American Express Business Travel is announcing today a 61-country rollout of customizable dashboard tools for those using its @ Work Reporting for Business Travel platform, which is now part of Amex's core reporting service offering.
Meanwhile, other mega and online-based travel management companies, including Carlson Wagonlit Travel, Expedia Corporate Travel and Orbitz, this week are announcing enhancements to their global reporting portfolios aimed at more effectively consolidating data, including integrating online platforms, partnering with technology firms and increasing data feeds, to give buyers accurate, relatively real-time views of their global programs, better enabling them to leverage supplier spending globally.
In addition to the reporting enhancements, Amex expected to announce today the launch of a Management Information practice line within its Advisory Services division, which has about a dozen consultants currently dedicated to the practice, according to American Express Business Travel vice president and general manager Herve Sedky. An initial launch group of 15 to 20 clients of various travel program sizes has been using the tools, with a broader rollout set for the end of the month, said Sedky, who would not disclose pricing plans.
Expedia Corporate Travel plans this week to announce a consolidated global reporting platform within the travel manager's traditional ECT online interface. The internally developed technology aggregates data feeds from regional data warehouses, which are updated multiple times each day, according to ECT vice president of marketing Stan Sorensen. While the platform provides reports, it does not provide dashboard views.
"If I have agreements with multiple airlines, and my agreements are based on hitting a certain travel threshold, then once I hit that threshold I get no further benefit," Sorensen said. "I can look globally to determine when I have hit that threshold and say, I am no longer going to drive bookings to this airline. I want to go to a second airline with whom I also have an agreement, with whom I am farther away from my threshold. Then, they can make decisions and change the search results order to drive share to a second airline."
ECT rival Orbitz Worldwide's Corporate Travel Solutions Group expected to announce today a partnership with TRX to provide the TravelTrax global dashboard reporting tool to Orbitz for Business and Travelport for Business users, as part of a standard reporting service offering in the third quarter of 2007, said Orbitz Worldwide's Corporate Travel Solutions Group COO Dean Sivley. He added that between 20 percent and 50 percent of Orbitz's 2,000 corporate accounts require globally consolidated data.
Although Orbitz for Business is a domestic-only service, Sivley said acquiring a global reporting platform was a must in meeting buyer's reporting needs.
"In the last year in particular, clients have really started looking at dashboard technology. Everybody is stretched thin and they want to have things to put on their desktop that highlight various bits," he said. "As for the global piece, clients are starting to ask for it. It's the very early stages of the knee in the curve. In order to participate in any sort of global consolidation program, you have to have the ability to import data."
Carlson Wagonlit Travel made the move to a consolidated global reporting platform with the first phase of the rollout of its Program Management Center earlier this year
(BTN, May 7). This month, the company released its latest enhancements, focusing on safety and security features, including a real-time dynamic mapping feature. According to CWT senior director of global product management reporting Leisha Lindsay, about 250 of the TMC's clients require global reporting capabilities.
Travelocity Business in the coming weeks expects to enhance its standard reporting services. In addition to benchmarking the potential savings from using online ticket exchanges, the TMC will measure actual savings from online ticket exchanges, according to Travelocity Business president Lesley Harris.
One consultant recommended that buyers select their largest agency to consolidate their data from other agencies, and leverage their program's spend to have the service provided at little or no cost.
"It's virtually impossible to consolidate data with a relatively large corporation. Data gets fragmented, so you try and find an agency with the willingness to consolidate at not too heavy a price," said Management Alternatives vice president of technical solutions Steve Reynolds.
"One of the biggest problems with global programs is that there has been no single source of information," said The Expedition Development Co. director of travel Kevin Maguire. "Each region or each office has done their own thing, so in the past you've been flying in the dark when you talk with suppliers about your volumes. Without that collective buying power and not knowing what's coming out of each region, we have been at a big disadvantage."
Maguire said it is up to the travel buyer to utilize TMCs' information to their advantage. "It doesn't really matter what kind of tool they provide," Maguire said. "If travel managers don't utilize them, then they are a waste. You'll find a lot of situations out there now where travel managers don't have information. It's not because of the suppliers; it's because the travel managers aren't accessing it, and that's unfortunate."
A consolidated platform is key for tracking travelers, measuring performance and leveraging spending on a collaborative global scale, said Stewart Harvey, director of corporate development for HRG, which provides data via the HRG reporting platform. "More and more clients have services delivered from both within their country and from one consolidated center," he said. "What is different now is those clients are looking for data that describes their own behavior, spend and volume both in country and across regions. Very often now, clients want that directed to one central point of management or control."
As technology develops to providing near real-time or day-plus-one data, travel managers are able to handle programs with a mix of "retrospective" and "actionable" data," Harvey said. "Clients want data more accurately, sooner, and they want it to reflect their organization in terms of management hierarchy, business division, and to reflect their own culture, i.e. policy, direct-expenditure levels, authorization processes. Data has become a mirror to the organization. They are looking for data that help them manage themselves, take control and help with security and risk management."
BCD Travel declined to comment on upcoming reporting enhancements.