Travel experts discussed travel manager’s role at ABT educational session
Another Educational session of the Russian Association of Business Travel devoted to the role of a travel manager in the process of business trip arrangement took place in Hilton Moscow Leningradskaya on October 11, 2013. The participants of the event were leading business travel experts, business travel and purchase specialists of the largest Russian and foreign companies: Johnson & Johnson Medical Russia, PwC, Mary Kay, Gazprombank, MTS, Moscow Exchange, Leroy Merlin Vostok, Alpha Strakhovanie, PepsiCo Russia, Merz Pharma, Volga-Dnepr group of companies, Biocodex, Polus Gold International, Lamoda, NC Pharm etc.
Partners of ABT Educational session were Abu Dhabi Tourism & Culture Authority, ART-TOUR, Starwood Hotels & Resorts Worldwide, HRS.ñom, Jumeirah Bilgah Beach Hotel, Kerzner International, UP JET travel group, COEUR de CITY, ROID translation agency.
Speakers of the Educational session were Svetlana Morozova, director of sales department and corporate department of ZCTS-Egencia Russia business travel agency, Irina Kostyukova, Head of Business Travel in Kaspersky Lab and Maria Sergeeva, head of travel department of the financial corporation «Otkrytye».
The meeting was moderated by Winfried Barczaitis, independent consultant, W&B Barczaitis gbr.
A travel manager’s role in business processes of companies is growing steadily every year. Some several years ago these specialists were considered to be administrative staff, whose job duties included ticket booking, transfer arrangement and hotel selection. Nowadays the attitude of directors and the staff to this position has changed dramatically. An efficient travel manager is a thoughtful executive, who plans and carries out activities that can bring profit and help corporations save hundreds of thousands of dollars per year.
«I suppose, everyone understands the importance of what we are doing. A travel manager quickly solves administrative tasks as well as helps save a lot of money and time of all employees. Besides, it is a travel manager who is a successful intermediary between a TMC and the company’s representatives, i.e. our in-house customers. Our business travel department is in our office, so we, as no other, know the profile of the work and specific nature of our business trips», Natalya Yurkevich from Polus said.
Her point of view was supported by Maria Saikina, leading expert and travel manager in Alpha Strakhovanie: «We live in a very dynamic era and have to travel a lot across the country and all over the world. The company’s employees just can’t solve their professional tasks and arrange their business trips at the same time. At one point our directors took the right decision and imposed this task on professionals».
In his greeting word Winfried Barczaitis shared his impressions of the development of a travel manager’s role in the global market. Despite the fact, that the Russian business travel industry no doubt lags behind the western one, you can not claim unambiguously that absolutely all German and American companies have advanced travel programs and professional travel management.
The expert noted, that Russian companies invested more and more funds in business travel and now business travel costs in large corporations accounted for the third and sometimes even the second expense item after the staff and the rent. In this connection the Russian industry badly needs insights that could help professionals work more efficiently.
The reports of respected travel experts have become such insights into the world of business travel for the session participants.
The session started from the speech of Svetlana Morozova, who presented her report «TMCs as a unique tool of data analysis and consolidation».
The speaker remarked, that the topic seemed very interesting to her as «there are no certain standards in Russia regarding provision of reports and statistics, while this instrument is very important for TMCs as well as for corporate buyers».
«Why can we be so important for each other?» — Ms Morozova specified the main question of her presentation.
At the beginning of the speech the expert dwelled on the fact why companies may need TMC reports at all and who the information contained in them may be useful to.
She also noted, that technologic changes that are taking place in the industry, have significantly changed TMCs’ opportunities to collect, consolidate and process information. Some 20 years ago all employees bought tickets in ticket offices for cash. This made it more difficult for companies to control purchase amounts and to detect inappropriate use of funds. Nowadays when corporate buyers work with TMCs, they can analyze in detail each employee’s business trip as well as the amounts of travel activities in general. Of course, it is possible only on the condition that the company practices so called «controlled bookings», and not bookings of open online tours. According to Ms Morozova, such open channels are just another variant of former ticket offices, as they hinder data consolidation and assessment as before.
Meanwhile, the speaker noted that almost every air ticket included a huge amount of valuable information; its analysis may directly affect the company’s travel budget.
Ms Morozova stressed that due to modern technologies TMC could save and process data from any source according to the parameters set by the customer.
This approach has the following benefits:
1. All travel data is stored
2. You can get information separately for any item
3. The parameters are set by the customer, i.e. by the corporate buyer
4. He also sets the final recipient of information and forms the goals of the report
As the result a TMC client gets data analysis, valuable recommendations, and this lets him better control travel policy compliance, detect persistent violators, work with suppliers more efficiently (in fact, nowadays hotels and airlines need statistics in a certain form!). Besides, cost centres always have an opportunity to get the information they need in due time.
Thus global and strategic goals of corporations are achieved in partnership with TMCs: in particular, travel budgets of future periods are formed.
Ms Morozova brought examples of standard reports that may contain general information about various components of business trips, data on the main carriers or frequent passengers, all cases of non-compliance, benchmark study of transaction costs for a certain period and more.
