Is the unexpected wreaking havoc on your travel program? Try being a media company. Hopping on ferries and driving across countries to find an open airport probably felt like gripping business travel for a lot of corporate employees dodging the April ash cloud in Europe, but that's nothing compared with being pulled out of a war zone by men with machine guns. In our 24/7 disaster-coverage culture, a decent chunk of travel simply cannot be part of a media firm's travel program because, well, who has a deal on 100 room nights over a fortnight in Haiti starting tonight? And forget about compliance to plastic; in some parts of the world, the U.S. dollar is it.
CBC/Radio Canada corporate travel and strategic sourcing manager Pauline Valiquette has some stories to tell in a business that presents a quirky mix of travel management challenges. The career procurement professional took on travel at the company six years ago and has built a program that handles some fresh challenges as though they're old news.
Take baggage fees. With crews checking van-loads of equipment, CBC pays "a lot of money in excess baggage, because one person can have 10 cases of luggage," said Valiquette. "Airlines recommend sending it as cargo, but it's not an option to send it by cargo." Journalists need "to make sure that their equipment is there when they land. They're probably interviewing the Prime Minister of Israel, and the equipment needs to be there."
Valiquette has negotiated with most airlines exceptions whereby expensive cameras and their lenses can be carried on. Like other buyers, she faces the challenge of tracking bag fees. "It's paid at the counter, but I track it now with an expense management tool. So when they say, 'Your volume is down,' I developed a new report where I track by airline, so if you have a claim for C$800 for excess baggage, when you are putting it down in the expense tool you have to put AA or AC or whatever airline you traveled with. I also track every unused ticket that I can't do a name change on, because I paid it. Whether the airline tracks it as a form of revenue, I don't care." CBC is past the point of complaining that airlines charge for bag fees. "We just want to get the equipment there," said Valiquette. "I make sure that it is included in the discount overall." [PROFILE_1]
As a sourcing manager who conducts requests for proposals for other departments within the company, Valiquette last year led the selection process for the expense management tool, moving the company off paper reports. But she does not "own" the system now because it's part of the SAP enterprise financial suite that CBC selected. "I have the most invested in it for the reporting and what should be downloaded, so I am their client," she said.
Other recent accomplishments include a new, 26-city, 60-property hotel program that Valiquette implemented last year and a system through the travel management company in which CBC's demanding employees can comment on products and services. "If anybody sends a comment, whether it is verbal or in writing--email or whatever--we follow up on each one and follow up with a response," she said.
"Sometimes they say 'Well, how come there was a lower rate on Expedia.ca?' " Valiquette said, noting a problem familiar to most buyers. "Then we have to explain the inventory and how the airlines play with it, but we follow up with each one and I use that when I negotiate future agreements. If I've had a lot of issues with an airline or a hotel in particular, I have that backup to help me negotiate."
Valiquette is a negotiator at heart. When she took on travel at CBC in 2004, after a procurement position for 18 years at another company, "I came in blind," she said. "Procurement is procurement, but I didn't know what a GDS was or LRA. I had no experience in travel whatsoever. I was hired at CBC as the supply manager and business process coordinator to look at the business process in procurement. I had to learn the lingo."
And although there was an airline program with one carrier and a hotel program, travel was not managed properly, Valiquette said: "The agency RFP that I saw on file was a page and a half.The one I [ultimately] sent out was 100 pages. Now the credit card is mandated, and they can't use it for personal, and the policy was changed and so forth and so on.
"Believe it or not, CBC had only one preferred airline up until four years ago, and it was the big one," she said, not naming Air Canada. "Then when they came up and forced people to purchase their Corporate Flight Pass, I went to senior management and asked them for approval to negotiate with multiple airlines. I now have seven. That happened three years ago." Valiquette has since commended Air Canada for turning around its reputation among buyers: "Where they used to dictate what would be happening, now it's more of a partnership," she said in March. "I can vouch for that in the last 18 months."
Travel at CBC reports to finance through supply management. "Travel for us is a procurement commodity," said Valiquette, although it is understood that purchasing travel--especially for a media company--is different than buying pencils.
Expecting The Unexpected
Following the news obviously generates a lot of last-minute bookings.
"When we changed the agency, we told them we are 24/7/365 and to expect the unexpected," said Valiquette. "When the tsunami hit on Dec. 26, 2004, they understood what that meant. Approximately 8 percent of our transaction bookings are done through our travel agency emergency call number, but they are not changes. It's not, 'I'm stuck and I need to get out.' It's, 'I need to get in.' A media company depends much more on their emergency agency call center. We also have two travel arrangers who book 400 of our news people. Sometimes the reporters tell the counselors which airlines to call at the other end of the world."
Responding to the earthquake in Haiti, CBC sent about 10 people who were unable to arrive by commercial flights so they flew in with the Canadian Army and slept on cots. To travel to New Orleans [after Katrina], media people rented RVs and drove from Montreal. They managed to check in to a hotel after four or five days, without electricity, Valiquette said. "For our employees, especially when they are going to a high-risk country, there are people available to them in those countries and there is security. We've pulled employees out of Kabul and other cities where people with machine guns get them out. Our vehicles in some of those places are blended and bulletproof. They will call to get more cash advances on their credit cards--huge limits. They travel sometimes with a lot of money, so they have no choice, the U.S. cash dollar is as good as you get. In some situations, like in Afghanistan, we'll hire a local and that person is our reporter's translator, vehicle [provider], guide and the one to get them through border crossings using the local language. We have networks of these types of organizations in multiple countries, because you're not renting a car from Budget. You have a driver, he is bringing you to a village and you do your interviews."
As part of CBC's "core business," this type of disaster or high-risk coverage does reach beyond Valiquette's scope. "I'm really not involved at that level," she said. Travelers "have to report back into their network and have in place their security and training. They provide them with the bulletproof vests and so forth. I don't re- ally get into that depth of details." But that doesn't mean travel management at CBC doesn't find itself in some weird positions.[PULL_1]
Traveling in remote Northern Canada, for example, employees have rented vehicles from a priest, stayed overnight on citizens' couches and missed dinner since the only local restaurant closed at 6 p.m. Try asking a priest for insurance, joked Valiquette.
Meanwhile, traveling to big-city Canada has its own challenges. "During hockey playoffs, the staff can be booked on multiple bookings as we don't know the outcome of the game," said Valiquette. "They might stay and do a game seven, or go back home and do another series. The counselor must watch the game and make changes."
As a result of the fluidity of CBC's needs, a certain portion of the company's travel spend has to be set aside as simply unmanageable. Crisis travel is excluded from Valiquette's calculation of, for example, preferred hotel supplier compliance, which she puts at 85 percent.
"My hotel program does not include market share," said Valiquette. "However, I am committed to the program I promote internally through our intranet and our agency. In the last three to four years, my compliance to our hotel program was 85 percent, so they do go where there is a program.
"If there is a crisis in Toronto, they would go to the preferred."
~Additional reporting by Lauren Darson