Yamatake Mgmt. Ahead Of Peers
<B>Yamatake Mgmt. Ahead Of Peers</B>
By Amon Cohen
Japanese corporations are warming to the idea of Western-style travel management, as a program of change at the control products and systems manufacturer Yamatake Group demonstrates. Yamatake has not embraced travel management to the extent of most companies of similar size in the United States or Europe, but it has come further than many of its peers in Japan--and it is changing fast.
"Our bubble economy collapsed in the 1990s, so as a corporation we need to minimize costs. At the same time, our business has become more international, which means our travel bills are rising," said Takafumi Yabumoto, supervisor of the international human resources section at Yamatake, explaining why his company is putting travel under the spotlight more resolutely than before. "We have not been focused on travel management and policy before, but now we are trying hard to improve our efficiency in this area. We have not implemented all the practices that are common in the United States or Europe because we only found out about some of them recently from American Express, which supplies both card and travel services to us, but we certainly want to look at further cost-saving opportunities."
Although Yamatake is eager to implement many aspects of Western-style travel management, it intends to ensure the practices are adapted to suit Japanese culture. For instance, Yabumoto believes a rigid, U.S.-style mandated program would not be appropriate for his company, especially where it may risk causing a conflict--something the Japanese always strive to avoid.
"There needs to be flexibility--a balance between management rules and the personal judgment of the traveler," he said. "If the traveler can come up with a better solution for their journey, then the situation cannot be resolved easily if they are ordered to use certain airlines or hotels."
The Yamatake Group, including all of its subsidiaries, has 7,000 employees, of which around 5,000 travel domestically and 1,500 also travel internationally. Annual travel spend for the 2,200 employees at its Tokyo headquarters is $6.6 million. Each business line sets its own travel budget, but the travel process is overseen by the human resources department.
The dominance of the HR mindset is evident in the Yamatake procedure for booking trips. After receiving permission from their supervisors for the journey, travelers make their reservations with their travel agency and details of the trip are logged on the company intranet. The security department then vets the reservations to make sure it is happy with such details as the quality of the airline. The human resources department also checks the booking to see whether it needs to issue any health and safety advice and whether it needs to obtain any additional insurance for the traveler. When the trip is finished, travelers must retrieve the booking from the intranet and confirm their safe return.
Yamatake has been developing guidelines for travelers during the past seven years, including how to settle expenses, per diem allowances, health and safety procedures, and how to use the American Express Card, which was adopted by the company in 1989. The company retains five different travel agencies and does not negotiate directly with suppliers, but encourages the agencies to do so on its behalf. Therefore, there are no preferred airlines, but local offices do have relationships with nearby hotels, usually producing a discount of 10 percent to 20 percent.
Yamatake also recently has asked agents to start producing information for the HR department to circulate to travelers on best fares and saving tips for travel to key destinations.