“I don’t understand why people aren’t doing it,” ACT
corporate travel senior manager Jennifer Steinke said of developing a mobile
strategy. “Stop waiting and just do it.”
Her philosophy may be more liberal than many travel
managers’, but that doesn’t mean she’s less concerned than them about risk
management, trip disruptions and improving the travel experience. When working
for US Foods, Steinke collaborated with the IT department and telecommunications
manager to develop a mobile strategy that would address these concerns and
monitor what she calls the “consumption period of a trip,” which begins when
the traveler leaves the nest. “Most travel managers pay little to no attention
to when travelers are actually traveling,” she noted.
One-Stop Shop
When Steinke was forming US Foods’ mobile strategy, she
wanted to avoid full dependence on a travel management company. “I firmly
believe in unbundling my program and the technology because if I want to move
it to a different TMC, I don’t want to have to reinvent the wheel,” she
explained.
US Foods was an early adopter of itinerary management mobile
tool TripIt and mobile communications messaging platform conTgo. Concur
acquired them in 2011 and 2013, respectively, making the supplier a natural
technology partner for Steinke’s mobile program. Now working at assessment
testing organization ACT, she’s implementing Concur Travel and Expense, as well
as a similar mobile strategy there, as well.
Steinke admitted ACT may rely too much on Concur, but, she
said, it’s an industry leader with a comprehensive suite of tools that’s easy
to implement. “We can have a one-stop shop with Concur, and it’s cost effective
right now for ACT to do that,” she said.
She hopes the app someday will enable her to communicate
with travelers to help them make the “best decisions” while traveling, a method
she calls “en route procurement.” This includes light touches like location-
and time-specific push notifications that, say, breakfast and Wi-Fi are included
with ACT’s hotel discount or that a train is more economical than a taxi for
the ride from the airport. She’d also like to send restaurant recommendations
and other advice based on internal traveler data.
The TMC Route
For about a year, the University of Washington has used
Christopherson Business Travel’s AirPortal 360 platform, which integrates with
Concur’s TripIt and works on both desktops and mobile devices. In the time it
takes to get a coffee across the street, Crow can check whether any of the
university’s 20,000 to 25,000 travelers is headed for a weather-related
disruption, request that travelers and associated agents rebook affected
flights, forward itinerary information to agents and, in emergencies, ensure
travelers are safe.
Previously, Crow would sort through emails and call admins
until he found the one who worked on a booking, and he relied on his memory for
trip details. “It’s just a very different dynamic to be able to utilize the app
and look up the info while I’m walking down the street,” Crow said. “It’s a
duty-of-care functionality but also just a logistics functionality.”
The university didn’t prioritize a desktop/mobile platform
in its request for proposals for a TMC, Crow said, but the tool definitely
contributed to Christopherson’s victory. He acknowledged the system’s faults:
His program, like most, has leakage, while AirPortal 360 works only with
in-channel bookings. Additionally, users can’t change trips within the app.
“But,” he said, “it’s apps like this that allow us to make a case to all levels
within the organization that it’s only within this functionality that we’re
able to take best care of our travelers because, if you’re off doing your own
thing, it becomes more difficult to be able to respond effectively when things
do come up,” Crow said.
While Steinke wanted to avoid partnering with a singular
TMC, Crow found benefits in doing so. For one, Christopherson’s full
integration into the university’s travel program means more visibility. The
close partnership also makes it feasible to customize tools. The companies have
been working together to push smartphone trip-authorization notifications to
those in the approval chain.
“We bring people on to the platform to have faster trip
approval, which gets them into the ecosystem for other functionality that’s
available or becomes available,” Crow said. “Obviously, being fully dependent
on a TMC makes a migration challenging,” Crow said, “but my argument against
that is: If you have a TMC heavily invested in your travel program and willing
to make the changes to meet your business requirements, the goal is to deepen
the relationship to the point where switching TMCs isn’t necessary.”
Lately, said Evan Konwiser, digital traveler vice president
for American Express Global Business Travel, larger TMCs, his own especially,
have invested in mobile technology with their eyes on data integration and a
seamless experience that third parties previously were not capable of. “A TMC
in many ways is an aggregator of technology, content and data for our corporate
clients, he said. “We’re in the center of the corporate travel ecosystem,
bringing it all together and implementing it seamlessly for our clients.” The
more active role a TMC plays in solutions like mobile, the easier it will be
for corporations to implement the TMC and the more benefits the corporation
will receive.
The GDS Option
Cisco Systems partnered with global distribution system
Sabre to create a booking solution for air, hotel and car and to launch Cisco’s
first mobile tool. The companies already had a strong partnership, which
developed as Sabre entered markets Cisco needed, such as Africa and India,
according to senior global travel manager Carlos Almendros. Plus, most of Cisco’s
travelers already were using Sabre’s TripCase booking tool. Thus,
implementing another tool from the same supplier would be easy. Sabre’s
willingness to listen to Cisco’s needs sealed the deal. “It was an easy
discussion to have with Sabre because they were willing to work with our internal
mobility team and accept that maybe they didn’t have the right interface and
functionality,” Almendros explained.
He added that it didn’t make sense to partner with Cisco’s
TMC, Amex GBT, to create a mobile platform because Cisco’s three geographic travel
hubs are serviced on Sabre’s platform. That doesn’t mean he’s ruling out Amex
GBT, which he said is a different company than it was two years ago. “We’re
looking to partner with the right technology solutions, and Cisco has a vision
that travelers should be able to come into travel like an Amazon marketplace
where it knows your profile and is more intelligent,” he said.
Jennifer Steinke’s Mobile Strategy Tips
You cannot lose
sight of the fact that mobile is personal.
I don’t discourage
travelers from seeking out apps that make their lives easier. If I see an
overwhelming majority of people who like a particular app, I may promote that
to other travelers.
Don’t rely so much
on the travel managers to tell travelers what apps they should or shouldn’t use
because travel is such a personal experience. Get feedback from your travelers.
There’s no point in wasting your time to make sure you’re bridging the gap
between what you’re offering and what your travelers’ needs are.
Align your program
to the overall business objectives. Most people don’t do it that way; they
build it by industry standards. My program … should look different because my
company is different.
Pete Crow’s Mobile Strategy Tips
Take a look to see
what travelers are already using to see if you have a potential solution to
roll out to those who are not already using it.
Have clear
documentation of what the app does and doesn’t do, and set clear expectations
on how this will make [travelers’] lives easier and that it’s not going to be
the solution that makes life perfect.
This report originally appeared in the Oct. 26, 2015
edition of Business Travel News.