Shifting corporate priorities, demographics and structures appear to be prompting a number of companies to review or outright rethink their strategic plan for corporate travel.
Within major corporations, there's been no shortage of acronyms or catchphrases for new strategic initiatives devised to deliver profits in the face of sluggish economic conditions. Restructurings, mergers, acquisitions and divestitures have increased as companies strive to meet business objectives. In the face of such organizational realignments, it only stands to reason that operations such as travel revisit their strategies and missions to ensure that they continue to mirror corporate objectives.
Others have found conditions just right to advance travel and meetings management initiatives they've longed to implement but heretofore couldn't muster necessary support to execute.
Within this issue, you'll find a number of examples of the changes underway within corporate travel and meeting strategies. Rethinking communications, booking and other traveler technologies to adapt to the preferences and demands of the burgeoning Gen Y increasingly infiltrating the travel forceis the focus of the Feature.
The Cover Story takes a fresh look at the ARC Corporate Travel Department optionthat some companies, such as Moog, have found to be the most cost-effective, transparent means to manage travel.
Case Studies highlight the latest structural changes to two mature global travel management programs-- Accentureand Siemens North America--often cited as the vanguards of best practitioners.
Looking for new categories to better manage, some companies have turned to food and beverage spending, as detailed in Supply Chain. But as you'll read about in Meetings, few companies have yet to embrace the final frontier of unmanaged spend within travel: meetings management. And, Technology provides an update on the latest efforts to better manage ancillary fees through the electronic miscellaneous document.
Finally, in Perspective, the Association of Corporate Travel Executives' new executive director Ron DiLeoopines that it's long past time that the industry learn a few new tricks or break out some new material.
Perhaps it is time to rethink travel management strategy.