Ann Cleveland-Oey
Helsinki-based Wärtsilä, a manufacturer for the marine, maintenance and energy markets, in 1999 set out to establish an effective travel management program and hired Ann Cleveland-Oey, who had been a production manager at a travel agency. The company since 2000 has cut T&E costs by 20 percent despite the fact that it increased annual business trips by 30 percent, according to Wärtsilä. It issues American Express corporate cards for all travelers worldwide and uses BCD Travel as its globally consolidated travel agency, which operates a single fulfillment center servicing all European travel. As category manager for global travel management and indirect sourcing, Cleveland-Oey oversees a program encompassing 68 countries and 130 locations. She also is serving a second term on the board of the Finnish Business Travel Association and spoke last week with The Transnationalabout the Wärtsiläprogram and other industry developments.
What are the latest projects you are working at Wärtsilä?
The latest thing is the policy implementation through the travel agency, which is working well. I would say it is still a challenge, but it is getting better. The travel agency has been really able to consolidate the information globally. The same concerns the card program. When you have a global card program, it is not very easy for the partner to have it all up and running, with the electronic files and everything else. It has to be the same everywhere, and we have 68 countries. And also the concentrated shared service center inside Wärtsilä, which is handling all our expenses ... People are handled the same way from all the different countries today and the guidelines are better. With these great, big plans, it is good to see that they are really delivering what you were seeing on the Powerpoint presentations. We are also looking for 24-hour services to be covered with only three locations worldwide. When the office closes here in Europe, calls go to the States, and then to Asia. We'd always have the same teams servicing our people, which would be a great benefit, instead of these separate 24-hour services.
How do environmental concerns enter into Wärtsilä's travel program?
We have been concerned about those for a long time, like all the companies in the Nordic region. What concerns me in this issue is that everybody is talking about it and asking for all sorts of calculations--and yes we are delivering mileage totals of what everyone is flying and choosing all the partners that are environmentally friendly--but what do you calculate? Is it the mileage that you buy or the mileage that you fly? Nobody is able to calculate what the real mileage is, like when you end up circling above London Heathrow for 30 or 45 minutes. That is not calculated anywhere. I don't really trust the reports. There should be guidelines to calculate what we really want to know.
What are the other challenging issues affecting European travel management professionals?
We are facing the same issues as everybody. We are cross-checking GDS prices with Internet prices because the Internet is the only global tool we really have. We are still facing in each country all the International Air Transport Association issues and GDS restrictions by country ... but you can get prices globally from the Internet. This is one of the topics that really feels ridiculous, and is causing a lot of trouble and extra work for everybody. In terms of IT, you have to build all the tools country by country. The local regulations restrict the globality, which you should really have in today's world for travel ... Whenever you talk about airlines, politics are included. That is nothing new for anybody. But the European Union is partly trying to solve these issues, so the GDSs and pricing systems can be more open, at least in EU countries. Of course, that does not solve everything because there are a lot of European countries not in the EU, but it would at least give some kind of a platform.
How far have you come in deploying an online booking tool?
I piloted the BCD Online booking tool [a system built by BCD for the Nordic region] myself during the time we were implementing other parts of the travel agency in other places. There were some things I liked. For example, it is able to search the Internet, as well, which is not the case with all online tools. We asked for certain [customization] and BCD was ready to do it. They did it quickly. It is now in Europe, mainly. We also tested SAP together with Amadeus but it did not work the way we needed it to work. We ended our global distribution system agreement with Amadeus when we ended the SAP pilot. We agreed with BCD Travel that our preferred GDS is Amadeus. But, as Amadeus is not able to cover all our needs, we also have the possibility of booking directly online with suppliers.
People talk about meetings management as the "last frontier," following consolidation of travel management programs. Have you focused on that area?
We are not on the frontier of meetings management, but in the same way we approached the online booking tool, we are not going to take a tool just because everybody is talking about it. We want to test and see that it will really deliver everything we want it to deliver. A smooth process is very important to us, one that is electronic and efficient. We also want to get the best possible price, and to compare the prices easily, and not go into requests for proposals each time we are planning a meeting somewhere.