Monsanto To Test Rome As Part Of Travel Redesign

<I>St. Louis</I> - Monsanto Co. this spring will become one of the first to test the American Express-Microsoft Rome interactive booking tool as one of the cornerstones of a 16-month effort to redesign its travel process.

Heeding cries of travelers throughout headquarters and its 13 business units to make travel simpler, Monsanto is consolidating its travel domestically, as well as globally, and selecting one agency, American Express, instead of the 60 that previously served the business. It also recently wrote a new global policy and negotiated new air, hotel and car rental contracts based on total volume.

In addition, the firm will buy Portable Software's Xpense Management Solution after a reengineering team studied the company's expense reporting systems and evaluated automated systems from nine vendors.

The Rome interactive booking component played a key role in the decision to choose Amex as its agency, from a pool of six major agencies asked to bid, said Monsanto travel manager Betty Ryan, based at the company's Searle division in Skokie, Ill.

The redesign is expected to shave millions of dollars off Monsanto's $100 million worldwide annual travel and entertainment tab and improve service to travelers, according to Ryan.

At the forefront of this streamlined travel operation will be the Rome booking tool, available to all Monsanto employees with access to the company's intranet. The tool will be customized with Monsanto's travel policy and air, hotel and car rental discounts. Eighty-two percent of Monsanto travelers asked for some type of electronic booking tool or single source for data, Ryan said. "For our company, Rome fits well because we have an intranet," she said. "Travelers will be able to look up schedules and hotels and then book them."

Ryan said she knows some travelers already are using the Internet to book their travel. "I don't know if they're within policy, and I want to control that," she said.

Ryan believes that down the road, the interactive product will result in reduced transaction volumes, which will cut costs. In surveys conducted as part of the travel redesign, travel agents and arrangers detailed the time they waste giving destination information and flight options. With Rome available on the homepage, users can access the data there.

"We've carefully analyzed our own travel booking patterns and have determined that an online booking system will significantly reduce total travel costs," Ryan said. "Also important to Monsanto is that this online system integrates with the desktop environments of our employees around the world and is supported by a global network of travel agents."

At press time, Monsanto's information systems unit was just starting to look at how it would add Rome to the company's intranet for the pilot test, slated to begin in the second quarter of this year. Ryan would like about 150 people to test the booking tool before deploying it companywide. Plans call for rollout in Europe later this year.

American Express and Portable Software are working to integrate the expense report forms onto the travel homepage for easier traveler access, Ryan said. Charge data already flows through from the Amex card to prepopulate employee expense reports.

Monsanto is expected to be one of a group of companies that tests Rome at the same time, according to an Amex spokesman. The other companies weren't selected at press time, but Amex said it has had interest from AlliedSignal, Chrysler Corp. and Lockheed.

At a meeting at Microsoft headquarters last month between CEO Bill Gates and nearly 200 American Express clients, Amex credited Rome with helping the agency win new business worth more than $150 million in air volume in the past six months. The agency declined to disclose the names of other new accounts.

American Express expects to complete Monsanto's U.S. and European agency implementation by the end of April. Amex will be serving all U.S. offices from its Express Travel Center in Phoenix, along with onsites in St. Louis and Skokie, and European locations from business traveler centers or co-owned locations. Other international consolidation will follow.

Although various Monsanto subsidiaries previously consolidated their travel, an autonomous corporate culture had thwarted efforts to fully leverage the buying power of the agricultural, chemical and pharmaceutical giant, which has air volume of $50 million--more than double that of any single company unit.

But in October 1995, Monsanto's purchasing vice president established a process to study various areas of expenditure and purchasing activities, including travel. Within travel, a core team of eight to 10 people spent the next year surveying travelers, mapping the existing business process and devising ways to streamline the travel process, Ryan said. This team worked closely with another assigned to study the European travel buying process and devise international solutions.

Travelers told the team that the existing process was far too complex and not reflective of the current state of business. Increasingly, employees found themselves working across Monsanto business units, yet the travel policies and preferred vendors were established by subsidiary. A simple task like getting a ticket changed while visiting the St. Louis headquarters was difficult for those who worked for Searle and any other business units that used a different travel agency. Travelers also said that they wanted the opportunity to book travel at night, when the reservation offices are usually closed.

While collecting traveler input, Monsanto executives and consultants also were collecting data on travel patterns and spend. Initially, the company went out for bid for airline, car rental and hotel partners.

As they began to recognize how difficult it would be to manage these agreements with multiple agencies, the travel redesign team decided that the firm must consolidate with one agency in the United States. At the same time, the international team recommended that the company select one agency to serve the company globally.