Lockheed Martin Configures Concur for the Aerospace & Defense Industry

Like any industry, the aerospace and defense sector has its idiosyncrasies. That means out-of-the-box travel management solutions require heavy configurations. Not to mention the government regulations to which U.S. government contractors must adhere.

Still, things were running pretty smoothly for Lockheed Martin's travel department, which used Sabre's GetThere for booking and IBM's Global Expense Reporting Solution for expense. Then IBM announced in 2014 that it would retire GERS. Moving to Concur Expense was fine, but senior manager of global travel, events and logistics Mark Stansbury was happy with GetThere.

Nonetheless, he knew there were benefits of a single, integrated T&E solution. Lockheed signed a contract for Concur Travel & Expense in December 2014. Implementation began in 2015, and the platform rolled out in May 2016. Now, most of Lockheed's 71 countries use Concur T&E; Brazil, Australia, Canada and Egypt will come onboard next year.

Throughout, Stansbury wanted to ensure that switching to Concur Travel wouldn't make his program regress. Lockheed's 40,000-plus travelers adopted GetThere at a rate of 90 percent, and Sabre had tailored several features to suit the needs of the A&D sector. Lockheed's journey to a similar spot with Concur had a thorny beginning, but Lockheed's Concur Travel adoption rate is 85 percent and "trending up," Stansbury said.

For at least one of the tweaks Concur has made at Lockheed's behest, "Concur has thanked us because these are things they can use with other customers," Stansbury said, especially other A&D users. "We've set up a working group because A&D is a little different than a lot of other commercial industries, and we're trying to have a unified front with Concur." he said.

Tweak #1: Flagging Trips That Violate the Rules

Among the A&D industry customizations Sabre had made to GetThere was flagging flight bookings that could violate the Fly America Act, which requires federal contractors to use U.S. carriers. Other Concur clients in the A&D industry told Stansbury they got around that by requiring employees traveling internationally to book directly with the travel management company rather than through the booking tool.

Nearly 80 percent of Lockheed's business is with a federal agency, the Department of Defense. Running that trip volume, even just the international portion, through TMC agents would have run up a hefty pile of agency fees. "I was shocked that some of my peers in the A&D industry had just surrendered and said 'OK,'" Stansbury said. "My team, along with BCD Travel, rolled up our sleeves and got [Concur] to change their system."

It took several months, but now, when a Lockheed traveler books an international flight on a non-U.S. carrier, a pop-up window notifies the traveler of a potential Fly America Act violation. The traveler indicates from a drop-down menu whether a flight is in support of a government or commercial contract. Concur records the reason on the itinerary so the Defense Contract Audit Agency can audit it later.

Tweak #2: Booking Profiles for Temporary Travelers

Another feature GetThere had enacted for Lockheed: temporary booking capabilities for job applicants and subcontractors. For applicants, Lockheed's HR department would email details about the job interview time and location and include in that communication a link to create a "mock profile" on GetThere. Applicants then could book their own travel on Lockheed's ghost card. The profile automatically expired after a few days.

A similar arrangement allowed subcontractors to access Lockheed Martin's internal deals and systems if they didn't have their own managed travel programs. For those subcontractors, their temporary booking system profiles expired when their contracts with Lockheed ended. Lockheed, BCD and Concur worked together to configure a similar process for job applicants and subcontractors on Concur.

Tweak #3: Getting the Receipts Right

Stansbury wanted more than just to rebuild his GetThere experience in Concur. He also wanted to optimize the benefits of Concur's integrated booking and expense platform. For a defense contractor, that goes beyond Concur's existing ability to populate expense reports with typical booking data. Defense Contract Audit Agency rules require more than standard booking data but also other information like fare class that appears on receipts. To capture that data with the exense report, travelers either had to forward e-receipts to [email protected] or photograph and upload them. Concur, BCD and Lockheed, however, arranged for receipts for bookings in Concur Travel to migrate to Concur Expense automatically, making it easier for travelers to attach receipts to their expense reports to comply with DCAA rules.

BCD's function as the ticket and receipt issuer in this equation also aides in another need unique to government contractors. According to the Federal Acquisition Regulation and the Defense Travel Regulation, there are only five reasons contractors can deviate from the lowest available fare and still be reimbursed by the government. Even when traveling on one of those exceptions, the contractor's expense report also must indicate the lowest logical fare that he or she did not take. Stansbury found, however, that Concur wasn't accurately identifying the lowest available fare. "If an employee purchases a business class seat, the system would only look for the lower available business class fares" Stansbury said. "What we need is for the system to search for the lowest available fare regardless of class."

Several Lockheed departments have been working with BCD and Concur on the best way for the Concur Travel booking tool to capture that information and transmit it to Concur Expense. The idea is that when the traveler chooses a fare other than the lowest logical, the system will prompt the traveler to choose the reason from a drop-down menu. BCD's receipt will show both the selected and the declined options, and the team is working on a way to populate that information directly in the expense report. "We've developed a process that will be as automated as possible and will be as simple as possible for the travelers," Stansbury said.

Lockheed and Concur's relationship has evolved into a true partnership, Stansbury said. "We have come a long way with Concur, and we've now established a partnership that I feel is mutually working to make the Lockheed travel program a success."