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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 Jun 2, 2010
Airlines have always been challenged with finding a viable way to measure contracted market share expectations in such a way that is fair to both the airline and the corporation. As data consolidation continues to become more refined the use of QSI (Quality Service Index) as a measurement tool has become an industry norm.
This article is not intended to knock QSI (as for the most part it works very well), but instead is meant to help corporate travel managers navigate their way through QSI and how certain common data scenarios can create unintended results. Not unlike the cult-classic movie Zombieland, there are a few rules that are good to abide by when dealing with contract terms and QSI measurements:
Posted May 28, 2010
MacNair Travel Management, a privately owned American Express Representative Office in the Washington, DC area, announced today a complimentary Webinar titled “Travel Management Solutions for Association Staff, Committees and Members” scheduled for Thursday, July 22nd at 12pm EST.
Posted May 21, 2010
Regarding Management.travel's interview with Sapient global travel manager Michelle De Costa:
Deltek has also implemented a new social media program where travel shifted from the company intranet to a company Sharepoint blog. We are the first department to begin using Sharepoint in this manner. All content was moved regarding travel and the corporate credit card program.
Posted Apr 5, 2010
Business travel is the second-largest controllable cost for the average U.S. organization and in 2010’s "new normal," procurement managers are preparing for: more travel using the same if not smaller budgets (56% of NBTA's 2010 Business Travel Forecast respondents cautiously reported that they expected their spending to increase - 31% expected flat spending*); the fact that air, hotel, and car rental rates will go down (between 1% to 8%*); negotiated deals remaining prevalent for those who can control and direct spending (70% of travel managers reported that they think they will negotiate better hotel rates, 30% think they will get better car and air deals*); increased pressure to leverage more of their travel and meeting spend to reduce costs and enhance benefits; virtual travel to play a larger role as well a mobile tools; miscellaneous costs to continue to rise; and lastly that national, world and emergency situations will require support and communication systems.
Posted Mar 24, 2010
Being part of the European ‘nanny state’ must have its advantages, although I can’t quite think of even one at this time. Most definitely government travel buying, or for that matter any kind of state procurement, is not one. The conditions, deadlines, red tape, mandatory declarations and disclosures are such that the likelihood of a smart or mutually worthwhile deal is small.
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.
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