Travel management professionals are adapting to the economic challenges jeopardizing their positions by becoming more involved in meetings management, traveler security and corporate social responsibility. At the same time, extreme cost sensitivity has travel managers increasingly interfacing with finance and procurement departments and educating senior management about the nuances of corporate travel management.
The alignment of travel management and procurementis a continuing trend within many companies. "For those organizations who view travel managers as subject matter experts, it is an excellent marriage," said Carol Ann Salcito, president of Management Alternatives, last week during a webinar conducted by Management.travel. "For those organizations that do not respect the expertise of seasoned travel managers, it's a pending divorce."
Creating a functional relationship with procurement can be challenging, according to webinar panelists Norma Serra, EMC Corp. senior travel manager, and Dominion Resources director of travel and corporate services Donna Kelliher. In their experience, interdepartmental cooperation requires travel managers to educate procurement professionals about the complexities of developing and managing a travel program. Although the shift in some responsibilities--notably contracting with travel suppliers--to procurement personnel is "a good thing," they must understand that purchasing travel services is quite different than "buying office supplies or paper clips or widgets," Serra said.
Procurement tools used to source other commodities are not always effective when dealing with travel, Salcito noted. "Although the tool works beautifully for widgets, it doesn't necessarily work as well for services," she said. "If it is something that your procurement group does want you to use, and needs to use, it is vitally important for travel managers to scour through the tool and make certain that the appropriate questions are asked."
Beyond interfacing with procurement, travel management professionals these days must coordinate with a number of other departments, including meetings management.
"I don't know of one travel manager who is not trying to get their arms around the meetings department with tremendous effort, and some are being extremely successful," said Salcito.
Developing a successful relationship can take some work, Serra and Kelliher attested, but by expressing the need to track all meetings, especially smaller ones, the meetings department will be able to better report its total spending, which is of major interest to the travel department. Both Serra and Kelliher said they are trying to better understand how small meetings are being handled. At EMC, Serra is working with the finance department to develop a step-by-step tool that would bring to light much of the meetings spend. At Dominion, Kelliher within the next year plans to implement a new policy to increase small-meetings compliance.
Since controlling spend is a top priority, there has been increased interaction between CFOs and travel managers. The CFO has a "more active role in our policy--managing, maintaining, drafting--and listening more to my subject matter expertise," Serra noted. Kelliher agreed, adding that she works closely with "budgeting heads" to ensure that they control spend and determine which trips can be replaced by remote conferencing.
Collaboration goes beyond the cut-and-dry elements of spend control. The panelists also are working closely with security, risk management and environmental sustainability departments. Kelliher described her evolution into a "contemporary" travel manager as one that was required to stay on top of the emerging trends in the industry. Salcito agreed, saying that travel managers historically may have been responsible for facilities or even cafeterias, but their role has since evolved.
In dealing with environmental initiatives, the panelists agreed they are mostly in the learning phase and have been asking their sustainability departments to educate them on how they can assist in reducing their organizations' carbon footprints. Salcito advised that travel managers ask their suppliers questions as to what tracking they can provide in order to further the goals and objectives of the organization.
'Out' Of A Job?
Meanwhile, many organizations are reducing employee countsand some travel managers fear they might lose their positions. Among 67 webinar participants identifying themselves as buyers, 43 percent said they were very or somewhat concerned that their organizations would eliminate their position or downsize the travel department and 11 percent said such measures already had occurred. A larger National Business Travel Association survey conducted last summerfound that 70 percent of buyers were not concerned that their job "might be eliminated" or their "travel department reduced because of the current situation," while 19 percent said they were somewhat concerned and 6 percent said their department was already recently downsized.
As for outsourcing aspects of travel management, Salcito said, "We have seen a number of well-managed travel programs be destroyed as a result, because the third party doesn't necessarily work in conjunction with the complete culture within the organization."
At Dominion, Kelliher balances a program that is partly outsourced but overseen by the travel management department. "Our leadership here feels that it is important to have a travel manager having oversight of the program holistically," she explained. "I am not afraid to outsource to outside experts certain aspects of the program. I try to gauge and collaborate the outsourcing initiatives with our internal partners and so that usually brings a win-win to the whole."
However, Serra prefers to keep EMC's program in-house and has received the backing from senior management to do so. "For a large global company, there are just a lot of things that they would like to keep close to home," she said. "There have been a lot of pitches from companies saying, 'We can take over this' and when they come in, I get nervous and then senior management [says], 'We are doing OK in-house.' "
"We are a lean department globally; I'm six people, I was seven up until November," Serra said when asked about downsizing. "But at this point in time, I guess no one is ever secure. It is just the understanding that most of us travel managers are subject matter experts and [senior managers] rely on us particularly when you are dealing with procurement--understanding that we aren't just buying the widgets. Do I worry about my job every day? Yeah, I definitely do, but I just work very hard to show the value and come up with better ideas and more innovation."
"I never want to feel comfortable with my position or take it for granted," Kelliher added. "I always try to keep myself outside of my comfort zone because that is a danger zone: When you get too comfortable, you tend to become complacent." As such, Kelliher has joined an air service task force headed by the Chamber of Commerce in Richmond, Va., to create a more competitive local air market.
Related resource: ProMedia.travel webinars