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Follow our step-by-step guide to travel management and you’ll be able to count the savings, says Gillian Upton

EMMA Bonser is executive assistant to group chief executive Peter Winslow at one of the UK’s largest personal lines insurance intermediaries, The Budget Group of Companies.

In her words, the company’s travel used to be, “very ad-hoc”. Arranged direct by the booker, there was no real control centrally, no specific MI generated, and no real supplier management.

The company was growing, the number of employees travelling on business was increasing, and the extent of the problem would have soon become an issue. This situation was duplicated across its meetings business too.

“It was difficult to monitor overall usage as we were using lots of different providers,” recalls Bonser. But how soon things can change.

Realising that there was a better way, Budget underwent an RFP and found a local supplier just 20 minutes away from their Peterborough head office. Infotel Solutions came on board in April 2006 to tackle transient travel initially, and later, Budget’s meetings and events business, which are handled by Infotel Solutions’ corporate travel division, Findmeahotelroom.

Budget’s MICE business tends to be board meetings and team meetings of 15 people away for a couple of nights.

“We identified where the problems were and what they wanted to achieve,” explains Infotel Solutions director of corporate relations Susanna Bridge.

Essentially, Budget knew they needed to monitor more closely their entire travel spend and have it booked through one company in order to cut costs.

They decided to mandate using Findmea-hotelroom for all accommodation bookings and sister division Findmeaconference for meetings and events so they could get more valuable management information.

Read on for a step-by-step look at how Budget managed to get a tighter grip on their travel spend.

STEP 1: Set clear objectives and targets, together with a time frame.

STEP 2: Gather data so you can exploit volumes and negotiate better deals with suppliers. “They had nothing set up for the conference side of the business,” says Infotel Solutions’ Bridge.

”Bookers would place conferences into hotels and get the best rate on the day. On the transient side, there were some negotiated rates with key hotel properties.”

The first report of MI confirmed Budget’s thoughts on spend. “It was the most accurate usage and spend reporting yet and was somewhat of a surprise to see in black and white just what we were doing across the Group, and also the potential negotiating power we had as a client” says Bonser.

They used the second MI report as their benchmark figures, by which time all potential users were utilising the new system created with Infotel Solutions.

STEP 3: Once you have identified key suppliers and negotiated rates you can create a more comprehensive travel policy. “There was a written policy but it was not as closely controlled and monitored as we would have liked,” says Bonser.

Budget now has a group of preferred suppliers, including Marriott and Holiday Inn. Infotel Solutions also consolidated the number of suppliers.

“We’ve drilled down more into our travel policy – the new arrangement with Infotel Solutions has allowed us to be more specific and able to monitor much more closely what people are booking and the frequency and cost involved on an individual and routine basis,” says Budget’s Bonser. Its post-trip approval process works well, monitoring the management information and pushing back where necessary.

STEP 4: Find who the company’s key bookers are and set up a profile for each of them so you can capture travel preferences and predilections.

“It’s personal and team assistants who are making the bookings on behalf of the individuals and teams that they support,” says Bonser. “The new system has made it so much more streamlined, allowing personal preferences to be accommodated within bookings without the need to restate these each time arrangements are made with different hotels and venues.”

STEP 5: Set up a booking system. At Budget, bookers can telephone or email their travel requests, or self-book on Infotel Solutions’ websites but this system currently excludes rail and air.

STEP 6: Set up regular meetings with your HBA/TMC/agency to monitor progress. Infotel Solutions stages quarterly review meetings and runs the account with one account manager for the transient business, and another for the meetings business.

A year after Infotel Solutions took on the business and Bridge believes it has saved Budget in excess of 25 per cent of its travel budget. “That’s principally from negotiating with suppliers,” says Bridge.

STEP 7: Streamline processes and back-office systems as much as possible.

STEP 8: Set new targets so development becomes a rolling agenda. Budget is looking to improve on its manual expense manage-ment process, with a fully-automated and integrated solution, for example.

It is also trying to circumvent a problem of having a shortage of hotel accommodation locally. Anyone using a new hotel can upload a review on the Infotel website. Trailfinders is currently Budget’s supplier for all international travel and, ideally, they would like to see this go to Infotel too. “In an ideal world, we’d like to bring it all to one provider,” says Bonser.

“It’s a case of ensuring that the one supplier has the knowledge and capability across all areas. Currently, we’ve cherry picked the best for each need.”

STEP 9: Check progress with your bookers and discover how they’re coping with the change. ”Staff welcomed it,” says Budget’s Bonser. “There had been a lot of incon-sistency previously, with different rack rates at the same hotel, booked by different bookers in different parts of the company” she explains. “The bookers have found the new service useful in many ways and the rates that we are now paying are more competitive than ever.”

Budget holds quarterly PA Forums and feedback is encouraged on the current service and processes provided by Infotel Solutions. On an annual basis the key account managers from Infotel Solutions also attend these meetings to update the bookers on any changes, progress and additional services in the pipeline.

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