Editorial: All Hands On Tech
After all the tech talk, the rubber is finally starting to hit the road now that travel automation products that work have finally begun rolling out. As the vapor clears, products from nearly two dozen travel automation suppliers are appearing this week at BTN's Travel Technology World show at the LAX Hilton. These are the products that are ready for corporate buyers who are looking to kick the tires so they can pick the model that best suits their needs.
Up until now, announcements of new products on the drawing board had given many travel buyers pause, as had the six-figure sums required for software licensing, training, installation and support for several thousand users. The return promised by systems now on the market, however, is large enough that many large buyers can no longer afford to wait.
Corporations that spend millions annually on travel have demonstrated serious demand for these products. Confirmation of that demand comes in the findings of a recent Association of Corporate Travel Executives survey of 169 travel-manager members of the senior travel buyer and supplier organization.
In the case of automated expense management solutions and automated booking systems, about half of the respondents expect to implement within 12 months, and a quarter expect it to take 18 months or more. Of this group, 22 percent described themselves as early adopters of T&E systems and 12 percent as early adopters of automated booking systems.
The demand for expense processing systems is particularly acute. It's not that there aren't a good number of automated booking tools and management reporting systems for corporate travel and information systems buyers to consider, but as one industry pundit recently said, expense reporting systems are in a 2.0 world, while automated booking software is still in version 1.0. What's more, the payback from automating travel expense processing and reimbursement is clear, regardless of company size. Estimated cost savings from reengineering and automating expense processing are $10 or more per expense report.
For companies to get sufficient return on investment from buying management reporting systems other than in the form of fees for travel agency services, they need travel volumes of several million dollars or the ability to shift significant volume between vendors.
With automated booking products, the payback to the corporation is less clear, particularly with the recent lowering of commissions on online bookings. Now that most travel agencies serving corporate America are doing business on a fee basis, it appears that it is the corporate buyer who is again taking a hit.
When it comes to expense systems, however, hundreds of corporations are now using expense processing software solutions from agencies or other vendors, as our lead story in last issue pointed out (BTN, May 5).
And while the number of constituencies involved in most T&E software buying decisions is large and tends to delay the decision on a system, that time seems to be shortening.
A major factor in the reduction of decision time and the increase in expense processing software sales is the fact that travel automation vendors are almost universally embracing the Internet as a standard open platform for these tools.
The Internet makes it possible for otherwise incompatible systems to share information. American businesses have been moving rapidly to deploy corporate intranets. These intranets provide an environment in which the new automation tools can reside and be most effective for business travel buyers and their travelers.
As more travel automation products become road ready and more companies build intranet travel sites, travel buyers will be able to get incredible mileage for their companies.The trick is to understand which systems provide the best vehicles for the individual business.