Blockskye, FCM and Kayak for Business are ready
to rumble. In an announcement obtained by BTN and slated for release later
today, the trio will unveil a partnership that throws their expertise into a
group collaboration to pursue a modern managed travel technology and service ecosystem.
The global partnership among the three players
will aim to eliminate trade-offs that enterprise programs have faced across
user experience, data transparency and payment friction, and global service coverage.
According to the announcement, the partnership will produce an end-to-end
travel, payment and expense solution that "will fundamentally re-imagine
enterprise travel operations," and will be calibrated to serve "the
world's largest and high-performing organizations."
Very short on detail about how the technology,
data and service mechanisms will integrate as a single, marketable product, the
announcement does specify which partner will handle each leg of a proverbial three-legged
stool. Kayak for Business will contribute its
consumer-oriented booking experience that PwC helped to bring
into the corporate market three years ago. Its UX is one advantage, but the
partnership also will benefit from its broad access to air and hotel content,
including from sources outside traditional global distribution system
offerings.
Blockskye, which offers a
blockchain-based ledger infrastructure for data transparency and a direct-payment
philosophy, will concentrate on "frictionless" transactions and
expense automation, and also will provide the reporting spine for "trust
and transparency," according to the companies. FCM will contribute
its global service and travel management expertise supporting large-scale,
multinational programs.
The trio promises the eventual setup
will reduce friction, improve efficiency and drive measurable cost savings for
enterprise organizations. As part of the agreement, FCM parent company Flight Centre Group has invested an
undisclosed amount in Blockskye, underscoring its "shared commitment to driving
direct payment and expense innovation across the industry." Blockskye's
direct payment proposition has been one mechanism that delivers cost savings by
removing the "cost of payment" from the buyer-supplier relationship.
A Direct Rebuttal to Amex
GBT-Concur Partnership?
Blockskye co-founder and co-CEO
Michael Share provided the announcement's most revealing commentary in terms of
how the partners see their competitive position in the market.
"The last several years in the industry
have seen buyers' options narrow through roll-ups and rebranded legacy systems,"
he said, likely referencing not only the recent rebrand
of close FCM competitor BCD Travel just two months ago but moreso the significant
consolidation driven by American Express Global Business Travel's acquisition
of Egencia in
2021 and the distressed CWT last
year, then nearly immediately unveiling a BFF-relationship with legacy
booking and expense platform SAP Concur called "Complete."
The GBT-Concur pairing shares a technology
development roadmap that the duo in October told BTN would allow the partners
to "run faster" together with innovation. However, it ostensibly
promised another new version of Concur that is slated to get better, more
comprehensive upgrades within the GBT partnership than the 2023-era "New
Concur" tools will get with other TMC partners.
The pair-up forced a recalibration of all
Concur's broader TMC partnerships. Shared Amex GBT-Concur clients have been
strongly encouraged to move to the Complete setup, but not everyone is amenable
to that configuration, though in March blog post, Concur sites “rapid
adoption.” It is also unclear exactly how fast the Complete partnership has
been able to run, despite its promises of rapid development and program impact.
The blog discussed most capabilities still in the future tense.
One buyer who has been closely connected to
both Amex GBT and Concur last week told BTN that the product so far hasn't
produced the right opportunities or value for their program to sign on. “The
big differentiator that I see right now is Amex GBT gets my expense data if I
sign up. That does nothing for me—it just gives them a big look inside my
closet at what the opportunity is for them," said the buyer, who spoke on
condition of anonymity. "I'm very frustrated."
Blockskye, FCM and Kayak look to be positioning
themselves to capitalize on those types of frustrations. The announcement puts
forth an alternative that emphasizes a more flexible approach, referring to the partnership as a "framework" for managing
enterprise travel "in a transformative way."
That "framework" approach
is different from BCD Travel's position, which it has called "Open by
Design" and which purports to offer an API-driven tech stack that is much
more inclusive of third-party technologies. While FCM has had a reputation for
working with third parties, and even eventually investing in them or buying
them outright like
it did with Shep, the current partnership seems somewhat different. By
working within a framework, this partnership—like Amex GBT and Concur's
Complete—looks like it will limit the players in order to innovate more quickly.
At the same time, the group's announcement has promised the trio will work
closely with customers "to deliver customized solutions to meet evolving
enterprise needs."
Share called it "the first real structural
reset the category has had," while FCM global
managing director Melissa Elf called the partnership "groundbreaking."
Kayak for Business SVP Eva Fouquet removed the superlatives but invoked
something possibly even more challenging: simplification. She said: "we
are coming together to simplify enterprise global travel programs."
The simplification message from Kayak gives
echoes of Navan's objectives, which are to offer a beautiful UX for the
traveler and to utilize AI and machine learning to simplify the process and
return intuitive, almost "magical" experiences to the user. While
Kayak also brings a consumer experience to the table, it has a major messaging
advantage over Navan—Kayak knows travel. It has always been a travel company,
and Navan has until now led very heavily with technology, acting like a
technology company, raising money like one, selling like a tech company and certainly
innovating quickly like one.
While Navan has deepened its enterprise client
bench recently and its service chops with its Reed
& Mackey acquisition and some smart hiring decisions, questions still
remain about its service and account management. The Blockskye-FCM-Kayak
partnership is nothing if it's not rooted in travel.
It's worth noting that FCM will not gain any
current Kayak Enterprise or Blockskye clients with this partnership, according
to a source close to the agreement. It is a go-forward agreement only, so the
likes of PwC and Deloitte, who were Blockskye's earliest companies, will stay
in the portfolio of the originally contracted partner. Likewise, the supporting
players for Blockskye like Gant and Altour also will remain in place for that
company.
It's clear is that another new industry partnership
starring Blockskye, FCM and Kayak in the lead roles could make the market
competition for managed travel ecosystems that much more exciting and feel like
it's full of opportunity. The challenge at this moment is to determine what's
tangible and what's just on paper. For now, the Blockskye-FCM-Kayak news is the
announcement itself. Even working with a duo, Complete has been slower to roll
out than planned. With a trio can this partnership move faster toward its big
promises?
According to the anouncement, additional
details on the integrated offering and future availability will be shared "in
the coming months."