Profiles In Travel Management: Jack of Many Trades

Company: Bank of America

Headquarters: Charlotte, N.C.

Domestic air spend: $125 million



Bank of America's Greeley Koch, senior vice president of corporate travel and food services, recently began managing the procurement of a variety of employee services in addition to his main focus, the global travel program, which features innovative arrangements with suppliers and effective policies. Koch picked up the food services group in May of last year, followed last fall by the sports ticketing group. The consolidation of Koch's duties was completed a couple of months ago, when he took on the presentation services group, which provides meeting planner assistance and support.

"There is a common thread in these different areas that centers around helping our associates deepen their client relations," Koch said. "There are everyday challenges with each of the segments, whether it's food, sports tickets, meetings, etc., and we tackle them the same, by making sure we're doing the right thing for our associates and leveraging our spend where possible." Management of the different employee services can be very similar, he added. "We use third-party suppliers for different employee services, so the methodology is similar," he said. "Basically, we manage suppliers."

Koch's varied job description is characteristic of travel management's move into procurement. "The job of corporate travel management is becoming more sophisticated," said Denis Day, senior partner of Downers Grove, Ill.-based recruiting firm The Day Partnership Inc. "More often, travel managers are getting involved with the procurement of food and facilities."

Despite his growing list of responsibilities, Koch's principal focus remains on the global travel program. Bank of America has 17 countries consolidated with Rosenbluth International, and Koch believes using a single agency worldwide is a consistent way for the financial institution to handle associates' needs from country to country. "It makes it easy for everyone around the world to understand which preferred hotels and airlines we're using," he said. "It makes it that much easier to get that information out to our folks as well as capture the data for their spend so we can continue to negotiate better programs."

The key to a successful global travel program, he said, is to keep each regional program specific to its immediate environment and in harmony with the local market, an approach that is evident in Bank of America's global dealings with suppliers. "We leverage global airline agreements, as well as some regional deals where they make sense for us. We take an overall global view, but then make sure that we bring it down to the local level," he said. Bank of America's travel policy also is regional. The company's U.S. reimbursable airfare policy mandates that travelers use the lowest airfare within a one-hour booking window or pay for their tickets out of pocket. "This policy has really driven adoption of our preferred carriers," Koch said, "but we don't have the policy of reimbursable airfare overseas. We do it different ways in different countries. There is still a strong compliance, it's just handled differently."

Bank of America has used an innovative two-year hotel contract, which in 2001 locked in its room rates with about 400 hotels throughout the world. Koch is fine-tuning the hotel program for 2003. Although he is uncertain about reinstating another series of two-year deals with hoteliers, the current program has been met with an encouraging compliance rate of about 75 percent. "The two-year contract did a couple things," Koch said. "It helped us understand what our costs were going to be, and it helped the hotels understand the commitments we're giving them so they could plan accordingly. It also helped from an administrative standpoint, because we're not having as many RFPs as we would with a one-year contract. Plus, we ended up with pretty good rates for two years." Bank of America also has implemented a global agreement with select hotel chains for meetings, rather than negotiating each individual meeting with a new contract. "Since this agreement covers the basics, such as availability and amenities, we're spending our time negotiating the rate and the important things. We're not hung up on the terms and conditions," Koch said. "When we have an event, it's just a matter of negotiating amendments to our standard contract. It shortens the cycle time and keeps us focused on the event versus the contract."