An organization that
aims to deploy globally a single travel policy, travel management company, card
supplier, online booking tool and expense management system seeks the ultimate
in cost savings and data consistency.
"Historically,
a multinational program has gone for 80 percent implementation of markets and
ignored the rest," said Hogg Robinson Group global client management
director Matthew Pancaldi. "But in today's growth, particularly growth in
emerging markets, companies want to get as close to 100 percent as possible,
and that means tackling the more diverse, culturally challenging markets."
But that goal is
slippery. According to travel managers who responded to BTN's 2015 Global View survey, the real
world includes inconsistent suppliers and service, technology that's not up to
snuff throughout the world, cultural differences and travelers who won't follow
instructions. Those challenges make maximized consistency a more reasonable
target than a universal multinational program.
It Has To Work For Everyone
Travel managers who
establish a multinational travel program bear the burden of justifying not only
their companies' huge financial investments but also demonstrating the
potential benefits to offices and travelers in countries beyond headquarters,
Pancaldi said. That means exhibiting a better travel experience and quantifying
return on investment and local savings.
Making the case for
organizationwide benefits like pricing transparency, service consistency, data
and savings theoretically is clear.
"Sometimes you
have to work a little harder to win the hearts and minds of each country to
demonstrate to them that what they actually get is better than what they
already have," Pancaldi said. "They want to see overall savings from
air and hotel and other associated expenditures."
Communicating that
information to overseas offices, though, isn't as simple as a memo. Aerospace
and defense technology company Northrop Grumman's 75,000 employees span seven
countries, and while travel analyst and meeting planning manager Holly Walker
has developed tools to promote a global program in the United States, she can't
roll out those communications elsewhere because security issues prevent
overseas offices from using the same intranet.
Cultural differences
also make the road to a global platform a long slog. Some regions, countries or
departments want to keep their individuality or don't want to "give up
their sovereignty to a multinational program," Pancaldi said. "And
some markets historically don't fit into that model and it takes more time and
effort to convince them."
Sometimes a global
system just won't work. Northrop Grumman's corporate card program is more than
15 years old, Walker said, while a separate program in the United Kingdom has
been around for five years and one in Australia for two. It launched yet
another in Saudi Arabia within the past year.
"We really had
hoped to establish one banking relationship to apply globally, but due to many
regulations, that's just not possible," Walker said. "More often than
not, we're finding we need a banking relationship in each country."
Similarly, the company hoped to establish no more than four offices for BCD
Travel, its global travel management company, but Walker has discovered that
she'll have to further tailor for some countries, owing to language and local
laws.
And sometimes, it's
just not worth it. Northrop Grumman uses Concur Expense in the United States
but has no standard expense process elsewhere. Incorporating more people or
countries into the program is difficult without disrupting established
processes, Walker said. "If we can't demonstrate that it's helpful,
cost-effective and more efficient, then we shouldn't be doing it."
Close Enough
A truly
one-stop-shop travel program, it seems, is out of reach for most, but according
to some travel managers, there still are thresholds that mark key efficiency
achievements.
Ford Motor Co., for
example, has deployed Concur Expense in only about half the 41 countries in
which it operates, but the travelers in those areas constitute 85 percent of
all travelers, said global travel manager Ken Sharpe. Some of the other markets
have small presences, and it's not yet cost-effective to deploy for them a
fully automated system, he explained Similarly, Ford uses Concur Travel only in
Australia, Canada, Mexico, the United Kingdom and the United States, but those
represent five of Ford's largest markets and have the highest adoption rates.
Ford is still on a
mission, though. It will launch Concur Expense in two more countries by the end
of the year, Sharpe said. And Northrop Grumman isn't giving up on true
globalism, either. This year, it plans to roll out a global online booking tool.
"We have a long-range plan, but we try not to look too far into the future
because we get overwhelmed," Walker said. "We look at the next
indicated step and just keep plowing through."
Courting Compliance
Compliance ensures
that a company gets the valuable, consistent data it needs to manage spend,
according to Sapient global travel and client experience director Michelle De
Costa.
So once a system is
in place, how does a travel manager get individuals to use it? One survey
respondent summed up the solution cited by most who took the survey: "Communication,
communication, communication." Respondents use newsletters, surveys, focus
groups, internal social networks and person-to-person communication. Another
indicated that staying in touch with local buyers helps insure regional buy-in
and opens the channel for input to come back through, too.
Education helps, as
well, respondents said. "We've made it as easy as possible to travel for
Sapient," De Costa said. "New hires get an email from me telling them
about the travel program, why they have to use the agency, who to contact and
how to do it."
Sapient also uses a "three
strikes" policy to motivate travelers to book with its travel provider,
BCD Travel. "We work with you on your first three bookings outside of the
agency, and on your fourth booking you're short-reimbursed 20 percent,"
she said. Since the company introduced the mandate in 2009, compliance issues
have been minimal, she said.
A mandated program,
though, is "usually the exception, not the rule," said HRG's
Pancaldi. Some respondents to BTN's survey prefer to deter noncompliance
by reporting the infractions to management, and others inspire compliance with
incentives for travelers who abide by policy.
Tech Hurdles
Survey respondents
also named lagging technology as an obstacle in managing global travel
programs, especially in online booking tools and global distribution systems.
De Costa said
Sapient embraces technology but runs into tech headaches on the travel
management company side. "We have one global TMC, [so] we should be able
to have one global tool," she said. That the TMC's tools are regional "creates
complexities when we have long-term travelers in another geography."
She added that she'd
like TMC tools to integrate more effectively with supplier sites and work more
like the commercial tools travelers tend to use as a fallback.
Some respondents
agreed. "TMC technology capabilities are not keeping up with what is
possible," wrote one. Another said TMCs should develop better apps to keep
up with emerging mobile technology: "Business travelers want business
travel apps on par with leisure apps."
Other respondents worked around the industry's tech deficiency by issuing requests for proposals to TMCs for new technology, and still others simply use non-TMC tech.
This report originally appeared in the April 20, 2015, issue of Business Travel News.