Re-evaluating your travel programme comes high on the list if you want to ensure return on investment. Gillian Upton explains how one company, A4e, did just that

Like every canny company planning to survive the economic downturn, A4e, the company that runs the government’s Back to Work programme, looked closely at all its travel expenditure and examined ways of improving efficiencies.

Financial director Mark Stanley pulled in the services of an outside consultancy, Bouda, in October 2009, to evaluate A4e's travel programme and take on their recommendations. It was an exercise being repeated through all spend categories of the company at that time.

“We thought it was good to get an outside perspective and get better deals,” explains A4e's business travel manager Jane Tunstall, who reports directly to the finance function. “We knew we should be fine tuning each area of spend – train, air and hotels – and if necessary, to change suppliers.

“Our goal is always to be as cost effective as possible as our travel costs are quite high as it is, while providing our staff with a quality service,” says Tunstall.

Sheffield-based A4e – Action for Employment – has witnessed its travel spend rise from £1.9million in 2009 to nearer £4million today as the company has spread its wings internationally, principally across the Channel into France, Germany and Poland, and further afield into South Africa and Australia. Domestic travel has now been overshadowed by international destinations.

“Our travel requirements have grown and grown and grown,” says Tunstall. “I’m hoping to get better rates overall but it’s not just about cost but to get the best companies to tackle our volume of business.”

Reason enough then, to review suppliers and deals in light of its changing requirements. Find out what the company discovered from the evaluation and how it fine-tuned its travel programme in the following step-by-step guide.

STEP 1: Decide if there is sufficient manpower and expertise internally to undertake such a project. It can often make sense to bring in specialists who have the specific knowledge, who can focus 100 per cent on the job at hand, and who will be neutral and independent. A4e knew of Bouda’s experience and appointed them to manage the project.

STEP 2: Bouda carried out a thorough evaluation, analysing management information from August 2008 to July 2009, all supplier and intermediary contracts, the company’s end to end booking process, current travel policy and performance metrics. It reported its findings at the beginning of October 2009, highlighting potential savings of more than ten per cent of their total spend. There were anomalies in hotel T&Cs, contradictions in the travel policy, no 24-hour number to call from overseas for emergencies, no SLAs or KPIs with suppliers, no pre-trip data and so on. There was plenty of scope for improvement.

STEP 3: A4e and Bouda held review meetings with the account managers from all suppliers to discuss what had come to light in the evaluation. It was decided to tackle one category spend at a time, hotel and conferencing being first. The existing HBA was handling hotels and meetings but only offered a booking request tool rather than an online booking tool. “We felt that there were better solutions out there,” says Tunstall, “despite there being a lot involved when changing suppliers – it’s a lengthy and complicated process.” Hotelscene, HRS and BSI all had the right technology and responded to the RFP last December. BSI won the business in March with a significant monthly cost reduction from a mix of the commission share, full bill back and savings accrued from its online booking tool.

STEP 4: “One of the most important parts of this exercise was evaluating the technology in place to ensure maximum content is available through a single and simple point of sale solution,” says Clare Murphy, co-founder and director of Bouda's Technology Solutions. Before BSI was appointed, A4e sent out a test site to all regular bookers so they could check ease of use. “It’s really easy to use and intuitive,” she says. It was BSI's state-of-the-art technology that swung the decision.

STEP 5: Bouda re-wrote the company travel policy, outlining the more simplified and quicker hotel and meetings booking process through the new online booking tool. Tunstall is also hoping to offer travellers a better selection of hotels at each destination and eradicate non-compliance. “There is some leakage here and there,” says Tunstall, “and I need to ensure that 99 per cent of staff are using the tool and using only the hotels and venues we’ve secured deals with.”.

STEP 6: Communicating the changes to supplier and booking processes was dealt with in a staff newsletter in April, augmented by a series of face to face meetings and Webex training by BSI to all regular bookers and PAs.

STEP 7: The work continues with Bouda and together they may repeat the whole evaluation process with other suppliers. “It’s a lot of work but I’m keen to do anything that benefits the company,” Tunstall says. ”One area of focus continues to be online adoption through the flight provider, as staff feel they need to speak to people when booking a flight,” she adds. The flight provider has now been given the directive to reject any phone calls for simple point to point flight bookings and request that they make the booking online. Bouda has estimated that increased online booking adoption could save the company more than £20,000 in booking fees and average ticket price reduction. Tunstall says this project has been hugely beneficial to her as a travel manager. “It’s been very enlightening and interesting. Bouda have helped me immensely, their inside knowledge of the travel industry has enabled them to get into detail that would normally be missed which has delivered additional savings such as £2,500 in missed e-ticket reclaims and £1,500 credit due for incorrect offline booking fees. “I used to work as a travel agent but through this project I’ve gained a different perspective, particularly with all the technical areas and how to get the best from suppliers.” Changing suppliers in one spend category should put a further £120,000 on A4e's bottom line, in theory at least. “We well and truly paid for ourselves,” remarked Simone Buckley, Bouda co-founder and director of Travel Programme Optimisation. • Bouda was launched last October as a new-style of travel management consultancy. See a Bouda company profile in the November/December 2009 issue of TBTM.

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