Tag: Procurement

Why business travel remains important in 2022

As Covid-19 brought the world to a standstill, one industry was struck the harder than the rest: business travel. For months upon months, many businesses were forced to press pause on all but the most essential travel.     Shows and exhibitions went virtual, meetings were held on Zoom, and it’s fair to say that a personal human touch was lost. This was especially challenging for workers in jobs that require a physical presence – from the construction sector through to the road-heavy workforce.  But as we find our feet in the new normal and try to get back to where we once left off, it’s clear that things have changed. And while virtual and online contact has risen to the challenge, there are some situations where face-to-face contact is essential. This is why business travel must once again be prioritised, for ourselves, for our businesses, and for the economy. Let’s take a closer look.    Face-to-face contact  We can say with some ease that there’s no compensation for face-to-face contact when it comes to getting business done. A Harvard report on business found that in-person requests were 34 times more successful than those by email. As sociable creatures, human interaction and relationship building is integral to the way we communicate and operate.  Take this away, and all you’re left with is a perfunctory process.   If you want to cut that deal, get that contract, or galvanise a team, you’re best bet is to be there in person.    Missed opportunities  Some jobs are not desk-based. This was seen during the pandemic, when roughly only a quarter of people were able to work from home. For those out in the field, such as the construction sector, it highlighted the importance of business travel for their roles. As the industry bounces back, so must investment in business travel, and this includes removing any of the barriers to achieve it.  New procedures and procurement measures adopted during the pandemic have had a knock-on effect on this, making sign-off slow and challenging. In some cases, business trips have been replaced by online meetings, or cancelled altogether. Travel managers have their role to play, as we pivot once again. Introducing an online travel booking system, and having a corporate policy book can certainly help get business travel back on track.   Because as we know, missing business travel is a missed opportunity. Whether attending a trade show, meeting a client, or attending on-site builds, not being present means missed opportunities.    For the economy  Let’s not underestimate the benefits of business tourism to the country either. Looking at the statistics from the World Travel & Tourism Council, business travel experienced a loss of 60% in 2020, and recovery since has been slow. Even though there are positive signs of growth and consumer confidence returns, forecasts still expect growth to be up just 34% this year. And worldwide the loss is immense, with the economy losing $810.7 billion due to the pandemic.  All this has a huge knock-on effect on the way we do business, both with inbound and local business travel playing its role. As we know, without a buoyant economy, businesses are forced to make difficult decisions. In short, investment in travel is essential in order for recovery and growth.    Talent recruitment  Over the past few years, the pendulum has swung in favour of the professional, making it a candidate-bias market. This means that companies have to work even harder to recruit and keep good talent.  Considering that business travel is widely considered as a perk, along with bleisure travel, then budgets need to be allocated accordingly. Roughly a third of millennial and Gen Z professionals wouldn’t accept a job unless business travel is involved.    In-person experience  As a final thought – and as the saying goes travel broadens the mind. And this is certainly true in business too. It enriches us with new experiences, and gives us the first-hand experience to appreciate how other teams operate and the challenges they face. Furthermore, it also offers us a new and refreshing perspective on matters, that no virtual meeting could ever replicate. Perhaps, this might be the richest of all benefits of travelling for work.    Roomex is one of the leading online travel platforms equipping businesses with the tools they need for business success. 

One tool streamlines the inevitable month end rush for Finance Teams

We’re all looking to run leaner businesses, and the digital world has created opportunities for us to do so – through tools and programmes that bring more clarity into operations. You’re able to use data to measure nearly every part of your business which leads to more informed decisions. The caveat is, sometimes we’re faced with too much information, coming from many different sources – that it can take more time to interpret it, that the costs can outweigh the benefits. That’s exactly what it’s like at the end of every month in the finance department. The biggest issue typically is getting information fast, from multiple departments, particularly business travel expenses.

