"From my experience, dining spend is just a hard area to really get your arms around. When you are looking to save money, it's a hard bucket to look at," said Tricia Mauldin, a T&E administrator for Sonepar USA, a distributor of electrical, industrial and safety products. When she started in March 2015, the company had no travel program and certainly no control over dining spend. "Our direct management didn't know there were ways and such a thing as a travel department that help drive down costs when it came to travel," she said.
The company had recruited her to implement a credit card program and Concur Expense across Sonepar USA's 13 operating companies, but Mauldin also took the initiative to shop for savings opportunities. Dining turned into the opportunity she was hungry for. At first, Mauldin was skeptical of a June 2017 BTN webinar focused on food and beverage spend. She thought, "There was no way you can get a cost reduction in this area." But she had some free time, so she attended. She left the session "extremely excited."
Mauldin then spoke to her boss about partnering with Dinova, a platform that gives companies rebates when travelers dine at member restaurants; it had sponsored the webinar. Mauldin and her boss presented the opportunity to the president of Sonepar USA. The selling point: Dinova would give Sonepar USA "the ability to get a rebate on food and beverage we're obviously spending on. ... It doesn't cost us anything. Let's roll out and see what happens." The president gave them the thumbs-up, and Mauldin signed on in September 2017.
How It Works
Any time a Sonepar traveler uses his or her corporate card in a Dinova restaurant, Dinova earmarks a rebate for Sonepar USA. By the 10th of every month, Maudlin pulls credit card purchase data for outlets designated by their merchant category code as food and beverage and submits that to Dinova. Dinova responds by email within 60 days with a list of the qualifying purchases, and it calculates the rebates Sonepar USA earned. And every three months, Dinova direct deposits the rebates Sonepar USA has earned.
For the first month, Sonepar USA raked in $489.67 in rebates. Dinova has expanded its network of restaurants, and the rebates have increased. From September 2017 through February 2019, Sonepar USA scored $13,000 in rebates, or $722.22 per month.
Most of Mauldin's travelers aren't aware they're dining at restaurants in Dinova's platform or that the company gets rebates for their meals. "As a business traveler, you probably just dine at what you see because you probably don't know much more about the area."
Rebates, Plus the Right to Do More
The company's leadership loved the rebates, and the CFO congratulated Mauldin for finding savings. It boosted her credibility beyond that of a T&E administrator, she said. "It helped them recognize what I can do for the company, stepping outside of my role and saying, 'Hey, let's be a travel department and let's look at hotels and other opportunities.'"
Now, Mauldin can negotiate hotel rates, and she has implemented Uber for Business and Lyft for Business. "When I hear of a new idea that has cost savings potential, it's given me a platform where I can say, 'Hey, I just ran across this, and this could benefit Sonepar.' They are willing to listen to me." In fact, the company recently hired someone else to support the company's credit card program and expense report auditing and training so Mauldin can focus on finding more savings opportunities.