Travel management company veteran Dee Runyan on Nov. 1
joined Radius as senior vice president for the Americas, replacing Gregory
Land, who took a position with IBM. Previously a consultant with KesselRun
Corporate Travel Solutions, a former BCD Travel executive vice president and a
manager at Carlson Wagonlit Travel, Runyan is responsible for Radius' account
sales and management in the Americas, including multinational clients, and
Radius agencies within the region. Runyan recently spoke with BTN about her new role, TMC competition
and globalization.
Business Travel News:
What is your thinking on the global TMC models—affiliations versus outright ownership—and
how they have changed during the past 10 years?
Dee Runyan: Just
like with hotel companies, there are management contracts where the link is
more strongly forged versus franchisees—it is similar with any of the global
[TMC] networks that exist, and some do it better than others. No one network is
100 percent fully owned. The companies that work the best are those that have a
common tie that binds them.
When you think about global, there is an operational leg of
the stool, a technology/data leg of the stool and then the marketing, the brand
and the logistics on contracting, etc. If I'm a customer and I like the flavor
of a global company, I am not going to be as wound up if they have all those
legs of the stool. If I can contract with one entity, if I can be assured that
my data will be cleansed and available when it's expected ... that's a
monumental task, and there's only a handful of groups that are able to do it.
Some of the mega [TMCs] aren't able to do it with the precision that is
expected by multinational customers. The models that can fulfill all those legs
of the stool are all legitimate models. Some just do some of those categories
better than others.
In one of my old lives, we were members of Woodside Travel
Trust, the predecessor to Radius, and we left that group and picked up one of
our own affiliations after that because they weren't meeting those needs. Those
were the days when you just checked a box: "Can I service you in Botswana?
Sure, someone in this group can help." But now our feet are held to the
fire.
When I looked at this new company, with Chris [Vasiliou, Radius president and CEO] coming in, he has a vision and the agencies within
Radius were hungry for it and have aligned with it, and they have had
successes. They have a focus on the customer and have worked through the data
issues. They have come up with a standard, they have report cards on agency
participation and they act upon those. I need to know how the agencies are
meeting these requirements. It is very proactive and totally different than
what they used to be, and, frankly, they can move more quickly on some things
than some of the megas.
BTN: We know the
problems about disparate travel data systems and different countries and
regulations that affect data. How is Radius doing it better?
Runyan: TRX was
chosen as the Radius global data partner. One of the building blocks is that
you have a system that has been proven. Even without TMCs, TRX has a cadre of
their own clients that have bought them directly and are multinational in
nature, where TRX handles the consolidation, normalization and reporting piece.
Radius does the data cleansing and normalization itself and uses TRX on the
bookends; they are the consolidator and the reporting engine. That is a piece
of the foundation that you must have. The other is agency cooperation, and
understanding what they need to do in terms of exporting data and the timing.
If you look at the top four megas and Radius, everyone has a
tool, whether they got one from a third party or created their own. The biggest
issues are the data cleansing and normalization, which we think we have down;
second is the timing. That's something that everyone deals with. Unfortunately,
you are only as strong as your weakest link. When I get into this more and
understand all the obligations of timing and surrender of information ... to
speed that up is everyone's goal. It is one of the hardest parts. In some areas
of the world, especially Africa, [agencies] tend to be slower on the draw.
BTN: In terms of
the competitive landscape, there are the four megas and Radius. Egencia has
announced a lot of countries in which they address travel management, and there
also is the FCm network. Is it really just the top five and then the rest, from
a global perspective?
Runyan: Even in the top five, there are soft spots in the
network. When you get to the online [TMCs] specifically, certainly as we all
learned when we globalized outside of a handful of markets that are 60
percent-plus online, there's a huge component of customer care that has to be
done telephonically. In the case of Travelocity Business, they saw Radius as a great option to provide the care and feeding of those phone customers. That
apparently has worked very well; that will be one of my relationships. There
would be lots of mutual opportunity on that front.
Aside from the online guys, if you look at the traditional
folks, there are some really key driver markets where the multinational clients
tend to emanate from—whether it is the U.K., the U.S. or Canada, etc. Some of
those guys in that next top 10 may not have the presence in some of those
driver markets.
BTN: Conventional
wisdom says that most managed travel is coming from Western Europe and North
America, with emerging markets elsewhere. Does that sound right?
Runyan: Certainly
some of the big Fortune 100 companies
that may be North America-based have a view of the world, and maybe they have
done it regionally or globally. That business has probably plateaued. Western
Europe is a huge driver, but things slowed down over the last two years because
when the recession hit them, it hit really hard. There was a level of hunkering
down, but we've seen especially the U.K. market bounce back. In Latin America,
which went through a little dip—nothing like North America or Europe—we're
seeing a lot more regionalization. [Latin America] tends as a whole to be a
receiver market from Western Europe and North America, but they themselves are
generating a lot of intraregional business. Then you look over at Asia: If you
take China and Japan out of it, we're seeing a lot more multinational activity
from Korea, but they are a few years behind.
BTN: Has there
been any shift in how companies globalize their travel programs?
Runyan: There are
those that really want one or two call centers, to follow the sun, but that is
the exception rather than the rule. When the global recession hit, everyone
went back to regional and in some cases national [approaches], and they wanted
to ride it out. What we're seeing is that those companies that rode out the
recession pretty well, that now are looking at possibly globalizing for the
first time, that have $20 million in global spend in 85 countries, that worked
through the recession on cost cutting and other areas—their procurement folks
now are saying, "Wow, why have we not looked at travel?"
This report appears in
the Nov. 8 issue of Business Travel News.