Once plagued with virtually no compliance to its preferred
supplier and travel policy, BlueCross BlueShield of Western New York in recent years
overhauled its corporate card program, deployed an automated expense report
auditing process and developed a communication structure, resulting in a
tightly controlled program with nearly full compliance.
BlueCross BlueShield corporate travel and expense
coordinator Diana DiBiase, whose background is in public accounting, shared her
story in September at an event in Toronto conducted by The BTN Group. Each Blue
Cross Blue Shield regional organization acts as its own franchise, and she
explained how she inherited about eight years ago the Buffalo-based
organization's travel program, when its oversight responsibility moved from the
purchasing department to finance. At the time, compliance to the program, which
in 2012 included about $2.2 million in spending and covered 1,800 employees,
was "almost zero," she said. Turning that around was critical,
especially since the organization must abide by a state regulation that
requires administrative costs not exceed a specified percentage of
organizational expenses, she said. As of last year, that ratio at the
organization was just over 10 percent, DiBiase said.
An early step was to reboot the organization's corporate
card program. When she inherited the program, the organization paid all
employee corporate card expenses, which meant "not a lot of incentive to
file an expense report on a regular basis," DiBiase said. Instead, she
shifted to a three-tiered card program. Executives maintained a company-pay
card, but other employees were issued cards that they paid directly. The
organization for air bookings also uses a ghost card with her agency,
Buffalo-based American Express affiliate The Travel Team, she said.
Despite resistance from some travelers, the result was a "huge
increase in getting expense reports filed on a timely basis," DiBiase
said.
"We had folks going into our CEO's office, but the CEO
said, 'Whatever DiBiase says, goes,' " she said. "You have to get
management support on this, or it won't work."
The organization also deployed an automated expense reporting
system, which included a pre-pay audit to ensure compliance to travel policies,
so that when a report reaches the finance group, all expenses are compliant. In
the previous paper-based system, employees at times would secure a boss'
signature then amend the report, a move not possible on the electronic
platform, she said.
While that groundwork was necessary to monitor compliance to
an "extremely mandated program," which includes required use of the
travel management company and preferred hotels and car rental providers,
DiBiase also worked to secure front-end compliance through a communication
strategy. She attends all new employee onboarding sessions in Buffalo to ensure
they are aware of the travel policy, and she attaches the policy to all statements
of work for consultants.
"When they sign off on any agreement with us, they're
well aware of what we will pay and what we won't pay," DiBiase said.
To reinforce the policy, DiBiase created a "travel
planner" role within each of the organization's departments. These
employees, typically administrative assistants, receive policy training and can
serve as an information source within their departments, she said. They
indirectly report to DiBiase.
With those pieces in place, the organization's compliance to
policy now stands at 95 percent, DiBiase said. Though her program is small,
maintaining that is critical, not only because of state regulations but also
those related to the organization's non-profit status.
"We're required to keep spend low, so we've incorporated
almost every cost-savings technique that we've read about," she added.
DiBiase said she recently found additional ways to drive
compliance and savings in her program. For example, after noticing many
employees traveling to the same conferences, the organization developed a
requirement that would-be attendees must submit one-page documents detailing
why they're going and the expected benefits of their attendance, which human
resources reviews.
"HR has not turned down one request," DiBiase
said, "but it makes the employee think about that application before they
submit it."
This report
originally appeared in the November 2013 edition of Travel Procurement.