Corporate travel management has become an imperative element of every business. Companies must tap global opportunities to remain competitive and achieve their ambitious growth targets. Further, networking with like-minded international partners is necessary to reach a global presence. Consequently, the executives of the company must travel constantly. However, making travel plans for your executives can be hassling and time-consuming task. Finding the best deal can be a considerable challenge with so many routes and air travel options. Organizing employees’ travel itineraries is another central area of concern. The biggest challenge is keeping corporate travel costs under control.
Modern business travelers expect a smooth, easy self-booking process and wider travel options. On the other hand companies look to minimize costs and boost the ROI of corporate travel. The best way of achieving a near-perfect global corporate travel management strategy is to work with modern travel management companies using advanced booking platforms like Paxes. Further, these TMCs also employ customized travel policies for the aid of business travelers and corporations.
Common issues with global corporate travel management
When your organization is not using a well-planned travel management process, your business travel goals will likely not be fully realized. Some of the commonly seen problems with corporate travel management are:
- Booking international travel requires endless follow-ups that affect productivity and make employees lose focus
- The travel management team is often overworked due to different time zones. They feel frustrated handling booking requests, flight changes, cancellations, and other travel-related aspects
- The finance team has to be on its toes tracking money spent on trips due to change in currency
- The management has to ensure that executives operate within the travel policy while being productive
- Abiding by different rules of various country can be a typical challenge
What drives modern travel management
- Trust travelers to follow and TMCs to maintain the approved process and corporate travel policy
- Bring transparency to the process. Allow executives to know what they can spend on and ensure compliance
- Keep it simple. Create a strategy and find the TMC that works smoothly and meets everyone’s needs
- Measure the impact of business travel regularly. Check how it affects the company’s budget. Reduce unnecessary trips and unwanted expenses with suggestions of TMCs and their analysis
With these four steps, you can put away that manual, complicated booking process, back-and-forth calls and emails, and reports. Most importantly, you can say put a permanent end to the confusion.
Five steps to effective global business travel management
1. Choose efficient travel management company
Finding the right corporate travel management company for your corporation can be a typical task. However, the best agencies try to keep every process simple from travel booking to calculating finance. They provide informed round the clock assistance. Further the agency should be using a self booking platform and other travel management softwares. However, these systems must be simple to understand and operate too.
Some of the key features to look in TMCs are:
- Self-booking platform within your travel policy
- Accurate invoicing
- Travel spend reporting
- Ease of booking process
- Cost Savings
Many travel managers have a lot on their hands which can interfere with efficiency. It is essential to have a travel partner who can step in at the first sign of a problem.
Must Read: Top Benefits Of Corporate Travel Management Companies
2. Create clear approval workflows
Automating your travel policy creates numerous benefits for your executives and managers. Further, the delegation of the policy compliance to TMCs saves crucial time of the organization. When setting up approval workflows, you can have different options based on your business goals. You can ask the TMCs to set up a no-approval policy or ensure trip approvals based on various factors.
3. Generate travel expenditure reports
Effective travel management is not only about smooth and convenient booking. It also takes into account expense management. Corporates should allow collaboration of TMCs with their finance and operations teams to ensure that travel spend reporting is not only accurate but insightful.
Further, organizations should ensure all trips are reflected in the reporting tool shared between the TMC and corporate. The tools should also be capable of generating accurate reports to help the finance team classify trends and opportunities for optimizing travel budgets.
4. Improve collaboration among concerned parties
A key aspect of modern travel management is that it serves the needs of the corporate as a whole and not just specific areas. It equips traveling executives with stellar support and saves valuable time for administrators. It also chips in with support and assistance for the finance team by streamlining the approval process and providing easy access to invoices from TMCs.
The finance team must be able to track spending instantly and consolidate everything in one place. This will make tracking and checking easy and help generate reports quickly.
5. Achieve cost savings on trips
Travel management is not just about fixing travel-related issues and saving time. It is also about reducing costs to the company. Many businesses still use booking platforms from the 90s. If you figure among them, now is the time to change and adopt the latest and most efficient corporate travel management platform. Paxes is one of the best and among the most trusted in this domain. It is a SaaS-based platform designed to serve the corporate travel needs of companies of all types and sizes.
If your organization is not updated with the modern ways of global corporate travel management, this is the right time to make that upgrade. You can save your organization lots of time, effort, and money by choosing the most innovative booking tool available. Further, efficient travel management will reduce the burden of travel support on your managers, and create practical policies and approval workflows that are easy to implement and manage.
Global Corporate Travel Management FAQs
What are the major problems in global corporate travel?
Employees need to go through different processes, such as applications, approvals, and reimbursements, which creates hassle in the workflow. Secondly, the managers find difficulty in tracking the expenses of employees traveling for business.
How can we improve travel management for business travel?
TMCs as well as corporations should enforce travel regulations and policies for employees to follow. New travel management applications and platforms also help to track and limit unwanted expenses and costs, thus making business travel efficient.
What should an effective travel management platform have?
A good travel management platform should have features such as easy access to the inventory of travel products, an enabled self-booking tool, expense reporting, and adequate support services.
How do TMCs help in modern travel management?
TMCs make a significant contribution to streamlining corporate travel activity and processes. TMCs should opt for the latest software and platforms for easing the process and tracking activity, as it creates a hassle-free process for the TMCs as well as the corporate organizations.
Why is it important to measure the impact of business travel?
It is necessary to measure the impact of business travel, as it helps corporations to compare the costs of business travel to actual revenue or lead generation. This helps corporates understand how to manage their expenses and invest in these activities efficiently.
