As part of an "aggressive" strategy to gain transparency for its North American travel program, Deutsche Post DHL within three months started a project and went live with a new travel management company, online booking tool and expense management solution, and implemented multiple credit card agreements, according to Michelle Hunt, DHL regional category manager of travel services in the Americas. She said the company in 2011 plans to expand those initiatives to 14 South American countries.
On the same day in February 2010, DHL in Canada, Mexico and the United States began using Carlson Wagonlit Travel as its TMC and Concur's Cliqbook booking tool and expense management solution, according to Hunt. "We have been very fragmented, and we have spent this year bringing things together and consolidating," she said.
DHL operates 14 different legal entities in the United States and 1,000 worldwide, resulting in a disparate travel reporting framework. Hunt said consolidating the $5 million in travel and entertainment spend for the Americas improved her life and her travelers. Travelers now "don't have the pain of completing the expense report and saving the receipts," she said, referring to automation available in the Concur system. "If you make your travelers' lives easier, they are more likely to adopt the program and tell [other] people how easy it is."
Hunt added that the company previously had situations in which employees said they did not file expense reports because they lost their receipts, and "now we have taken that excuse away."
Compliance to travel policies is expected to increase, as is more in-depth data for the hotel program--which encompasses 1,500 properties worldwide--which should help ensure that preferred hotels are honoring contracts. When they don't, Hunt can use her data to seek reimbursement for those amenities that were not--but should have been--included in the rate booked by DHL travelers. Additionally, noncompliant travelers are "easier to identify now," according to Hunt. "We provide reports to all of our business leaders on a monthly basis. We report a scorecard, and we code it like a stop light--red, yellow or green. If you have something that is yellow or red, we give [business leaders] the opportunity to have the actual detail behind it."
Keeping Abreast
DHL for U.S. and Canadian travelers recently turned on Concur's mobile application. As for social networking, Hunt said she "would love to have an internal blog to communicate to travelers to get feedback about hotels, what is good and what is bad."
For security and insurance purposes, DHL is working with International SOS to track all travel bookings. For now, travelers are tracked by the TMC and are asked to call when their itineraries change while they are traveling. "We are trying to get our hands around the folks who make the changes at the airport," Hunt explained. "There still is a gap out there for everybody. We have to do the job of educating and making sure that folks know to call in."
Working with DHL's security department, Hunt sent out "a joint communication" notifying travelers of potential consequences. "From a procurement perspective, I need the data to negotiate with our suppliers. But from a security perspective, we have a responsibility to our employees and our associates to make sure [travelers] are safe and secure," Hunt said. "If you have corporate insurance, you have to be able to validate this information and that they were [traveling] on business. If they do not book [through the approved channels], then I can't confirm" the claim.
Moving The Program South
During the North American rollout in February, DHL found it helpful to have travelers use Concur's basic training materials, and then customize the tutorial for DHL depending on which of the Concur system modules are in use, Hunt explained. "Once we customize the tutorials, we can do an online tutorial that [travelers] can access at any time," said Hunt. In Mexico, DHL conducted onsite training. A help desk is available to travelers in all regions.
She noted that the company convened a post-implementation meeting with representatives from all the involved suppliers, including Concur, CWT and the credit card companies. The discussion touched on "lessons learned: the good, the bad and the ugly," Hunt said.
In September, the company then shifted its focus to South America. Although implementation there does not present as great of a cost savings opportunity in terms of agency transaction fees as it did in the United States and Canada, the goal is to achieve spending transparency, according to Hunt. "The cost savings are less prevalent because the labor is cheaper," she explained. "I have almost a 50 percent difference or more in the United States and Canada between picking up the phone and booking online. I don't have that kind of a difference in South America; the driver is to have control."
The online booking tool, she added, also can generate cost savings "from the visual guilt," whereby travelers feel compelled to book preferred suppliers. Hunt also hopes that connecting the expense management tool to the corporate card will allow more travelers to have corporate cards. "In South America, we generally don't have credit cards issued for a whole host of reasons, including credit fraud," she said. "If we can put a program in place where the card transactions are coming into this expense solution, we can watch them to know that there is no fraud going on, that they are not being used [for personal purchases] or anything else."
Hunt anticipates that the rollout in South America will be quite different than in North America, owing to the many technological and cultural hurdles. "We have different currencies, two different languages and certainly a different culture," she said. South America "is still a service-orientated culture that doesn't support technology. Full implementation depends on the resources internally in our organizations in those countries to make that happen. Does everybody have a computer, or is there a computer available to them to do online bookings or expense reporting?
"It's not something that happens overnight," Hunt added. "You really have to take the time to involve your stakeholders. You also have to understand the culture not just within that region, but within your organization as well."