Showcase Your Work
I’m a huge fan! Communicating the ROI of a managed travel program should be incorporated into performance objectives for every travel category owner. It’s the easiest way to promote the value you bring to the company and uncover new opportunities. Hear me out on this… How are you showcasing the value of your work negotiating hotel rates and organizing the program? Do your travelers know about the cost savings of using your preferred air provider? How does it benefit them? How does buying the cheap ticket on the Internet impact your company? Perhaps your organization could benefit from a bit of healthy competition; publish a monthly chart of the number of tickets and average ticket price by department and watch the comments fly in. These are just a few ideas and they are certainly not meant for all types of organizations. Think about your culture and give yourself some great visibility and communicate travel metrics with your travelers. You’ll probably be surprised at the conversations, the ‘a-ha’ moments and the opportunities to further grow your program that will result.
WENDY PALMER
wpalmer@epri.com
More Than Money
All of us in the travel industry understand the value of having a managed travel program. Unfortunately, sometimes we are tasked in trying to explain the value to people outside of the industry – whether you are working in sales for a TMC trying to win the business from an unmanaged program or simply a travel manager trying to get buy-in from travelers to save money and raise compliance.Monetary savings is usually the lowest hanging fruit when communicating ROI to people. TMCs have the ability to leverage spend in order to receive discounts with travel suppliers that any procurement officer would be pleased to show at year’s end. Furthermore, showcasing the ability to manage unused tickets can save hundreds of thousands of dollars a year in a managed program as travel managers and leaders within an organization may not realize those funds that can easily be forgotten.Sometimes it’s not about money. Instead the driving force for the travel ROI may hinge on the safety and security of the travelers. Unfortunately, travel can be precarious and no company in their right mind could dismiss the need for duty of care for their travelers. These two reasons should make sense when communicating ROI for travelers and executives alike.
CHRIS BROCKMAN
chris@wholdings.travel
Duty of Concern
I believe I would start with the duty of concern for the most important asset of any company, the employees. (I heard another travel manager call it ‘duty of concern’ and I liked it.) Maybe relating the number of trips to the care/concern, or outlining the actions taken by the travel program to insure this. You also need to communicate what mechanisms are in place to get hard savings, what those savings amount to, and how travel initiatives are helping the employee be successful and comfortable traveling for work. Traveler feedback, survey scores or real-life examples from the field can help tell the story. Estimate soft dollar savings or extra amenities vendors may deliver that your travelers value. Some benchmarking will put your program in perspective vs. other like companies.
Rosemary E Maloney
Rmaloney@tapestry.com
Defining Value
Communicating the value – ROI – of your travel program can be an awkward conversation, depending on the audience. Companies have different ideas on what success looks like; is it financial results, policy compliance, or traveler satisfaction? There are likely people in your leadership group who have varying opinions of what your ROI should be. So how do you set yourself up to communicate the ROI of your travel program? Be prepared to talk about the alignment of your program’s approach with the objectives of the business – how it adds value to the safety, productivity and quality of the experience. If all you talk about is the financial measures, you can e-mail reports. However taking a strategic focus will not only increase the value of your program but it also recognizes you as the travel expert and business partner.
Cheryl Benjamin
cheryl.benjamin@dart.biz
You Can’t Please Everyone
When I review the ‘Welcome Back’ surveys that our travel management company sends after every trip, I often see comments from travelers saying that they don’t see any value to using a TMC. More often than not the complaints are about issues that the traveler either controls or is out of the purview of the TMC. Profile issues, flight delays or cancellations, and lack of communication are some examples of the problems that are called out. For these travelers there is no ROI. They don’t recognize the behind the scenes efforts to maximize their travel, ensure their safety, gather data to improve discounts, and enhance technology to make their trips more productive and less difficult. When I see these complaints without any contact information I either want to laugh or it makes me angry. For some there is no pleasing them no matter how hard you try.
Mark Ziegler
mark.ziegler@netapp.com
Tap Your Resources
There are several factors that should be included to show Return on Investment from your company’s travel program. I normally take into account all areas of responsibility for my program. Air, car, hotel program, credit card, duty of care as well as any new program or processes that have changed during the period – they all go on the list. Evaluating ROI should be an ongoing practice, not just once a year but every day. I recommend working with your TMC and/or your procurement department. I’ve found working with my internal resources has become the clearest way to tell the travel story. These specialty area, such as procurement, have the preferred reporting style, key elements, language and experience that the C-suite is looking for. Bottom line, communicate often, communicate clearly and make your data visible.
Gloria A. Gonzalez
Gloria.Gonzalez@freemanco.com
