Managing costs ranks among the highest priorities for improvement, cited by 40 percent of 214 senior financial executives polled by CFO Research and Ariba in February. The greatest opportunities to control costs lie in "managing external spending on production inputs and on indirect costs, such as travel or maintenance and repair supplies," the authors wrote in "CFOs' Views on Procurement--Information, Risk and Money." Other finance priorities, according to nearly four of five surveyed, include supporting business-unit decision-making and analysis. Hampering those efforts, respondents said, is the lack of timely, accurate data and "forward visibility of spending."
Given these results, it's not surprising to see the creative ways companies are reinforcing travel policy, integrating technology and streamlining their operations to manage those travel costs. This month's issue of Procurement.travelfeatures travel procurement professionals who are innovating new ways to measure and better manage their travel programs. For example, the Cover Story details how Chevron plans to adapt its leading-edge online procurement card training program to travel policyand the proper ways to use the travel and entertainment cards. The growing importance of policy has emerged in surveysduring the past two years, according to this issue's Compliance department.
To better measure policy compliance, as well as all other aspects of travel management practices and spending, companies increasingly are relying on benchmarking. This issue's Feature story delves into reasons for the trend and the many ways to benchmark. But TRX's Scott Gillespie in Perspective cautions on the use of benchmarking, suggesting the practice isn't a panacea.
Interoperability is another trend we touch on in this issue's Technology sectionand in the Case Study that details how Bristol-Myers Squibb has integrated Ariba and SAP systems with those of Carlson Wagonlit Travel and American Expressto create a procure-to-pay process for non-employee travel.
In Outsourcing, read how pharmaceutical firm GlaxoSmithKline has integrated and managed travel management company staffas part of its global travel management procurement strategy. In Profile, Levi Strauss & Co. explains how procurement has helped advance its global travel program.
Measuring, monitoring and mitigating risk management, an emerging area of focus for travel procurement experts, is the topic of this issue's Leading Practices section.
As CFOs continue to push for operational improvements, travel managers and buyers will, no doubt, continue to innovate new ways to reach their destinations.