As a customer acquisition and market expansion strategy, business travel helps your company sustain profitable growth. However, the complex nature of global travel management will make it challenging for your business to accomplish growth targets.
The services and solutions provided by a travel management company help you streamline this distinct business process. The travel management company allows employees to plan business trips, create business travel itineraries, and make business travel arrangements.
At the same time, it ensures that employees get the information and support required to mitigate potential business travel risks. Your organization can use the travel management company to optimize business travel expenses in several ways.
While outsourcing global travel management, you should understand how the travel management company reduces the average business trip costs. Also, you should use some strategies to optimize business travel expenses using the company.
11 Strategies for Optimizing Business Travel Expenses Using a Travel Management Company
Update Existing Policies
A travel management company has expertise in managing domestic and international business travel for enterprises across industries. You must work with the company to review and update your travel and expense (T&E) policies.
The company will help you control travel costs by recommending best practices. Also, it will find cost optimization opportunities by evaluating rules and guidelines according to prevailing industry standards.
Enforce Pre-Trip Approvals
Employees often cancel or reschedule bookings when they start business travel booking without getting the required approval. The cancellation and rescheduling escalate your company’s overall business travel spending.
You should instruct the travel management company to book business trips only after an employee’s business travel request is duly approved. However, you must ensure that each employee sends business travel requests to the appropriate authority with clarity and speed.
Centralize Business Travel Booking
Your organization can reduce business travel costs by centralizing business travel bookings. The strategy requires you to make the travel management company make business travel arrangements for employees. The company will save money by booking only in-policy travel policies early.
Also, it will avoid cancellation fees by booking fully flexible tickets and refundable hotel rooms. Additionally, the company will control booking costs by getting negotiated rates and leveraging the best deals provided by travel suppliers.
Make Personalized Recommendations
Most work travelers these days love to receive personalized recommendations. You can boost employee experience by making the travel management company recommend the best-suited flights, accommodations, and car rentals.
The company will pick and recommend travel products to an employee by considering his travel choices and analyzing his booking history. The personalized recommendations will help your company control costs by reducing booking options.
Get Corporate Rates and Discounts
Most travel suppliers get repeat business by offering corporate rates and discounts to large companies. Leading travel management companies negotiate with multiple suppliers to make travel products available at off-market rates.
The strategy will enable your employees to save money by booking flights and hotels at less than market rates. Your company can leverage this travel expense optimization strategy by using a company with extensive supplier networks and relationships.
Mitigate Business Travel Risks
Work travelers incur additional expenses to overcome travel challenges and mitigate travel risks. Your organization can save money by making the travel management company mitigate business travel risks. Leading companies help travelers mitigate business travel risks in several ways.
They mitigate travel risks by sharing destination information and best practices with employees. Also, they enable employees to get the required support by contacting a skilled travel consultant whenever needed. However, the strategy requires you to work with a company that provides 24/7 travel support.
Meet Duty of Care Obligations
Duty of care is an essential aspect of global travel management. The legal responsibility makes it mandatory for your business to ensure the safety and security of employees engaging in business travel.
Your company has to invest in duty-of-care resources to provide emergency assistance to employees across destinations. But you can save money using a travel management company that provides emergency assistance to work travelers by partnering with global health and security risk management firms.
Get Real-Time Expense Visibility
Most travel management companies provide consolidated expense reports to customers. The consolidated statements help you speed up travel expense reimbursements. But you can only optimize costs by getting real-time travel spending visibility.
Leading travel management companies these days provide integrated travel and expense management software. The software facilitates real-time travel expense tracking by featuring a dashboard. The dashboard enables you to make informed financial decisions by getting real-time spending visibility.
Generate Custom Reports
It becomes easier for you to analyze and understand travel expenses when the travel management company shares custom reports. You should instruct the company to generate and share custom reports regularly.
However, you must boost the strategy by defining the criteria and parameters based on which the reports will be generated. Also, you should set a schedule for generating reports using the latest T&E data.
Gain Actionable Insights
Advanced data analytics tools help you make sense of the T&E data. The tools analyze large volumes of T&E data efficiently and regularly. Also, they share actionable insights gained by studying real-time data. The data-driven insights help you curtail unproductive travel expenses and find cost-control opportunities.
However, you can leverage analytics when organizational T&E data are stored regularly and digitally in a centralized location. You should ask the travel management company to keep and update T&E data regularly. Also, the company should use data management tools featuring advanced analytics.
Make Employees Save
It becomes easier for your organization to optimize business travel expenses when employees make cost-conscious decisions. You can use the travel management company to encourage employees to control costs by providing training. Also, the company can run incentive programs that will make employees save money without feeling unmotivated.
Conclusion
A travel management company helps your company streamline domestic and global travel management. The services, tech solutions, information, and assistance provided by the company support your employees accomplish business travel goals.
At the same time, the company helps your organization increase the ROI of business travel by controlling costs. Furthermore, you can use several strategies to use the travel management company to optimize business travel expenses.