Managing corporate travel in today’s business world requires balance. A well-managed corporate travel program must balance cost containment with traveler satisfaction, traveler compliance with productivity on the road, and traveler convenience with safety and security. Corporate travel is much more complex than it used to be and constructing a program that aligns with the goals and culture of your overall organization requires flexibility, creativity, and persistence. As a leading corporate travel management company supporting hundreds of corporations who travel all across the globe, we know the following steps will help you get on the right track toward achieving a successful corporate travel management program.
So What Exactly Is A Corporate Travel Program?
A corporate travel program is basically a structured system designed by organizations to manage and streamline their business travel needs for their employees. A program may include policies, procedures and partnerships with travel providers to help manage costs, ensure compliance and enhance safety for employees who travel. These programs often use technology platforms to automate the booking processes (planes, hotels and cars), track employee expenses and provide real-time data and reporting to help improve the overall decision-making as it relates to a company’s cost-effectiveness and efficiency in their business travel management needs. So how does a company get started with a corporate travel program, let alone a successful one?
The First Step Towards A Successful Corporate Travel Program
Establishing a vision for what you want to achieve and setting achievable goals, is the first step toward a successful corporate travel program. Your program should work within your company culture and align with your goals and objectives. It’s wise to base your program and policy decisions on your goals and set parameters in place.
Start With These Questions:
What are our greatest business priorities, and how can traveling for business support these?
How can we reduce costs while enabling business results?
How should resources support the company’s growth markets and expansion plans?
How will the company’s hiring trend affect travel costs?
Can our corporate travel management program support or lead enterprise wide priorities like sustainability and risk management?
How can travel resources be leveraged to increase shareholder value?
Build A Stakeholder Network For Your Corporate Travel Program
Identify a senior-level sponsor to endorse your corporate travel program. It’s a good idea to engage the stakeholders, listen to their business priorities, and spot the overlaps. Collaborate to create a greater all-round experience for your travelers and company. Finally, you may also consider a group of stakeholders, comprised not only of senior-level officials but also employees from various departments and some road warrior travelers across the company.
Cost And Compliance Balancing For Your Corporate Travel Program
It’s not easy, but true cost savings in a corporate travel program are derived from your traveler’s adoption. To see successful results, you must start with the traveler’s need for familiar process, clear policy, and preference. Only then, will you benefit from how adoption reduces your overall cost.
Which Corporate Travel Program Is Right For Your Company
First, you must decide on which corporate travel program model will be most effective based on your company’s culture. Here are three broad categories to help you get started.
A Fully Mandated Program
You may opt to have a fully mandated program, which is the least flexible and least favorable for your employees but provides tight policy and front-end controls needed to ensure compliance.
An Exception Base Program
You may consider an exception-based program, which provides more flexibility with limited and defined managerial discretion supported by pre- and post-trip expense management. This will give your travelers a bit more freedom but provide the security your company is looking for.
An Open Booking Policy Based Program
You may look to institute a loose, “open booking” policy which excludes a mandated program approach, allowing employees to book their travel based on their own preferred travel suppliers and methods, with minimal spending limit controls. This may create the complete flexibility your employees crave but it can come with some added risk or complications to your corporate travel program with unanticipated expenses.
Regardless of the model you choose, proactively managing risk, should be at the top of the list for your corporate travel program.
Employee Safety And Security
As a corporate travel agency focused on safety and security as our top priority, Teplis Travel recommends integrating a comprehensive plan to protect your people and organization from travel risks. At Teplis Travel, we provide proactive duty of care and risk management to assess, inform, and assist your employees who travel around the globe. When it comes to managing risk, communication is always essential. At the end of the day, communication can make or break the success of your corporate travel program. Knowing where your travelers are, being able to communicate with them, and protect them in the event of an emergency is the most important item on your list.
Measure The Effectiveness Of Your Corporate Travel Program
Finally, a key method to your success is your ability to measure your corporate travel program’s effectiveness. Dig into the details and look at your purchase trends and patterns. Your savings will be quantified by tracking and analyzing travel reports where goals and cost savings initiatives have been implemented. Complementing the traditional tracking methods, Teplis Travel provides deeper and more comprehensive business travel reporting solutions, from presenting and interpreting worldwide management reports to revealing trends in travel spend, as well as benchmarking client scores against the market and sector trends producing customized scorecards. Teplis Travel works with each client to analyze benchmarking requirements, define specific basis metrics, and access an array of internal and external data sources to form a customized basis for comparison.
Benchmarking your corporate travel program with other companies of similar size and scope is one of the best ways to evaluate its success. Identifiers such as average daily rates for cars and hotels, online adoption rates, average ticket prices, advance purchase windows, and supplier program optimization are great indicators.
Contact us today to learn more about Teplis Travel’s successful corporate travel programs, or to partner with us.
news source: businestravelnews.com
