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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 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 Jan 5, 2010
[EDIT: Some small spoilers contained herein.]
I highly recommend watching the new movie Up in the Air, especially if you have any role in managing travel expenses. It is a movie about how important it is to travel, to meet people in person, and that no matter how advanced our technology gets, you cannot shift everything to the Internet in lieu of travel.
Posted Dec 4, 2009
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 8, 2009
This chatter around outsourcing the travel manager job to the travel management company is annoying, but I also accept that many travel managers are bogged down with too many administrative tasks and the management may perceive that the position can be eliminated. After all, if a T&E budget is drastically slashed, you don’t need great discounts with suppliers, right?
This is simply wrong.
Posted Sept 22, 2009
We are down in Austin this week at The Beat Live conference - a great event focused on the corporate travel market.
Posted Jan 20, 2009
As you know, I am still trying to redesign corporate travel management. I respect those views expressed by Tom Wilkinson and Mike Platt but I maintain that what corporate travel management is doing in typical situations is turning over trip manufacturing to a middle entity, whether using an online agency or more personal services of a TMC-type agency. However, those trips are typically being made from scratch repetitively, wasting time of both travelers and agents.
Posted Oct 24, 2008
Companies face increasing pressure to reduce spending these days, especially in light of the current economic and financial situation worldwide. Belt-tightening appears to be here to stay for the foreseeable future, and business travel is a key area in which companies are looking to trim costs.
Posted Aug 1, 2008
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