“We're showing those that use the tool what we’ve achieved and saying,


‘aren’t we doing well?’. We make the data reports available on the intranet and send private messages to any remaining maverick travellers“


travellers (Egencia allows a group of up to six people); to hold flights and prices; that could book a different class of travel for different legs of the flight; that could build in exceptions to policy such as an academic with external funding able to fly business class; with a separate invoice system for train bookings; with a user friendly look and feel; and a streamlined customer service with the offline team. “There were lots of negative experiences


and we went through them one by one, ticking them off as a ‘can do’ with the Egencia booking tool. There was a fantastic atmosphere in the room as they realised that, ’Oh my goodness, this is going to solve everything for us.’ It was brilliant,“ says Kipling.


Step 3 Any residue cynicism and scepticism


was dealt with by face-to-face training, which began immediately. “We had to persuade the end users and bookers,” says Kipling. Egencia gave step-by-step lessons with the aid of a projector. The booking process is not dissimilar to booking travel on sister company Expedia’s website so there was speedy take-up and no resistance to the change. The training sessions were augmented by collateral such as welcome packs and simple user guides. All bookers were monitored three months into the trial.


Step 4 Egencia began the trial at the School


in October 2009 with £600,000 of the £1million spend they were able to capture. Lack of good management information hampered the exercise, partly because the University won’t mandate suppliers. Nonetheless, employees of the Business School were such a receptive audience that it was a “good solid start” in the words of Karen Jones, key accounts corporate sales manager at Egencia. “Because we own our own booking tool we were able to bespoke the website, building in everything the client wanted, from pre-trip approval, single sign-in, invoicing processes and one telephone number for everything. The same team for offline bookings as well as online help, and one telephone number for assistance,” explains Jones. “Egencia has the name and buying power of the Expedia brands behind it.” The travel policy is embedded in the tool. An added incentive to toe the line is the caveat that any offline booking triggers a higher transaction fee. Other policy features are a hotel budget


structure, such as sign-off in each school by the travel manager. Further ‘glue’ is the single customer service team and one online tool. “The portal and the customer service team is


so good that I can take a back seat,” says the MBS' Kipling. One of the new adopters is MBS Worldwide. “I haven’t heard from them at all and they’ve been online with it for a month,” says Kipling.


Step 7 Multiple suppliers in the University, each with a small slice of the pie, muddied the water so a tender process began in May 2010 to find a supplier that could take the University forward with a new, tighter travel policy, expenses process and a single online travel procurement portal. After all the hard work they put into the trials, Egencia won the bid across the total University of Manchester travel programme in August 2010.


of £100 across the UK, rising to £130-150 in London. “The biggest thing we changed during the pilot was the number of approvers linked to the account code,” says MBS' Kipling. “There were four lots of people getting travel approved and streamlining little things like that can make such a difference. It lowers the frustration level of the users. Because Egencia own their own tool, they can design it and tweak it and do whatever we ask for.”


Step 5 Has it all been worth it? High online adoption has been achieved: 82 per cent for air; 97 per cent for train; and 88 per cent for hotel, which has also led to greatly reduced agency fees. In addition, the behaviour change they were aiming for, has been achieved. For example,


“With the first quarter’s data we looked at non-compliant travellers and there’s been a dramatic decrease in their number“


advance ticket purchase is now


at 25 days for airline purchases, triggering reduced ticket prices.


Step 6 The University rolled


out the booking tool to a couple more schools in December. “It’s a slow process,” explains Egencia’s Jones, “but we’re starting with the most enthusiastic as we need to change buying behaviour. “


One thing that has to be eradicated is booking a train journey on the day of travel. Any travel booked less than 14 days before travel is now classed as out of policy. As the rollout continues into 2011, different policies of the different schools will be uploaded with the common thread of policy


Step 8 From a position of wondering whether to try another trial, the University is now in a very strong position as a buyer. MBS has a year’s worth of data and each quarter has allowed them to tackle issues that were frustrating procurement. “With the first quarter’s data we looked at non-compliant travellers, for example” says Kipling, ”and there’s been a dramatic decrease in their number.” Quarterly meetings with the Egencia account manager review all fresh and cumulative management information to see if they can leverage spend with suppliers. High on the agenda is to create a list of preferred suppliers, strike corporate deals with hotels and airlines and join loyalty schemes where they can accrue useful corporate benefits. Egencia will negotiate these on the University’s behalf. What’s next? “It’s very much a continuation of communication to show people using the tool for a year what we’ve achieved and say, ‘aren’t we doing well?’,” says Kipling. “We make all the data reports available on the intranet, and we send private messages to any remaining maverick travellers.” Kipling’s advice to anyone starting out on a project like this is: to collect together someone from every level of the process from the beginning; ask them all what they’d like at each stage of the process; organise dedicated support during the implementation and a dedicated person for the first few months after the pilot; and ensure the travel policy is being adhered to from the top and compliance will trickle down through the ranks. “Ultimately, have a clear picture of what you want,” concludes Kipling.


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