hopes to grow usage to 10 percent of total transactions by next year.Even wioth a CTD, Home Depot will outsource international travel originating in the United States to WorldTravel Partners-BTI Americas, as "we haven't found the right person to handle it," Spivey said.
Spivey also has begun renegotiating vendor contracts. "There are some big ones for air," she said, noting that the company has met with airline representatives to see if there are better opportunities through the CTD, now that "our unique ARC number will provide better tracking."
While the idea of becoming a CTD came from Spivey and her boss, director of purchasing David Strauss, the company's CFO and vice president of finance, as well as a number of other senior executives, studied the financial and business plans before giving the final go-ahead.
Spivey said the process of becoming a CTD has been painless as well. However, the company took its time in its evaluation and implementation. The feasibility study lasted roughly 90 days and was completed five months before ARC approved the operation.Home Depot is using its original 28-person travel staff, but hired one new staffer to handle reporting responsibilities and another to manage ARC reporting and automation. It selected two existing staffers to become certified ARC specialists.