Why business travel management agencies cost you in more ways than one

Business travel management is a lot like riding a bicycle. When you figure out how to do it right, you’ll never need a refresher; but until then, you’ll need stabilisers. Perhaps that’s why business travel management agencies have become so popular in industries like construction, where specialised workforces and competing deadlines fuel Excel-filled nightmares. Handing off the nitty-gritty of it all to someone else? Sometimes, it doesn’t sound like that bad of an idea. Agencies say they’ll book the business hotels and enforce the travel and expense policies down to a tee, but is handing it all off to them the right thing to do? We’ll put it another way for you: would you ride your bike down a hill without holding on to the handle bars? The disadvantages to outsourcing business travel management When you hand over control of your business travel management programme to an agency, it’s for good reason at the outset. Cost savings, policy enforcement and better quality business hotel bookings right? But there’s more to it than meets the eye. Let’s start with the savings; the holy grail of outsourcing. Agencies spend the time gathering the deals and pass on the savings to their clients, but that’s not what happens behind the scenes. First and foremost, the organisations aren’t always able to get deals in the locations clients need. The misstep results in costs that are on par with what you would’ve paid beforehand, except you’re coughing up for their outsourcing fee on top of it. Agencies don’t always get the best deals and all too often, they’ll get the same deals you have available to yourself. While you get the cost of your time back, it doesn’t really make it a viable option for saving money. While outsourcing business travel management will lead to a much higher percentage of travel and expense policy enforcement, there’s a cost to this as well. Large companies in industries like construction, where projects and priorities can change swiftly, will find that they can’t make adjustments to the policy on a wide scale. As we all know, some periods are busier than others or offer a windfall of greater cash flow. Having a static policy can mean missed opportunities in terms of savings or getting workers better rooms and locations. Last but certainly not least in the minds of your workforce is the quality of the rooms that are being booked. Are they in the right location? Does the service account for feedback from workforce travel? Saving money and enforcing policies is all good and well until senior leadership is upset and employee morale is freefalling. The advantages to bringing business travel management back in-house Business travel management doesn’t have to be on a scale that balances crippling stress and outsourcing; there’s a middle ground. Business hotel booking platforms are one of the ways that travel bookers are taking back control of the process. All-in-one business hotel booking platforms like Roomex let companies search, book and manage their workforce travel accommodations with ease. It’s all the power of an agency from a web browser. Most importantly, it brings together the best rates on over 1.2 million hotels globally to help organisations save up to 21 percent on hotel bookings. Control isn’t overlooked either. Travel bookers are able to set and enforce travel and expense policies and gather real-time reports on spend, which allows them to adjust the criteria on the fly to maximise the value the programme brings to the business. The quality of the hotel rooms that are being booked can’t be forgotten because at the end of the day, it’s the employees who benefit from great workforce travel. With over 1.2 million hotels available at the click of a button, travel bookers have no issues finding the best room in the right location at the lowest rate. While companies may lose the ability to hand work off to business travel management agencies if they stop working with them, that loss if offset by a windfall of benefits. Greater control over the process, better quality rooms and savings that can be felt on the bottom-line. How could you say no? Are you looking to streamline your company’s business travel management? Get in touch with one of our experts today to learn how Roomex can help. 

9 tips to effectively managing your mobile workforce

The workforce is the single most important asset any business has and of course, it’s often the most expensive, but that shouldn’t mean eating unnecessary costs especially when it comes to business travel. CFOs shouldn’t take overspend or a lack of productivity for your travelling workforce as a given as there are many ways to influence productivity while still keeping costs low here are nine of them!

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5 ways for CFOs to reduce business travel costs

