Armed with a philosophy that "travel is a corporate culture, not a country culture," Rohm and Haas director of insurance and travel Henry Good has tried to drive as much global consistency with a single policy worldwide. However, some vendors don't yet have the global reach to match his travel management vision.
After consolidating Rohm and Haas' worldwide agency in 1999 with TQ3 Travel Solutions and bringing 30 countries into the fold to date, Good continues to enable as much worldwide consistency, or as much as vendors allow, through the corporate card, booking tool and a new expense reporting system.
The corporate card program continues to pose a global challenge for the chemical manufacturing company, which had about $25 million is U.S. air spend in 2002.
"There is no single card that is acceptable 100 percent of the time," he said, adding that Rohm and Haas' contract with Diners Club, which has been a success in the United States, has run into acceptance problems on a worldwide basis. In an attempt to remedy this widespread issue, Good tried to line up a secondary issuer with Citibank, which along with Diners falls under the Citigroup umbrella.
"That's our lead bank and that did not work," Good said. "They're so regionalized in their concept on the card side that we left that up to our financial people to deal with on the local level with the local banks." After Citibank failed to meet Rohm and Haas' acceptance needs, Good compromised. "If there's a particular country where we have problems with acceptance with Diners, we'll authorize a second card if the travelers want it," he said. "Generally, we find that they don't want it and they prefer to get mileage on their own personal card. They get reimbursed and pay it that way." While the solution solved the problems with acceptance, it did not drive global consistency. However, as Good begins a massive expansion of an expense reporting tool in the United States this year, he hopes for the global view of corporate travel spend that otherwise would come through on the card.
Following a pilot this spring with more than 100 travelers in the engineering division, Good is planning to expand the use of the Extensity Expense Reports tool worldwide. He said that by the end of the month Rohm and Haas "will have done away with paper statements" for about 4,000 U.S.-based travelers. As the tool gains traction in the United States throughout the rest of the year, Europe and other regions will follow, with expectations for a complete global expansion by this time next year.
"I don't anticipate any unique problems," Good said. "Extensity is out there with other corporations that have a presence outside of the U.S. Other than the standard start-up problems that you'll have in any country, we don't expect anything unique."
Meanwhile, Good works on the continual rollout of the GetThere online booking tool in the United States. "Adoption is at 5 percent and, at this point, we're not pushing it," he said. "We'll start pushing it in the third quarter." Good anticipates mandating the tool in the United States. "We've cut the agency call staff substantially due to reduction in travel," he said. "We made the decision that once travel picks up again, we will not add to the call staff. The online tool will be the answer for us."
While the course is set for the United States, the rest of the world remains up in the air. Good said the company might decide on handling the booking issue country by country rather than on a global basis. He is considering using a regional call center in Europe, matching the single call center model in the United States. "If we go that route," he said, "there may be a regional booking tool in Europe that is particularly strong."