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Posted Aug 17, 2010
I attended the NBTA Convention in Houston last week. Frankly I have been to so many NBTA conventions, I have lost count (this was probably my 22nd or 23rd convention). What was shocking to me was how there was so little change in the content of the program from those I attended back in the early 1990s. Sessions on travel policy, expense management, globalization, vendor negotiations and meetings management represented the bulk of the content. There were a few progressive sessions on the social Web and mobile apps (the session I spoke at), but in general the lack of innovation and progressive thought was quite evident. Why is the corporate travel industry so stagnant? What does this mean to the state of corporate travel technology? It is my belief that a major culprit is turnover.
Posted Jun 22, 2010
Putting the term "commodity" in the same sentence as travel and meetings is like adding Lady Gaga as an inductee to the Rock 'n Roll Hall of Fame; you either agree or disagree with the parallelism but there is no denying that it is the big elephant in the room. Do you believe that business travel, meetings and events are commodities? The term caused us to stir in our seats while participating in an NBTA/StarCite-sponsored meeting yesterday.
Posted Jun 9, 2010
Admittedly, I like language and the how words lend themselves to interesting twists, origins, and uses. For instance, I enjoyed when Ricardo Montalban (welcome to Fantasy Island) came on the Tonight Show and admitted that Chrysler called the leather in their Cordoba “Corinthian Leather” simply because they liked how the word sounded when he said it. There really wasn’t such a thing as Corinthian Leather. Also, why are people overwhelmed, but nobody is just plain whelmed?
In that vein, I have often seen the terms “scorecard” and “dashboard” used interchangeably and thought it might be helpful for the industry to have someone unpack these terms and provide a quick overview.
Posted Mar 9, 2010
In Part One I gave my view as to who should buy travel within a corporation. To recap, I pointed out that no one person should do it. Instead an alliance of procurement and operational management was required pulled together by the influence and gravitas of a hands-on board sponsor.
Posted Mar 5, 2010
This week I was in Charlotte, N.C., attending ProcureCon Indirect, a conference for executives who manage procurement of indirect spend, such as travel and meetings services. It was a great opportunity to meet and network with these folks (About 100 procurement executives came from over 44 companies!) and learn what kinds of challenges they face in reaping system-wide efficiencies and savings from procurement.
Posted Feb 25, 2010
This debate has rumbled on for a very long time and I expect it will continue particularly at this time of financial and strategic difficulty. Suppliers have to earn more and corporations have to pay less to achieve their recovery strategy so it has never been more important that the function in the middle of the pricing debate gets it right. If they don’t we will end up either with less products or fewer customers or perhaps both. The key reason for there being an impasse in this debate is there is no right answer for all the stakeholders. It very much depends on the flexibility, specialist knowledge and skills of individuals concerned.
Posted Feb 10, 2010
When it comes to buying airlines and hotels, there are some big differences. That may not be the case in the near future. I think we're beginning to see a shift--the beginning of a shift--away from the hotel model of pricing and contracting. Let's look first at some key differences:
Posted Nov 5, 2009
There has been an ongoing trend for travel managers to report to procurement because, after all, travel services are a commodity that requires price negotiation and service level agreement just like all other commodities, right? The answer is yes and no, and not "It depends."
Posted Oct 5, 2009
Marketers know the Four P’s of Marketing: Product, Placement, Promotion and Price. And the most recent edition of The Wire…from AirPlus shows that buyers in this hotel RFP season are focused on just one: Price. However, I think there is one missing from this list…and it’s Partnership.
Posted Aug 28, 2009
In the August issue of Monthly Metrics from Procurement.travel, there are some interesting statistics that caught my eye. And they back up or confirm some important trends that I see happening at companies today. These numbers come from a survey of 148 corporate travel professionals.
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