Symantec Corp. last year imported a new global travel
manager from its European headquarters to spearhead sourcing initiatives for a
global travel management company, an online booking tool, airlines and hotels,
among other projects.
In all, Symantec's five-person global travel team completed
19 travel and meeting projects that delivered $16 million in savings as they
managed $162 million in air, hotel, car and meeting expenditures, according to
global travel manager Claire Blades.
Blades said the team spent most of 2010 strategizing and
executing how to take "the whole travel program within 12 months to
exactly where we need to be for fiscal year 2012 [which started April 1]. We
looked at each commodity in the travel function in terms of contracts and what
was coming up for renewal. For every piece of the pie, we asked: What can we do
now? What is the low-hanging fruit? And, what's the long-term vision?"
But the plan for 2011 also considered where the travel team
could build on initiatives in 2012 and beyond, Blades said. "We're not
just going to put something in place, walk away and say we checked that box."
Brought over from Symantec's European headquarters, where
for five years she managed travel for Europe, the Middle East and Africa,
Blades in January 2010 took over as global travel manager and moved from the
United Kingdom to Orlando. She has represented the company for the past four
years on the Global Business Travel Association's Corporate Social
Responsibility Committee and currently serves as the committee's co-chair. In
2009, GBTA bestowed its first CSR award to Symantec.
As its travel management contract with American Express was
to expire in December 2010, Symantec began fiscal 2011 travel projects with a
TMC request for information.
[PROFILE_1]Symantec had a 10-year relationship with Amex, but needed to
determine "if it should go with an online agency or stick with a true
global TMC that could service locally and also online if needed," Blades
said.
The team surveyed travelers "as we wanted to make sure
we were listening," Blades said. Travelers and executives alike were
satisfied with service.
Working with sourcing partner ICG Commerce, Symantec's
travel team benchmarked with five companies in its industry with similar
transaction volumes and geographies.
"We saw pretty quickly that our transaction fees were
quite high. There were a lot of opportunities in terms of what we were paying
and what we could pay," Blades said. Symantec considered all services,
including the advisory services that it received from American Express, and
questioned what the company really needed from its travel management company in
products and services.
"Once we did the benchmarking, it was very clear that
incumbent sourcing would be the most beneficial for us in terms of cost and
time savings," she added. "We managed to come up with 19 percent
annual savings over a five-year contract, not just on transaction fees, but
also on advisory services we purchased, such as the pre-trip auditor. The
benchmarking showed that if we went to a global RFP, we'd be able to save about
9 percent, so 19 percent was a figure I was very happy to take to the CFO and
say, 'Here's why we're going to stay with American Express. Here's what the
contract contains, and here's our vision.' "
As part of the new agreement, Symantec became the flagship
account for American Express' Universal aXcess Platform, formerly called the
international hub. "It was a bit of a risk, as to date no one had done
this before. We consolidated five of our major countries into one Universal
aXcess in Phoenix. These five countries represent 67 percent of our travelers
globally in the United States, United Kingdom, Australia, Ireland and Canada."
That meant that 8,754 travelers would be serviced online or offline from
Phoenix, instead of local offices. That also meant that with one communiqué,
Symantec could reach all those travelers, she said.
That single point of contact was helpful as "critical
support during both the Middle East and Japan crisis situations," Blades
said.
In Europe, Blades gained experience with service
configuration changes when the company consolidated 15 countries into an
American Express call center in Nice, France, for three years. "When Amex
disbanded that, we had to take the business back to local servicing." The
move to the call center was "almost like moving agencies, but was easier
to move to local servicing" of travelers, she noted.
Single Access Center Offers
Savings
Initially concerned about cultural acceptance of the U.S.
service center by travelers in other countries, Blades said the move
represented "huge savings in transaction fees."
Training, implementation and customer satisfaction "have
been phenomenal. We're up to the high 90s in customer satisfaction since moving
to Universal aXcess. In 17 years in the industry, I've never seen training
quite like this from Amex," she added. "I expected problems. I was
ready for it and was absolutely floored by the positive responses, even up to
the executive level, where they said the feedback from the teams has been, 'best
decision, brilliant, well done.' "
Part of the new contract included implementation of a
pre-trip auditor for international hub countries and pre-trip notification on
five parameters for travelers in the United States, Australia and Canada. The
company uses the pre-trip auditor to track the total trip cost and when travel
is not booked online, air is booked without hotel, a nonpreferred hotel is booked
or the lowest fare is not taken.
"We went to authorization over notification for those
who already had a very cumbersome [Excel-based] approval process," Blades
said, adding that she told the company's European sales executive, " 'You're
almost too mature for pre-trip notification. Would you consider going straight
to pre-trip authorization?' " After providing him with a "good pitch
of the benefits," Blades said they implemented pre-trip authorization in
Europe, and executives there were happy to get something before U.S.
counterparts.
Pre-Trip Approval,
Notices Deliver ROI
"We've had a three-to-one return on investment since we've
put in pre-trip authorization and notification, and that's just been since
February of this year," Blades said.
Beyond the TMC, Symantec also completed a global online
booking tool sourcing analysis and now has online booking in 15 countries.
The company contracted with more than 30 carriers to cover
96 percent of its business travel in 18 countries. Where possible, it sourced "5
percent local," which meant a new deal with Southwest Airlines' Swabiz for
the first time.
After it reviewed 900 proposals for its global hotel sourcing
initiative, the team selected 450 properties around the globe in markets in
which it used more than 70 to 100 room nights a year.
It also initiated a supplier relationship management program
for top suppliers in its program. The travel team also continued corporate
social responsibility commitments to further reduce carbon emissions 12 percent
by the end of its fiscal year from the year before.
To reach travelers more quickly and efficiently, Symantec
also tried such social media outlets as Salesforce Chatter.
"Compliance, mobility and integration" are the
focus of travel initiatives this fiscal year, Blades said. "We have about
$39 million of $162 million still out there to be addressed." Included in
that focus are car rental sourcing projects for North America and Europe, the
Middle East and Africa, meals, wireless in the air, car parking, visa services
and online tool integration with its expense tool.
Beyond supplier relationships, Blades said her team also is
working on a global travel policy review to include duty of care and well-being
studies, governance and ancillary fees.
"Within 17 months, we've really made some
efficiencies—not just in costs, but in time too," Blades said. "My
CFO absolutely is focused on costs, but for our team, it was about how we can
take our travel to the next level. How can we make those efficiencies for our
travelers from end-to-end? How do we make our experience even better for our
travelers?"
This report
originally appeared in the August 2011 issue of Travel Procurement.