<B>WebCites</B>
<B>Intranet Spotlight Shines On Corning's Gary Rousch</B>Webmaster is not typically an item on the list of job requirements for corporate travel managers, though being tech-savvy certainly helps.
Nowadays, simple Web page creation software makes a lot more possible than before. But back in the Internet's old days, and we're talking about 1996 here, HTML code was a cumbersome process of hard-coded text. Nonetheless, a techie corporate manager from upstate New York forged ahead with his company's intranet site by establishing a travel page that was simple by today's standards, but at the time won the company's "best in class" award.
Corning Inc.'s Gary Rousch, manager of corporate travel and systems, in fact got his travel job partly because of his interest in and knowledge of technology. Rousch helped establish that first intranet, and named it Corning Today, as a key member of the committee that developed it.
"When we first started four or five years ago, everyone was free to do whatever we wanted," Rousch recalled in an interview last week. "My site had things like a 747 flying at you and another plane pulling a banner, and it got people's attention."
As happens with just about everything in technology, however, Rousch's pioneering site soon became obsolete.
"After people actually started using our intranet, my site dropped to worst in class," he joked. "Although it was a little embarrassing, I agreed. They wanted it to be more serious, and they were worried about interesting graphics using up too much bandwidth, since it's a worldwide intranet."
But that first site made way for a second generation, redesigned last year, which features a hotel database that allows travelers to plug in the state or nation they are visiting and receive listings of preferred hotels.
The percentage savings generated from Corning's hotel program is highlighted in red, and travelers can link to the property's own Web site, where available. Additional information includes driving directions, maps, special amenities and proximity to key locations.
Rousch hired an outside contractor for the database, which is far more complicated than HTML, but he and his assistant now maintain it. "I used to do a paper travel directory that contained travel policy and key contracts we had and all the primary hotels," said Rousch. "It was a small guide you could fit in your breast pocket, but we discontinued it last year and now are entirely electronic. The site is much easier to keep up to date, it's less expensive and the information is much deeper."
Since compliance is the key to a travel program's success, said Rousch, communication of travel policies and preferred suppliers is paramount. The transportation/travel section of Corning Today includes the department's mission, travel policies, personal car mileage reimbursement rates, preferred vendors, auto rental programs with supplier links, travel news and reference--with State Department missives and information on visas and passports--weather, maps and security information.
With more than 6,000 worldwide travelers and $48 million spent on T&E in 1999, including nearly $30 million on air travel in the United States, Corning means a lot to travel suppliers in its hometown of Corning, N.Y. As such, Rousch also built into the travel page a special link to Corning's preferred local hotel, the Radisson, as well as updated airline flight schedules for the Elmira-Corning Regional Airport.
Rousch also features on the site the results of a series of focus groups he conducts among international travelers, domestic travelers and travel arrangers. While he also allows travelers to evaluate the performance of travel management supplier American Express through an online survey, Rousch said the usage is rare. Ad hoc surveys, however, placed in the general intranet's "Headlines in a Hurry" section, get substantial response.
New Corning travelers can fill out their profiles online, helping to prevent errors in business unit identification. They can indicate a list of people, such as spouses, who are allowed to access information about their passenger name records.
Going forward, Rousch would like to establish online booking on the intranet, something he has tested but found to be unappealing to travelers.
"We started working on a booking system six years ago, but we discovered that although travelers like online systems for planning, they didn't trust themselves to make the right choices," he said, noting that Corning never established an adoption rate higher than 10 percent with the Via World Network system.
Rousch is getting ready to do "a couple pilots" this year though, because the company is starting to see travelers booking with US Airways using its Priority Travel Works software. Despite his techie inclination, Rousch will attempt to preserve service by ensuring there is a human element to the online booking process.