Travel management professionals today increasingly are asked
to step outside their comfort zone. They may be asked to help integrate mobile
and other technologies, cultivate social media channels for travelers, manage
corporate card programs or try their hands at other procurement categories.
Perhaps more than ever, they must be tech-savvy and interoperable while
maintaining the interpersonal skills and community approach crucial for
effective traveler management. It's these kinds of things that have kept Deltek
director of global travel procurement Karoline Mayr quite busy.
In a perfect example of a travel management professional
broadening horizons, Mayr managed Deltek's solicitation for purchasing cards
and e-payables. It was a task she fell into unwittingly last year when
discussing with the company's CFO (now CEO) plans for a travel card request for
proposals.
"We needed to make sure from finance that we didn't
touch any toes and/or [find out if it] was a possibility for us to collaborate,
because we wanted to leverage our spend and get a better rebate," Mayr
explained. "In that conversation it came out that, 'Yes, most certainly,
and not only do we want to do that, but we want to do purchasing cards,
e-payables—do everything electronic.' And somehow in that meeting I got
nominated as the person to do that."
She said she was "really happy but also a little
confused, because I don't work in finance," but cited her "track
record of being able to implement change effectively and work
cross-functionally within the organization"—skills that usually come in
handy for travel program leaders.
Travel Procurement
parent The BTN Group in August named Mayr the 2013 Travel Manager of the Year.
With the help of an industry expert who had experience with p-cards
and e-payables, Mayr got to work on a task that became "more than just
issuing a plastic card. It turned into something larger—changing how we
purchase as an organization."
It was no easy feat partly because Deltek has no central
procurement function. Mayr, for example, handles procurement for travel but
reports into human resources. It meant that she "had to wrangle all the
folks like that in the organization and find ways to streamline" the
program. That included eliminating check payments, exploring ghost card
configurations and considering other options.
"One challenge is that not everyone is always ready for
change across an organization because they have specific tasks on which they
are focused," said Debbie Tyler, the technology and information management
expert brought on to assist Deltek in re-engineering its purchasing and
payables functions. "That challenge is not unique, but it is unique to
have someone take the difficulties head-on and drive improvement"—especially
a travel management professional asked to take on what normally is a task for
the finance department.
"Looking at overall value and overall cost, and
analyzing how to improve upon it—that's a tough challenge anywhere," Tyler
added. "To drive business units and various functional areas moving
together in one direction, to accomplish the vision of the executives, is a
significant change management project. It is not a tactical task but a
strategic task that also has operational components to it. You need someone
with vision."
It seems as if the effort will be well worthwhile. Though
Deltek at press time was not in position to reveal the winner of the
solicitation, the company expects to yield millions from leveraging spending to
generate a larger rebate and savings realized through new efficiencies.
Those efficiencies may mean that fewer resources will be
required to manage purchasing mechanisms. "Or maybe you keep the resource,"
Mayr said, "but the resource has now moved from, 'Hey, I am looking at
matching a receipt to what you put on a spreadsheet,' to, 'Hey, I am looking at
compliance to policy, and this is how we are going to reduce expenditures.'
"It is an amazing opportunity for someone in our role,
meaning that it's an expansion of the role," Mayr said.
[PROFILE_1]Freeing Travel Data
If not an outright expansion of the travel procurement role,
creating new data feeds among various systems to analyze travel data at is
least an enhancement. Designed with data ownership in mind, Deltek's approach
provides ad-hoc and real-time reporting, data independence, accuracy, speed and
the potential for predictive analytical patterns. Stemming from a shift to
direct supplier relationships rather than obtaining third-party services made
available via travel management company relationships, for example, it also
reduces third-party data fees.
"One pain point we've always had is data," Mayr
explained. "When we looked at the data segment, we recognized that a
travel agency is not a expert in that area. So why continue to ask them for
things they can't provide?"
Whether TMCs or third-party data aggregators, "they all
give you the same speech," she said. "None of it is really ad-hoc
reporting. That's the biggest thing that bothers me. When you talk about
actually building [such reports], they say, 'That's custom and costs a
gazillion dollars.' "
Deltek's previous process was time-consuming and entailed a
huge spreadsheet file from the company's agency from which air, car and hotel
spending data was extracted to create custom reports and dashboards. "It
was a very manual process, and we wanted to automate it," Mayr said.
It also was too slow for Deltek's tastes. "When our
executives want reports, they want them right away," Mayr continued. "For
me to have to wait for someone to go build something, which would cost X amount
of dollars, seemed silly. The world that we previously lived in, that most
still live in, is receiving reports from the travel management companies three
weeks after the month closes. We can't operate at that speed. We are a software
company, and if we don't move fast enough we get crushed."
