Business travel can be like a double-edged sword for growing companies, on the one hand it is necessary to have employees like sales and marketing executives traveling (sometimes at a moment’s notice) to develop new business and increase overall revenue, but on the other, rising travel demand can quickly lead to compounding travel costs that cut deeply into the bottom line.
To help get a handle on how your business travel management costs are going, take a look at these four key areas and see if there is room for improvement:
Address “Leakage.â€
Leakage in travel management refers to when employees purchase travel outside of their company’s pre-set travel policy, often with their own credit cards and expensing the cost to the company at a later date. This is problematic for many reasons, but the cause as to why it is happening can be illuminating. The first step towards a better understanding of your travel expense starts with leakage issues and finding out what causes them to happen. Is there a miscommunication in the travel policy? Is the pre-approval process too long? Is the booking system confusing and frustrating for employees? Getting to the bottom of these issues is a great first step.
Set long-term spending goals and draw conclusions from the data.
In order to get an accurate idea of how your travel expenses are going, you need to have data on where the spend is happening. That’s why leakage can be such a problem, because it takes those “out-of-network†trips off of the overall data sheet. By compiling lists of vendors used, you can more easily compare rates and look into long-term savings and rewards plans that can help save money. But remember for data analysis to be useful, employees need to comply with the travel plan.
Use savings and reward plans to combat employee burnout.
A great way to save costs on turnover and improve morale is to pay attention to “road warriors†who do the most business travel, and look for ways to reward them for their hard work. Whether it’s through hotel programs where they get free suite upgrades, or even restaurant coupons or ground travel comps, use what you have available to show that you value their effort.
Have “Duty of Care†plans in place for emergencies, where employees are tracked and can be immediately extracted from hazardous locations.
It’s a terrible reality, but in today’s day there’s just no excuse for not being prepared for a worst-case travel scenario. The only way to make sure you are protecting your employees’ lives and yourself from liability is to make sure you have a comprehensive “Duty of Care†policy in place that ensures disaster coverage in the case of a catastrophic event.
DPV Transportation Worldwide is a luxury ground transportation specialist that takes extra precautions when it comes to “Duty of Care†for business travelers. We have a full disaster recovery program that monitors all employees who are out in the field, and if an event were to occur where they needed to be moved, we have an emergency extraction program that utilizes our vast network of suppliers to quickly move all employees out of harm’s way.
There isn’t anywhere in the world our partners cannot reach, so clients can rest assured that employees are provided with the best and safest possible ground service offered. Our employees are expert in corporate group transportation and event travel management worldwide, and have experience in luxury business chauffeuring in over 500 cities around the globe.
