Rosenbluth To Offer New Global Security Software Suite
Rosenbluth International has announced that it expects to launch a Web-based application within the next 60 days that it claims will allow travel managers to trace travelers within seconds in the event of a crisis such as Sept. 11.
The traveler tracker is one of a three-product Global Security Suite that the Philadelphia-based mega has developed.
The first product, planned to roll out Feb. 15, is an online database that gives travelers comprehensive country guides, including recent security advisories, tips on etiquette and political sensitivities, plus such background content as recent economic and political history.
This will be followed, within the same 60-day period, by a news flash information service. Travelers will receive information about destinations they are scheduled to visit, from one week before they travel until one week after they return. Examples of information include new security advisories, airport closures, health alerts and industrial action.
Rosenbluth senior manager for product development Kurt Knackstedt told Business Travel News the company started to develop the suite early last year and will sell it to clients on a subscription-fee basis.
The traveler tracker is intended to let travel managers identify at a glance how many travelers they have in any given location at any time. Managers also will be able to run the names of travelers and identify the hotels where they are staying—assuming it was booked through Rosenbluth. Chief marketing officer Kimberly Harrington-Martinez said Rosenbluth is uniquely able to do this because "we are the only travel management company in the world with a global data warehouse." She said this would make accurate information available to travel managers in event of an emergency.
Launch customer for Global Security Suite will be Credit Suisse First Boston, which already has carried out live tests on its components. Michelle Lee, CSFB managing director for the internal client services group, who is responsible for the worldwide travel program, gave Travel Tracker an enthusiastic thumbs-up. "We have exceptionally high expectations of a travel management company and its ability to deliver state-of-the-art technology as it relates to security," she said. "These products meet those expectations.
"On Sept. 11, we, like many of our colleagues in the industry, were being contacted by senior executives in urgent need of information about CSFB travelers. Rosenbluth was able to advise us within about an hour that we had no one on board," Lee said. "Our ability to provide this assurance so quickly was of tremendous importance. This product takes our ability to respond during a crisis and the speed of communication to the next level. We can now respond to senior management within minutes."
One feature Lee particularly liked is the ability to produce an instant summary not only of how many travelers are in each city, but how many are in each region of the world. CSFB has 9,000 frequent travelers based in the United States and the United Kingdom alone.
Rosenbluth chief information officer John Dabek said that on Sept. 11 it took 30 minutes to establish which clients' employees were on the hijacked aircraft, two hours to obtain a list of who was in New York and several more hours to identify who was stranded and needed help to get home. "This allows us to get to that phase in seconds," he said. The theory is that it will give Rosenbluth customers a head-start in securing alternative sources of transportation, such as rental cars and trains. "These were options that dried up very quickly on Sept. 11," said Harrington-Martinez.
For the system to work efficiently, Knackstedt said, clients need to tighten policy to mandate hotel and air bookings through Rosenbluth. The company has noticed clients moving in this direction since Sept. 11 by clamping down on bookings through unauthorized sources.
Content for the two traveler information services is being provided by U.S.-based Air Security International, which monitors such sources as news wires and industry Web sites. Information can be fed to any PC or wireless device with access to e-mail.