Almost every business decision made, including by procurement managers, aims to save money and help keep the company’s bottom line strong. Procurement managers, in particular, should take advantage of a few key strategies to save on corporate travel with savvy corporate airfare procurement and other strategies.
Acknowledge That the “Average” Corporate Traveler Changes Over Time
As you try to optimize your corporate airfare procurement, remember that today’s corporate travelers are different from those of decades past. Millennial travelers make up a significant amount of business travelers, and they have different priorities. For example, they typically want to incorporate some leisure into their business trips.
Keeping the needs of your corporate travelers in mind will save money via employee satisfaction. After all, your employees are more likely to volunteer for business trips or accept travel assignments if they are happy with their travel experiences. They are also more likely to stay with your company.
Create Systems and Policies for the Travel Program
As with any other part of your company’s operations, it is important to create systems, workflows, and policies for the corporate travel program. Systemization makes the process more efficient, as you will have set workflows for everything from booking and approvals to risk management and expense processes. That increased efficiency translates into cost savings, as fewer labor hours are required to complete the same task.
Systemization also makes it much easier to onboard new staff to your travel procurement team. Training them becomes easier, as you can simply outline your systems. It also allows for easier access to insights that can lead to business travel cost savings. That comes from the fact that you will have easy points of comparison between bookings and other actions.
On top of that, creating a system also helps ensure that you meet risk management standards and duty of care obligations. Simply work them into your systems, and you will always follow the relevant standards.
Frequently Reevaluate Policies
Once you create policies and systems for your travel program, don’t just leave them in place. Savvy corporate airfare procurement strategies involve constantly looking at data and technological developments to see where there is room for improvement. This may mean adopting new technology into your processes or changing policies to meet the preferences of your new corporate travelers.
Be Active With Travel Management— Consider TMCs
While delegating is important, the decision-makers in a company should at least have some involvement in travel management. Senior management has to interact with travel procurement managers at least occasionally so they can understand the issues they are facing. If the company uses a travel management company, senior management needs to interact with them or at least read reports from them.
Take Advantage of TMCs
Even if there is already someone in the company responsible for travel procurement, working with a travel management company (TMC) can be a savvy decision. The internal procurement manager can serve as the liaison, ensuring that senior management is up to date with developments and advice from the TMC.
But at the same time, you get the advantages of working with a TMC, such as:
- Support in Supplier Negotiations: As with any other business-to-business interaction, supplier negotiations offer a significant opportunity for cost savings. TMCs have the experience necessary to help you negotiate a good contract. They can leverage your traffic volume to get good deals or leverage their own volume if your company doesn’t have enough.
- Support for Travel Policies: TMCs can also use their experience to help you manage and adjust your travel policies, not just for cost savings. This can also help with employee happiness and overall efficiency.
- Access to Pricing: The connections of TMCs typically mean that they have access to the best pricing for corporate travel. This has the obvious advantage of letting you save money on that travel.
- Unused Ticket Tracking: Any company with corporate travel will have unused tickets at some point. If you don’t take advantage of these, you are letting a significant amount of money go down the drain. TMCs can track them and use them for you.
