The way to efficient travel reservations
Saving on travel costs is something that is of interest to most companies. But how does a company management get their employees onside when faced with the necessary changes that have to be made when introducing a self-booking system? There are no easy answers, but Ulrika Grive at Siemens AB has some advice for being successful.
“It is important to show the cost savings a company can make,” explains Ulrika Grive, Travel Manager at Siemens AB. “We have been using our self-booking system for four years now and we work continuously on improving and developing the internal processes for the system used. It is crucial to understand that all changes must start at the top of the company, and the reasoning must be transparent and highlight the potential benefits.”
According to calculations made by Amadeus, the average savings are in the region of 10-20 percent. If a company, for example, has 2,000 travelling employees that together make around 20,000 trips per year at a cost of SEK 100 million, the savings will be around SEK 10-20 million annually.
Erik Larsen who is Regional Partner Manager at Amadeus liaises with Travel Managers and decision makers at a range of companies on a day to day basis. His job is largely about helping travel agencies and companies produce the necessary documentation and make the required calculations for the key people making the decisions at these companies.
“There is no set model to use; it is simply about how far the company has come in its work on reviewing its travel costs and optimising the associated processes. It is here my experience is best utilised as I can quickly advance this process,” says Erik Larsen.
Another major challenge is implementing the system and getting all employees to accept the change. It is here Ulrika Grive has architected a solution that works for Siemens whereby she works routinely with reporting, travel ambassadors and a travel advisory council, where all components make up a powerful supporting function in the business.
The purpose of monthly reporting is to keep company decision makers and departmental managers up to speed on how work on the system is progressing. This includes reporting the adoption rate for the different departments which provides information on the percentage of the total number of reservations that are made online. This is a useful aid for supporting and encouraging employees to take greater responsibility. The purpose of this is to raise the user rate out in the workplace.
At Siemens, a travel advisory council meets once a quarter to discuss ways of improving this work. The council includes some ten members from a range of departments that provide input on how the work is progressing. The meetings give Ulrika Grive a good picture of the departments’ specific travel patterns and their differing needs. The travel advisory council also provides her with valuable feedback on the parts of the system that are working well for the employees as well as those that need improving.
In addition to this forum, Siemens has appointed travel ambassadors at the company, known as Travel Coordinators. “The ambassadors do an incredibly important job,” Ulrika Grive asserts. Their task is to remind and encourage their colleagues to use the self-booking system.
“The lion’s share of my time is spent on enhancing the layout to ensure it complies to the Siemens standard, but also on constantly developing the system and finding ways of improving it,” says Ulrika Grive.
The latest version of AeTM, Amadeus e-Travel Management, has been in service at Siemens since February. The greatest benefit compared to the previous version is that it is now possible to give all employees even better advice when booking their trips in the system. As it is quicker to see which hotels and airlines have the best deals, for example, Ulrika Grive thinks the new updated system is more user-friendly.
The only thing she misses in the new system is the option of being able to steer the company towards travelling more environmentally friendly. She also expects that it will be possible in the future to compare travelling by train and air, not only to compare emissions, but also to see the difference in price and travel time. Erik Larsen at Amadeus believes that this is a natural part of the system’s development, but at present there are no reliable methods for achieving this. The reported impact that airlines have on the environment is only a stereotyped definition, which makes it difficult to state exactly how great the environmental impact each individual traveller has.
