Designing a Strategic Travel Program May 22, 2008 Ginger Monahan

My Background Worked in Procurement for 12 years handling Global Travel Program, Global IT & Telecomm, Company Car Fleet, Marketing, Human Resources, Finance, Public Relations Past 4 years responsible for Global Travel Program – selecting once TMC, implementation, outsourcing of program

Know Your Current Travel Program  What is your current program? In house, outsourced, one TMC, several TMC’s, no program at all?  What is your objective? Where do you see the program once implemented?  What is your spend? TMC’s look at this, helps with contract negotiations

Know Your Current Travel Program  Do you have a T&E Card Program? Are you expecting your employees to pay themselves?  Do you have current policies Travel and Travel & Expense  Remember cultural differences Global, regional, country

Starting a Strategic Travel Program  Senior Management Support  Market the concept  Establish a Travel Council  Establish a Travel Team with regional or business unit managers  Establish Travel Focus Groups – the day to day users  Define Roles and Responsibilities

Select a Travel Management Company  What to look for~ Cultural fit Global – TMC or partnerships What size of customer will you be? Automated tools, technology Reports Implementation plan References Price!!

Implementation  Detailed timeline, dates and responsibilities  Buy in from everyone Make sure you have resources available  Consider a phased approach

On-going Communication is Important  Yearly meetings with the Travel Council  Monthly meetings with the Travel Team  Quarterly meeting with the Focus Groups  Monthly newsletters to the traveler  Set up an internal travel website

Using the data to your benefit  Able to negotiate better Airline contracts Hotel contracts Rental Car contracts Rail contracts

Success!  Use data to demonstrate programs success  Survey the users  “No news is good news”

Questions??