So Mayr discussed with Deltek's IT department the idea of
building the company's own data feeds, and asked business unit leaders about
their needs. The solution IT helped construct combines automated daily feeds
from the two travel agencies Deltek uses worldwide with data from an IBM Cognos
business intelligence system as well as Costpoint, an ERP accounting software
package that Deltek sells and also uses internally. Costpoint includes human
resources information and other data connected by employee ID number. That
makes for "even richer data because we can tie those data points together,"
Mayr explained. "Now I have ad-hoc reporting, and I can create whatever we
like."
With a new integrated system in hand, Deltek turned its
attention to tracking metrics and providing performance reports to senior
management. To replace manually created PowerPoint presentations, Deltek relied
on QlikView, a business intelligence platform furnished by QlikTech. Many
Deltek systems connect to that one, including financial reporting, its
Salesforce.com CRM component, customer care data and other information from
around the organization.
"Our business units have found a spot where they create
their own reports," Mayr said. "Travel has a seat at the table, and
we were able to get our data in there." Now, when senior executives log
in, they quickly can view booked travel data, corporate card data and green and
red displays of a variety of key performance indicators. Each KPI includes
specific information on travelers and allows executives to determine why KPIs
displayed in red may need attention. They also can export reports and expose
information to key stakeholders within their business units to ensure "continuous
improvement to the travel program," Mayr said.
Adding travel data to a central information repository for
management "is unique," Mayr said. "Usually we are on the bottom
of the list, the goo on the shoe, where they go when something has gone wrong,
when they want to save money."
Such an on-demand system also provides flexibility. "If
we ever want to change it, we can change it. It's not a big deal," Mayr
said. "I can go to IT and say that we want to look at different KPIs."
She said it certainly beats the old way of asking a third party if it could
make such changes, waiting for those changes, paying a fee and hoping the data
is accurate. And Deltek's data no longer is "held hostage."
Next Steps
Mayr said the intention is to continue developing the
integrated system with an eye on "predictive analytical patterns."
That strategy "is unique and a little bit new," according to Goran
Gligorovic, executive vice president at Omega World Travel, one of Deltek's
primary travel service providers.
"We harvest Deltek's data from our back-office system,
and from there some patterns can be applied based on historical transaction
data to identify possible risks or opportunities in the future,"
Gligorovic explained. "The system makes it possible to enhance the user
experience or verify that travel policy is sound. Reports can guide
decisionmaking so you can tweak policy."
Gligorovic said Deltek's approach may help in assessing
traveler purchasing habits, average airfares based on advance purchase period
and airline seat availability to inform the company of optimal purchasing
conditions for specific routes. He said it also should help Deltek further
analyze hotel bookings in an effort to increase share among preferred
properties.
That Deltek had one of its own products, Costpoint, embedded
within the travel data strategy certainly didn't hurt Mayr's efforts. But she
said that happy circumstance only came into play after the mindset changed.
"Looking outside travel vendors and finding that seat
at the table using existing tools is a unique approach, and something folks
need to look at," she said. "Think outside the box, beyond what the
TMC is saying and beyond the vendors that are contacting you. There are other
ways to build and do your own thing."
Tyler, citing her experience helping other organizations,
noted that Deltek's ongoing work to create the means to "access
performance and behavioral information at their fingertips across every
traveler, every buyer, every payer in their organization—and be able to say
what the impact is to them and their bottom line to optimize working capital—is
head and shoulders above where many are but what others should aim to achieve."
Free Stuff
Mayr also has helped reduce Deltek's travel expenses through
simpler, more traditional means—namely contests.
In late 2012 she developed one with United Airlines meant to
turn on employees to Deltek's new social media system, Kona, which it now sells
externally. The idea was to "get people to go through the motions of
actually using Kona by taking a picture on their mobile device and posting that
onto Kona." Qualifying photos had to include both the United and Deltek
logos. Employees voted on the most creative, and the winner received two free
domestic United tickets.
Mayr claimed the contest not only helped sign up employees
to Kona—a goal Deltek's CEO emphasized as the product worked its way through
beta tests—but also helped Deltek exceed marketshare goals set with United on
specific routes.
In another example of gamification, Deltek in 2012
established a contest with Hertz, its preferred car rental company. Each time
travelers booked a Hertz rental, they were entered into a drawing for a free
weekend rental of a Hertz "Adrenaline Collection" vehicle (Corvettes,
Camaros, Mustangs, etc.). Mayr said the contest within one quarter resulted in
a 10-percentage-point gain for Hertz in Deltek's car rental share, thereby
reducing costs.
"These were creative ideas that didn't require buying
software," she said. "I tried to think of fun, easy and quick ways to
drive results and work with suppliers in a collaborative way."
This report
originally appeared in the August 2013 edition of Travel Procurement.