ACTE Members To Get E-RFP Tool Discount

The Association of Corporate Travel Executives earlier this month announced a partnership with ETABid, an electronic request-for-proposals tool provider, through which members can get up to 15 percent discounts off charges to use its Web-based sourcing tools. The announcement came just days after the creation of an U.K.-based consultancy, 3Sixty, which now serves as the umbrella company for ETABid's services.

ETABid said recent internal research showed its travel management company, online booking tool and car rental supplier selection tools cut vendor costs by 51 percent and the time buyers spend on an RFP by 70 percent. Features include a library of customizable questions, pricing models for side-by-side comparisons and an evaluation tool that allows buyers to weight importance for different parts of the RFP process. ETABid said it would release additional products for ground transportation and expense and payment systems later this year.

This is not the first electronic RFP tool to be offered by ACTE, as the organization already has a relationship with EBuyerSolutions in Lake in the Hills, Ill., through which it offers electronic procurement solutions at a discounted rate for members.

Headed by Mal Johnson, former vice president of Europe for Rosenbluth International, Karen McGee, founder of ETABid, and Chris Reynolds, previously head of the Siemens UK travel procurement team, the 3Sixty consultancy is looking to expand its reach across the Atlantic. "Obviously that will take time, as it did in Europe," said McGee, 3Sixty's managing director. "You have to build your presence and your brand."

ETABid's partnership with ACTE is helping to build that presence, as is the company's relationship with Deerfield, Ill.-based Consulting Strategies, which serves as ETABid's U.S. distributor. For a consultancy to partner with an electronic RFP process provider makes sense, said Mark Walton, principal of the consulting group. "Some people would look at this as a competitive tool to what we already do in the marketplace and I think they're right, to a degree," he said. "We believe that the value of our consulting services is in the overall strategic and creative process support to clients, not in the physical aspects of writing an RFP. We're glad to do it, but that's not where our value is."

McGee said ETABid's partnership with Consulting Strategies helped spur talks with the Association of Corporate Travel Executives, noting, "It's been something we've been talking to ACTE about since ETA launched."