Protesters Protest Too Much
<B>Protesters Protest Too Much</B>
When a feature article on travel departments reporting through purchasing raises this kind of reaction, there is some other force at work, and I don't mean Business Travel Coalition members advancing their own public relations campaign. Obviously, we have touched a raw nerve here. And in retrospect, it makes sense that travel managers at some companies would be concerned that senior managers might misunderstand this to be a recommendation that travel report to purchasing.
We think these protesters protest too much, and that they chose to misunderstand the intent behind our story so that they could make a statement, albeit an important one: Most travel management professionals are every bit as skilled as most purchasing professionals and generally they work together, rather than at odds with each other. The idea behind our story was to show what travel managers could learn from a purchasing mentality and what purchasing executives could learn from travel management. Just because purchasing departments generally are aggressive in cost cutting does not mean that travel buyers who do not report to purchasing are not as aggressive.
In our story, we noted that purchasing departments only made up 10 percent of midsize and larger travel departments as cited by American Express and that there appeared to be a slight increase. A recent study of BTN readers showed that 17 percent of all travel managers reported through purchasing last year, and that the number has grown by another 10 percent in the past year. The BTC also recently conducted a poll of 28 smaller companies in which it found that the purchasing department had a role in contract negotiations or fulfillment at 17 of the companies.
Whatever the true measure of movement in this area, a growing minority of business travel buyers appear to be interacting with their purchasing departments, which prompted us to take a closer look.
The reaction we drew seems to be a cry from those beset by B2B portals, enterprise resource providers, reports by outside "experts," travel management outsourced by the likes of Lucent and Nortel, internal corporate power struggles, strategic sourcing initiatives and senior management shortsightedness. It is a sharp defensive reaction from people who have worked hard to get senior management's support for travel management programs, despite all the distractions and the latest so-called panacea.
The threat that these petitioners see is that travel managers could lose their contracting and negotiating authority to the purchasing department, stripping corporate travel management professionals of the clout that they need to fully provide service for business travelers.
As Business Travel News has sought to document for the past 17 years, beyond the expertise of travel management professionals to evaluate the true lowest cost in the intricate airline negotiating process, they deliver on basic service expectations, as well as upgrades and VIP service when appropriate, to ensure that critical business missions are supported properly.
Travel managers are most effective in negotiating with suppliers when they have been able to demonstrate the ability to deliver substantial use of designated travel suppliers and to shift market share. In buying service rather than simply a commodity, industry relationships and experience often can deliver more than more traditional purchasing practices would bring to bear.
What raises the level of travel management professionalism, as our critics rightly assert, has nothing to do with where in the organization the travel buyer reports. It has everything to do, however, with building skill sets, being aware of changes in corporate culture and in effectively articulating strategic alternatives.
Senior managers and others should not misunderstand. We are not promoting a purchasing mentality over traditional travel management practices, only that travel managers need to be aware of a growing tendency by companies to lump them together, despite some differences in orientation, because in some cases there also are synergies. Savvy travel managers faced with such a change will learn quickly how to glean the most from the differences and build on the similarities.