Ron Shah, CEO, Bizly
Over the past two years, nearly all our work
happened in one of two ways: “on Zoom” or “off Zoom.” While we’re starting to
think about more diversified ways of doing business again in 2022, it’s
powerful to keep looking through this simple lens.
When I entered the industry almost a decade
ago, I noticed that meetings have always been treated as the “sideshow” of
business travel. Travel consistently received more attention, bigger dollars,
and overall was treated as the more important activity. I believe the pandemic
has changed this consciousness forever. When you really examine “why” people
are traveling, the lion’s share of business travel has to do with meetings. You
travel to meet people at their offices, gather for lunch or dinner, or meet in
groups to work together. Rarely are you traveling solo to tour an abandoned
location without some meeting taking place.
The big picture is that meetings are the “why”
of business mobility and travel is just one component. To achieve a business
objective, there are several components:
the context and relationships, the people involved, the tools and
documents, and the longer-term measurement of success. The truth is, most
business travel platforms have failed to embrace this holistic view and thus
have been unable to produce a reliable and scalable mechanism for trip
justification and return on investment.
Going
forward, CEOs and CFOs will demand to know “why the hell this couldn’t just be
a Zoom meeting.” We must confront the reality that this question is not going
to go away. Yesterday’s method was a form field where employees fill out “why
do I need to travel.” But these answers will no longer be enough in the
post-pandemic workplace, which has proven that videoconferencing was a suitable
alternative. Blind faith in the need for business travel has officially eroded
with the pandemic—the future relies on data.
The travel system of the future will start
with meetings. You’ll look at a Netflix-like library of typical use cases, and
you’ll begin a natural and automated path of defining the purpose and
importance of the trip and the participants involved. Artificial intelligence
should serve you the right travel policies and preferred vendors to utilize for
the specific use case and will measure success of the initiative.
Starting with meetings will lead to a better
ROI calculation, much clearer travel justification led by data, and an
optimized mobile workforce. Not only would travel programs improve with this
configuration but taking this holistic approach would also lead to
significantly better experiences for travelers. When you start with meetings,
your program managers, support team and travel agents all understand the “why”
of the trip throughout the traveler’s journey. This deep sense of understanding
is the future of corporate travel.