In addition the speaker stressed that TMCs were ready to provide special non customized reports upon customer’s request, for example:
1. Violation of the terms of preliminary orders
2. Comparison of applied tariff to the minimum tariff with the help of reason codes
3. Comparison of applied tariffs (flex vs. restricted)
4. Report on the number of returns and related losses
5. Report on the ratio of work through the online booking tool and without it
6. Comparison of the company’s contract price and the agency’s price on hotel rooms
«Let us not reinvent the wheel», Ms Morozova summed up her speech. She recommended corporate buyers to come to the negotiating table with TMCs as early as possible and to delegate data collection and assessment to the agency at the stage of implementation.
In the participants’ unanimous opinion, the Educational session of the Russian Association of Business Travel is a great opportunity to establish new business contacts, to update knowledge received during the work and to get acquainted with world practices in the business travel industry.
«My colleagues and I regularly attend educational sessions organized by the Russian Association of Business Travel. It is the most professional and competent source of information that allows us to keep in touch with the latest trends», Leyla Guseynova from Gazprombank noted.
The second part of the Educational session started from the speech of Irina Kostuykova, who made an attempt to systematize travel manager’s tasks.
«I consider travel manager’s functions underestimated in many companies, both by their directors and travel managers themselves», the speaker noted. However, she specified, that some companies went to the other extreme, where «managers» were those who did not supervise anything at all and just made bookings.
Ms Kostuykova started her speech from an important question — who the travel direction is accountable to in modern companies?
She compared ACTE research data for 2009 and 2012 that distinctly demonstrate migration of travel sector to strategic departments of companies, such as purchase or financial departments. Thus, if in 2009 only 22% of respondents said that travel activities referred to the purchase department in their companies, 23% to finance and 22% to top management (the rest referred to service), in 2012 strategic departments accounted for 70% (38% for purchase and 28% for financial departments).
Ms Kostuykova noted that this strategy had already been realized in her company, where business travel department became part of purchase department and no longer existed separately.
In general, we can say that a travel manager’s role consists in developing, implementing and controlling travel programs. But not many industry professionals understand what it really is.
According to the speaker, this notion includes:
1. Development of travel policy, approval procedure for business trips, the procedure of service booking
2. Choosing a TMC and cooperation with the agency
3. Contracts with carriers
4. Hotel program development
5. Organization of ground transport
6. Card programs
7. Duty of care
8. Processes automation (with the help of online tools, among other things)
9. Communication with in-house customers as well as with top management.
A disputable question, according to Ms Kostuykova, is division of responsibility areas of MICE control: in some companies these processes are integrated into business travel, while in others they make a separate working area. In fact, world practice shows that travel management and meeting management should be combined.
So what can a travel manager cope with of all this long list of tasks? In the opinion of Ms Kostuykova, the most part of the abovementioned functions should be taken by a modern travel specialist. Of course, travel policy development and introduction and control of its implementation will be on top of the list.
Accordingly, Ms Kostuykova pointed out the key job duties of a travel manager and stressed that those were tasks and not employee’s qualities, because you could learn all this during your work:
1. Knowledge of supply market, industry trends, technologies, events, professional terms
2. Firm grasp of operations management techniques
3. Firm grasp of strategic planning technologies
4. Firm grasp of marketing and sales technologies
5. Firm grasp of communication techniques
6. Presentation skills
7. Basic knowledge of accounting, taxes and budgeting
8. Basic knowledge of purchases, bidding and tender conduction, agreement conclusion.
As well as the skill to negotiate, to persuade and to teach, to analyze and process data, to work in a team. It would also be nice to have well-bred speech and the knowledge of a foreign language.
Ms Kostuykova ended her speech with Michelangelo’s words: «The greatest danger for most of us is not that our aim is too high and we miss it, but that our aim is actually too low and we reach it».
Maria Sergeeva shared with the audience her knowledge and her company’s experience in preparing data reports.
«Statistics is the main tool of travel manager’s work. It helps us make an overview of expenses and form the big picture of the company’s standing», the speaker noted.
Ms Sergeeva started with determining two types of reports:
— pre-trip report that is prepared before the trip. This report helps a travel manager quickly provide its directors with all the information about the trip;
— post-trip repot that is provided by the travel agency.
The data let analyze the dynamics and the total amount of business travel expenses, get detailed information on the services to form the supplier database and conclude advantageous corporate contracts.
A report is an instrument that allows an experienced travel manager to negotiate with the airline cost-efficient fares without restrictions on the minimum price, as well as some other soft benefits. Thus, you can save a lot on supplier services and increase efficiency of working with them.
Ms Sergeeva stresses, that this method may also be used to form a pool of corporate hotels, as the travel manager will know what regions are the most frequent destinations for business trips, what hotels meet business travellers’ demands to the maximum and what the average length of stay is. Such information can save up to 20% of all hotel costs and give a number of bonuses: Last Room Availability, booking cancellation on the check in day without fines etc.
