Concur is initiating discussions with airlines to enable
"open bookings" that would give corporate clients the ability to
enforce policy, apply discounts and track transactions when travelers book on
airline websites. The airlines would use the Concur Connect platform as the
conduit between the great wide open Internet and the closed loop of corporate
channels. Concur revealed the initiative at its client forum this month, The Beat reported.
Similarly, booking and expense tool provider KDS plans in the second
half of 2012 to launch a tool for managing reservations by clients’ travelers,
even if they book outside approved channels.
Other intermediaries including Short's
Travel Management and ProcureApp are pursuing ways to bridge traveler-centrism
with corporate dictates.
Concur more than three years ago made public its
thinking that, essentially, booking tools were a commodity and it was for the
expense reports that Concur would charge its growing base of integrated travel
and expense product clients.
But not all of Concur's clients are on the integrated
products, and executive vice president of platform services Barry Padgett
suggested that the new "open" approach represents a departure from
Concur's core business.
"We make money selling expense-reporting tools and
online booking tools," he said, "So it's a big step for us—quite a
large pivot—to say, 'Look, if you want to book through our corporate booking tool,
that's great. If you want to book on the supplier's site directly, that's great
too.' We're going to figure out a way to make both those experiences the best
they can possibly be."
Padgett this week said the "open booking"
tool, still in its infancy, ultimately would allow travelers to shop and book
on airline sites "such that you could still be in compliance with your
travel policy and ensure your travel manager still gets the analytics and
reporting and all the information that they need. Concur is simply the enabler,
the infrastructure under which that transaction moves forth, so there's the
receipt and booking information; it's in your expense report; it's in your
itinerary, so when you're using Concur Mobile or TripIt, everything is in there
automatically. You're not having to forward itineraries around."
"The message last week," said Padgett,
"and it's the same message we're taking to suppliers, is that Concur has a
bunch of big customers that spend billions and billions on air, and they're
saying, 'We want this to happen. Concur, you go figure out how to make this
work.' It's not a Concur-hatched plan to disintermediate the travel supply
chain."
Still, for those companies that would enable such
bookings, Padgett cited the added benefit of "cost savings with respect to
some of the traditional travel supply chain costs that might fall out of an
airline ticket if the customer goes direct to an airline."
While Padgett acknowledged the concept is anathema to
some corporations that "may never enable this or switch it on or allow
their users to do it," there are, on the other hand, "a lot of
forward-thinking customers pushing us down this path."
KDS Helping Companies
Embrace 'Maverick' Spending
KDS apparently is hearing similar messages fom customers. Its Maverick web browser plug-in can detect attempted travel bookings
made on any company laptop or desktop. Depending on a client's attitude on
forbidding, tolerating or perhaps encouraging out-of-policy reservations, the
application can be configured to respond in different ways to the booking
attempt.
In the first instance, similar to ProcureApp, Maverick
would trigger a pop-up on the screen warning travelers they should be using the
preferred booking tool because it ensures they can buy at the negotiated rate.
If the traveler elects to go ahead and book anyway, Maverick would forward the
data to the KDS client reporting tool and, if required, to the client's travel
security provider for employee tracking purposes. KDS vice president for
product strategy Oliver Quayle told The Beat that the company also is
working to offer travelers the option to flow payment information into their
online KDS expense report.
Quayle said the impetus for Maverick was corporate
travel industry discussion about the extent to which employees bypass official
booking channels, and whether that should be permissible. The debate follows
the pioneering lead of the much-cited Google travel program and the belief
expressed in some quarters that travelers often can buy more wisely outside their
preferred program than within. "We don't see this as a major play today,
but it could become one," said Quayle. "On the other hand, it could
be a hot topic today that vanishes tomorrow. We think travel programs are
likely to end up somewhere in between, with say 70 percent of the spend managed
and 30 percent unmanaged. We're not saying you don't need a managed travel
program, but let's open the debate."
Quayle hopes that Maverick will answer such questions as
whether it makes sense to cut travelers loose. "We will be able to report
on whether maverick spend is costing you more than spend through preferred
channels," he said.