Profiles InTravel Management - 2002-03-04

Company: Enterasys Networks

Headquarters: Portsmouth, N.H.

Domestic air spend: $8 million

Number of frequent travelers: 800



Enterasys Networks this year will generate huge savings from implementing online booking, hiring its first dedicated corporate travel manager, ending its relationship with American Express in favor of a smaller travel management company and influencing traveler behavior through the usage of reporting tools.

When the Portsmouth, N.H.-based networking company's travel manager, Kristin Sullivan-Crowell, came onboard last April, her goals were clear: "We wanted to implement online booking and we wanted to improve our reporting capabilities," she said. "Amex had been managing our travel for 13 years and we felt that it was time to consider other options."

Frank Breen, Enterasys director of facilities, security and travel, recommended that Sullivan-Crowell hire Key Biscayne, Fla.-based TCG Consulting to analyze Enterasys' travel program against industry benchmarks. "The findings were presented to our executives, who gave us their support for overhauling the program," said Sullivan-Crowell, who previously headed up incentives for Enterasys with her own boutique leisure agency Seacoast Travel.

After considering a dozen travel management companies and third-party online booking providers, Enterasys hired Little Rock, Ark.-based World Wide Travel—a super regional agency with less than $300 million in total annual domestic air sales—to handle both travel management and online booking.

The chief selling point of the smaller agency, said Sullivan-Crowell, was its "superior" QualityAgent reporting and online booking platform. As a bonus, she said, "We have great access to even top executives at World Wide Travel. I can call the CIO directly." By way of comparison, American Express is about 40 times the size of World Wide Travel on the basis of domestic air volume.

Sullivan-Crowell said WWT's reporting suite, QualityReporter, offers real-time access to pre- and post-trip data. This enables her to run up-to-date expense reports as often as needed, which has made budgeting more efficient, she said. "With American Express, we only had access to post-trip data," she said, "and that information came in 60 days after the trip, when it was far too late to change traveler behavior."

Sullivan-Crowell receives pre-trip exception reports that prompt her to intervene when travelers are acting out of policy. "I contact managers before it's too late," she said. Her attention to traveler behavior has paid off in lower air costs. "Our average domestic ticket price dropped by $40 to $60," she said. QualityReporter's real-time access to passenger data also would help in a crisis. "On Sept. 11, our agency was American Express, and we had to go through our ticketing records and the GDSs manually," she said. "That was painful." And unlike her previous management suite, "QualityAgent tracks unused tickets," she said. "When I started working at Enterasys, the unused tickets totaled over $100,000, so right away we saved money by using those tickets."

Sullivan-Crowell on Jan. 1 rolled out WWT's QualityAgent online booking tool, and achieved a whopping 72 percent adoption rate in only three weeks. Usage of the online booking tool is mandated, she said, unless the trip has multiple destinations. "Teams of trainers visited our offices in four cities and trained people on how to use QualityAgent," Sullivan-Crowell said. Travelers cannot access the site unless they've completed a training course. "The first-year goal for adoption of QualityAgent was 40 percent, but three weeks after the launch, Enterasys had nearly doubled that," said Kelly Carney, World Wide Travel CIO.

"We now use four designated call center agents, whereas we had 13 onsite employees with Amex," Sullivan-Crowell said. "We have huge savings just in the elimination of those salaries." Enterasys saved on transaction fees as well. "We're paying $38 per transaction to WWT for instances where travelers call an agent. If travelers book online, it costs $15 per transaction." Since the program has a 72 percent adoption rate of online booking, the average transaction fee works out to $17.64. "If we had kept the old travel program in place, we would've paid $31 to $38 per transaction," Sullivan-Crowell said.

Albert Taras, president of TCG Consulting, said the savings generated by the changes to Enterasys' travel program "would run into the millions of dollars."