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Posted Jul 5, 2010
Posted Sept 7, 2009
How do you measure your travel and entertainment expense behaviors and outcomes? Most leaders are taught to focus on the bottom line, and then cut, cut, cut expenses. I recommend reviewing the leading and lagging controls that are in place to obtain cost reduction.
Posted May 8, 2009
I think the corporate travel market is a bit like Star Trek at the moment, boldly, but somewhat reluctantly going where no self-respecting businessperson has gone before. Only troubles is that I am not sure all our industry leading Captain Kirks know what they are doing, and the poor old airship Global Enterprise seems to be going round in circles and disappearing up its own self-created black hole!
Posted Nov 14, 2008
Asked where British Airways would most adjust costs during the next year, BA CEO Willie Walsh named the "limited" areas "we can control." It was indeed a short list: Labor costs, distribution costs and "other."
Posted Nov 3, 2008
American Express, BCD Travel and Carlson Wagonlit Travel all have recently announced personnel cost-saving initiatives. Speaking last week with analysts during the company's third-quarter earnings conference call, Expedia executives said they haven't gone that far just yet. "The first area that we’re looking at and we think the biggest area of opportunity for us is in the non-people cost," said CEO and president Dara Khosrowshahi. "It’s in the variable costs, etc. I think it’s really important for a company like ours right now to focus on execution on a lot of the projects that we’ve been investing in--the technology projects, etc.--and bringing those through. I think we’re going to see where volumes come out. We are in an incredibly volatile time and based on where volumes and ’09 numbers are coming out, we’ll look at all costs including people costs, as well. But we’re just not there yet."
Meanwhile, Khosrowshahi noted that labor savings already are underway as the company reduces "cost per call" using "a new agent desktop that we’ve introduced that we’ve built over the past 18 months."
Posted Oct 3, 2008
Today as we face a challenging economy and ever increasing belt-tightening, there is an unfortunate consequence on our industry.
Innovation is being quashed.
No one planned for this to happen. But happen, it has.
The innovations over the last few years have been incremental at best.
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