Managing company-wide spending on business travel is tricky as there are so many factors to account for least of all staffers who may like to splurge. Without a regimented programme in place, gaining visibility into where that spending goes is nearly impossible. Still, that doesn’t mean the CFO is off the hook. The average day of travel will run at a cost of £117 per person and accommodation accounts for roughly half of that total, according to Budget Your Trip. When you’re sending a single employee to one or two conferences each year, that’s not a scary number; it’s when you have multiple team members who are regularly on the road that it begins to take its toll. A lack of transparency, poor policy engagement and non-existent innovation can drain the coffers in a business travel management programme, leaving the finance department empty handed. Here are five ways CFOs can flip the switch and start reducing those costs once and for all. 1. Make KPIs a sticking point Yes more metrics to track but we promise it works! While a travel booker will do the actual booking, their actions directly impact the business financial viability. If they don’t have an excellent understanding of the cost of every decision they make, it’s more difficult to curtail spending. Set and follow Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) on a quarterly, bi-annual and yearly basis. While this on its own won’t help a company reduce business travel costs, it can highlight some of the worst offenders of overspending. KPIs that every team should be monitoring include: Transactional costs (hotel bookings, flights, food, etc.). Travel volume by individuals, roles and departments. Realised and expected savings through negotiated and dynamic pricing on hotel stays. The rates in which spending is within or overextends predetermined guidelines. Develop agreed upon thresholds in terms of where these numbers should fall and hold team members accountable for meeting them. Project manager Jim might think the extra coffee money he’s spending onsite isn’t really hurting the budget, but if every employee takes that approach, the pounds quickly stack! 2. Foster a culture of travel engagement Company culture is the buzz term of the year for HR, but it’s also just as valuable for finance. One of the main culprits of business travel overspending is people simply not following policy. It’s the result of a number of issues, all of which can be solved. These include: General lack of employee engagement across the board. Poor duty of care. Unrealistic travel arrangements. Substandard accommodation. Complicated travel processes and policies. By devoting a portion of management’s time to solving these problems as best it can, employees will reciprocate by following the policies more closely. Create a beneficial travel experience for your team members and watch the savings start to pile up. 3. Regularly review business travel experiences Business travel doesn’t have to be a one-way transaction. Travel bookers and CFOs alike should regularly collaborate with one another to figure out how they can innovate and create a better travel programme. Much of the feedback should come from employees who have recently travelled. Interview them to understand what they liked or didn’t like about the experience and what potentially led to overspending. All of this should feed into a board-approved business travel programme that is built for compliance and designed to be a cost-effective solution. 4. Get the whole picture on spending In the wrong hands, business travel can be mired in hidden costs. Many travel bookers will do it manually: they’ll go online and compare prices on booking websites many of which are for leisure travel and they’ll end up booking a stay that isn’t appropriate or shelling out extra. Other companies will use an agency or they’ll fall into the trap of paying consumer rates, rather than benefitting from negotiated or dynamic pricing models. It’s a common practice but it can have a negative impact on finances as a business hotel booking platform will give users greater visibility over their plans. A specialised business hotel booking platform takes the sting out of the task as it searches hotel prices for you to give you the best options for your team. Plus, the system can be key to avoiding hidden costs that might crop up in unfamiliar hotels for example having to pay extra for parking or Wi-Fi. These platforms are built to make booking hotels simpler and many give increased visibility over expenses and spending as it can be tracked from an integrated dashboard which is music to any CFO’s ears. For example, companies booking in the last quarter saved 1.17m with Roomex’s business hotel booking platform, so it’s absolutely worth investigating. 5. Bring analytics into the fold Time equals money and many haphazard booking strategies or disorganised spending policies can contribute to generally inefficient spending. Use a business hotel booking platform to align multiple teams under one umbrella and apply an analytical view to how they operate. By centralising the booking process, organisations gain real-time visibility into their spending and can efficiently make impactful changes. It’s time to get your company’s business travel finances back in the black by leaning on digital tools that make everyone’s job easier. Are you looking to streamline your company’s business hotel bookings? Get in touch with one of our experts today to learn how Roomex can help.

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How the smart CFO saves time and money on travel expense management

Talking on a phone won’t fix a problem onsite and a video conference can’t convey or capture the emotional presence that wins over big deals. They’re only two of the reasons that business travel is alive and well. In the meantime, CFOs have been tasked with making sure there’s enough funding available to make it all happen. But the business travel ecosystem doesn’t always get along with the finance team. There’s a wide array of third parties, bookers and credit card payments that feed into a manual expense system that’s often sorely in need of automation. Transparency over spending isn’t always a given, which only leads to bloated budgets and a collective departmental headache. Travel expense management can’t be ignored in the increasingly mobile world and remote employees aren’t going anyway anytime soon, leaving it up to the CFO to create full visibility over spending. The question, however, is how?

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