These four steps will make data work harder for you, your travelers and your company
Travel buyers are seeing their positions within their organizations change, creating an urgent need for them to become more strategic. So the time is at hand to build a new model for the technologies, processes and ideas that can elevate ‘just data’ to Phat Data.
The most important concept for travel buyers to embrace is that the same old data is not good enough anymore. At least not if they want to have a seat at the table as a trusted strategic advisor. To achieve this, buyers can focus on four areas to elevate their role through Phat Data.
The first target where buyers can take aim is forecasting. Most organizations spend a lot of time forecasting sales, revenues, expenses. Travel buyers should consider providing forecast data for travel.
This metric would include future bookings and expected bookings, and would incorporate costing that is derived from historical data, internal benchmarking and travel industry insights and predictions. Utilizing multiple sources will allow buyers to perform more accurate forecasting. By becoming more engaged with forecasting and assisting the company to include the travel ROI for new products or markets, the buyer delivers more strategic value to the organization.
Another area related to forecasting is engagement with the budgeting process. Consider zero-based budgeting. This can be tough to build in Year One, but once it is built the data should flow more easily in subsequent years.
How to do this in the travel space: All travelers start with zero budget for travel. Then based on last year’s number of trips and spend in each travel-related category – along with forecasts for increases or decreases in costs – travelers predict the number of trips they will do each month or quarter. If a traveler does not take a trip in the allocated time, those funds are removed from the budget.
As a travel buyer armed with this information, you are now involved with the budgeting process which gives you the ability to drive down costs. Gone are the days of over-spending or making unnecessary trips at the end of the year just to use up budget so budget owners can get the same or more the upcoming year.
Not Just Numbers – LeverageThe next area that can help buyers be more strategic is demand management. What exactly is demand management anyway? In its basic form, it is controlling the amount of travel.
But it’s not just stopping travel – that is bad. Rather it’s realigning the travel program and funds towards revenue generating travel. A buyer can analyze spend data, uncover opportunities like one-day trips, multiple individuals going to same destination for same purpose, opportunities for virtual meetings, and the like.
Reducing the budgets for non-revenue-generating travel and deploying those funds towards revenue-generating travel, and then monitoring the ROI on those trips, is a strategic move for buyers that can be accomplished through the use of Phat Data.
Many times buyers are asked to drive down travel costs, but in a mature travel program this can be difficult. Can’t get blood from a turnip. So perhaps you should consider deploying holistic trip tactics to influence a traveler’s decision making process.
For example, let’s say a traveler is booking a trip to Seattle. By giving the traveler the average costs for that trip and its individual components during the booking process, you can influence them to spend within those averages. Plus they know what their colleagues are spending on average. This also shines a new light on the concept of lowest logical airfare. A little visual guilt never hurt anyone, right?
You can also use similar data about a specific traveler to predict their travel patterns and preferences. Not only can this create efficiencies in the booking process and increase program compliance, it also delivers a more personalized experience for the individual traveler.
Travel buyers should also consider expanding their scope and responsibilities. Take a look at categories outside the traditional air, car and hotel; consider expense, corporate card, dining, meetings and relocation. By expanding your scope of work you can capture additional data that will open up new opportunities for savings and allow you to enhance your offering for forecasting and budgeting. Gaining insights into multiple categories that surround a trip, especially during the consumption period of the trip, is mission critical for buyers.
Looking for PartnersSo how does a buyer put all of this together? It takes time and it means allowing technology to be your best friend. If you have your Phat Data strategy in place, you will need a technology partner that can help you aggregate the data from the multiple sources and deliver it in a timely fashion. You should start by looking inside your own company for data management/business intelligence systems, technologies that your organization has already invested in.
There are also great companies in the travel industry that are providing data aggregation and analysis. If you’re being strategic with your program, the technologies will often pay for themselves. But you have to have a solid plan and know the ROI on your Phat Data. Talk to your TMC, your GDS, your reporting system and your suppliers. Involve them in the plan and see how they can support your data needs.
Buyers who consider looking at other ways to deliver value from their programs are able to evolve their role from tactical to strategic and become that trusted advisor within their organization. They must be more analytical and technically savvy. Technology is going to continue to drive change and a buyer’s ability to deliver a world class travel program, all through the power of Phat Data – now that is hip, cool and relevant!
Jennifer Steinke is manager, corporate travel for Dycom Industries, and an industry thought leader with over 27 years experience managing corporate travel. She holds an MBA plus Certified Corporate Travel Executive (CCTE) and Global Travel Professional (GTP) certifications from GBTA. Jennifer strives to deliver innovative and thought provoking ideas to the corporate travel industry.