HOW TECHNOLOGY CAN REDUCE THE COSTS OF YOUR BUSINESS TRAVEL

Let’s be honest, travel managers don’t always have an easy job and it’s never made easier by chief financial officers with a business objective to reduce per-trip travel costs by 20%. To help make this task more manageable, it’s understandable that they’d use anything at their disposal – and this includes working with a travel management company (TMC) and utilising technology.

There are all kinds of technologies that can help reduce business travel cost, but one of the most important is access to a holistic piece of travel management technology that is often incorporated as part of an investment in a TMC, like us.

This kind of technology can span from data-driven tools that help with hotel booking, to assisting with expense management and improving travel policy performance and it needs to work from the moment a person makes an initial request for business travel to the moment they claim back for their expenses (and everything in between). For example, Management Information reports, like those that we create, can show information like the number of trips that are booked in or out of the travel policy, the most frequent travellers and most popular journeys as well as the most popular airlines and hotels for a business.

The reason it saves money on business travel is that it allows for a much more streamlined corporate travel process. It also facilitates cheaper and more effective booking of trains, planes, hotels and more.

Another reason technology can help, specifically for travel managers or anyone else booking business travel, is that it makes management reporting quicker and more effective.

Reporting through dashboards that are customisable, so they are tailored to the specific KPIs a business is focusing on, means reporting on the cost of business travel to C-level executives is much more streamlined. There’s no wasted time having to pull data from multiple sources then having to stitch it all together – it’s right there ready for you.

Online booking tools can also be a great cost saver when it comes to corporate travel. Again, it’s often dependent on working with a TMC to make the most of this kind of technology.

Online and app-based travel booking platforms empower travel managers, and significantly reduce the time it takes for bookings that should be straightforward. As well as saving time, online booking tools can offer instant price comparison and agent-assisted booking integration. Another real positive of working with a booking tool like ours is that you will always be presented with a total cost. Unlike more widely used tools, such as Skyscanner which will increase in price as you click through, you will quickly see exactly what the cost of a journey will be.

Agent-assisted booking integration simply means that an agent at the TMC you are working with can help you get the best price. This could be through the close supplier relationships they have cultivated over a number of years in the industry.

Expense management software and technology can also play a crucial role in reducing business costs. The reason for this is that it makes it a lot easier to track the cost of expenses per-trip and per-person, but also that all expenses remain compliant with travel policy.

The time spent compiling expense reports is also reduced significantly as the data is captured and can be populated in a reporting dashboard like those mentioned in the point above.

Using this expense data, it is also possible to make suggestions around improving travel policy and travel policy compliance so that the costs of other future trips can be reduced.

Without doubt, the overall best way to reduce the cost of business travel is to work with a travel management company like us. If you have any other concerns around the cost of your business travel, please don’t hesitate to get in touch today.