Learn about Prime Analytics and the online booking tool that provided a company with the spend insight and process efficiency they were previously lacking.
Challenge
A large financial services firm with rep-advisors located across the U.S. needed to gain visibility into their growing travel spend / patterns to identify cost savings opportunities and craft an effective travel policy that took into consideration their corporate culture of independence. They also wanted to implement a user-friendly corporate online booking tool with mobile capabilities that would save their travelers time when booking their trips and managing their itineraries. After years of allowing employees to book trips on leisure travel sites, coupled with an increase in the travel budget due to company growth, the company’s Project Team was tasked with choosing the best travel management partner to guide them in their pursuit of travel management that could provide both savings and preserve their corporate culture. When the process of engaging with qualified travel management companies and comparing capabilities and approaches culminated, Travel Leaders / Destinations Unlimited was chosen to design and manage their corporate travel program.
Solution
To improve the company’s travel spend visibility, Travel Leaders / Destinations Unlimited began analyzing their supplier spend through its Prime Analytics data reporting tool. Prime Analytics allows the company to benchmark its travel program against similar companies to provide a baseline reading of key performance metrics that the company can refer to when considering its own goals for those metrics. In real time, the company can look at “what-if” scenarios of what complete or partial achievement of a goal equates to in terms of savings. This is extremely helpful in finding the right balance between the needs of their travelers and those of the organization.
Furthermore, the tool provides best recommendations reporting, a sort of quick reference guide to the areas of their travel program where the most cost savings can be found. The other major component of this travel program was implementation of the online booking tool. The Travel Leaders / Destinations Unlimited certified booking tool administrator built the online tool to the company’s exact specifications and then provided an on-site training session for the company’s travelers. Satisfaction with the tool was high due to the training, customized set up of the tool and readily apparent time savings.
Results
Prime Analytics and the online booking tool have provided the company with the spend insight and process efficiency they were previously lacking. Prime analytics identified average savings of $204 per domestic airline ticket when booked more than 7 days out, which was communicated to their travelers. Now, travelers are booking 7+ day tickets 94% of the time, beating the benchmark of 73%. Furthermore, travelers are spending 88% less time booking their travel using the corporate booking tool, in contrast with before, when they booked their trips through leisure and supplier websites.