Thus a travel group has an opportunity to:
— optimize the whole travel process in the company (find optimized flight routes, policy instruments);
— conclude threelateral agreements with air carriers on the terms that are most beneficial for the company;
— optimize accommodation costs due to consolidation of volumes and corporate rates.
«A report with specific numbers is the best illustration to any information that a travel department wants to convey to its management. The director should see that reduction of internal expenditures depends on travel manager’s work directly. How can we do it? It is quite simple. It is enough to make a good data report», Ms Sergeeva summarized.
An important part of the meeting was creative section that allowed to bottom-line the whole Educational session. The participants were divided into 4 groups under the supervision of business travel experts: Ekaterina Aleksandrova, Irina Kostuykova, Svetlana Morozova and Svetlana Denikina, chief editor of Buying Business Travel Russia electronic magazine. Upon moderator’s sign each team tried to answer the following questions in three steps: «What does a travel manager do during his working time?», «What travel manager’s functions can be delegated to other departments or companies?», and «What should a travel manager do, ideally?»
After a vivid discussion 4 concepts of modern travel manager’s work were presented to the participants.
1. The first team worked out a unique concept of a «good travel manager». According to it, a good travel manager should always think of the in-house customer, represent the company’s interests, facilitate costs reduction, appreciate the value of purchases and work with suppliers. According to the authors of this theory, a travel manager should help other colleagues do their work. When a business traveller is on a trip, he should not think about everyday and organizational problems. His task is to do business. A travel manager’s task is to provide conditions for his comfortable stay outside the office".
2. The second team came to the conclusion that a travel manager’s day consisted of multiple important tasks. Booking, working with orders, document preparation, contract conclusion, participation in tenders, compliance control — all this is not daily routine, but the only way to keep abreast of the process and to control it really".
3. The third team also presented its view of travel manager’s work. It is based on two cornerstones — organization and reports. According to the participants, a progressive travel manager is first of all a good manager, who should know the administrative part of the work as well as set and solve strategic tasks«. In order for the travel department to work efficiently, it should be able to establish communication with HR and financial department. These departments are directly connected to travel managers.
4. The members of the fourth group paid attention to the fact that it wss crucial for a modern travel manager to be able to take non-routine decisions, to be skilled at negotiating and to use the opportunities of marketing buzz to the maximum. Besides, it is important to set priorities properly: «sometimes it is better to divide a number of duties between other departments than to miss something important».
According to the unanimous opinion of the Educational session participants, the interactive role-play allowed them not only to distinguish various approaches to a travel manager’s job duties, but also to discuss each participant’s daily timetable in the form of a discussion.
«Every company has its own travel policy. Ours is very flexible, as we think that a business trip is a stress for any employee. Our task is to do everything we can for the person to feel comfortable and to devote himself to work fully. This is what the situation is like in my company, but there are a lot of other schemes. It is very difficult to learn about them, but people eagerly share their working methods and professional secrets during a game», Maria Saikina from Alpha Strakhovanie said.
MICE dramatic growth, new destinations of work and leisure, exclusive price offers have become other topics of informal communication.
«Some several years ago our fellow countrymen went on a business trip heart aflutter, because they could not even imagine what „adventures“ they were to go through outside their office. After experts in arrangement of all kinds of incentive tours, MICE and business trips appeared, the situation changed significantly. Nowadays a business meeting or a corporate event is not a spontaneous action, but a well-planned event that forms the company’s positive image, facilitates the establishment of favourable climate in the company and opens new business opportunities», Ratmir Romanov from ART-TOUR noted.
His opinion was supported by Svetlana Dudovtseva, Abu Dhabi Tourism & Culture Authority: «Russians have not only started going on vacation, but also working abroad. Two factors facilitate this process: domestic policy aimed at the development of the region’s business facilities and emergence of travel departments in the companies. For instance, Abu Dhabi, both the city and the emirate, offers business travellers vast opportunities for corporate meetings, large-scale professional events, teambuilding and incentive tours. But there was little information about us before: people just did not have enough time to analyze the market and to choose the most interesting offers. The situation changed after a separate and a very important position appeared — a travel manager».
The Educational session of the Russian Association of Business Travel has proved that events like that arouse great interest on the part of corporate buyers as well as business travel service providers. All session guests and participants noted that business travel was at the stage of formation, so its development in future would fully depend on people who took active part in its activities today.
Thus, according to Karina Biruykova, NC Pharm, «in the XXIst century almost all our life consists of work. It is hard to say, whether it is good or bad, but we should make maximum effort to make this lifestyle comfortable. My directors travel all over the world at a rate of knots, so I have to keep up with all the latest trends and practices in order to settle any problem quickly. Unfortunately, we do not always have enough time to study professional literature, and there is not much of it, by the way. ABT`s Educational session is the best teacher’s book on business travel, it gives us not only theoretical knowledge, but also practical skills!»
Photo report of the event is available on ABT`s page in Facebook in Photos section, Albums subsection (https://www.facebook.com/ABT.Russia/photos_albums).
Sofya Dukorskaya