“I see a revival of billback because corporate companies are feeling the pinch for internal resource and need to find the slickest and lowest cost end-to-end process to drive out as much cost internally as possible“
Step 2 Billback was set up immediately, thus relinquishing the time spent by one employee processing the invoices manually. “It was causing endless amounts of work for them,” says Inntel’s Dibble. “To get a copy of an invoice from Travelodge, for example, required downloading it from the hotel company’s website and printing it off. Imagine doing that multiple times,” she says. For those hotels not offering billback, Inntel has offered Inntel’s credit card for payment. Inntel then bills Hyder. “It’s saved them a huge amount of time,” says Dibble. As well as streamlining the process, billback has eliminated merchant fees for Hyder, estimated to represent a saving of around £12,000. Hyder’s Pullen adds: “I see
a revival of billback because corporate companies are feeling the pinch for internal resource and need to find the slickest and lowest cost end- to-end process to drive out as much cost internally as possible.” Inntel believes the general trend is for corporate clients to avoid hotels that cannot offer billback.
Step 3 By moving to Inntel, Hyder has been able to receive an electronic invoice fortnightly for all hotel spend. After liaising with Hyder’s IT department, Inntel takes a file feed daily from Hyder’s live projects in order to capture the traveller’s staff number and the project code, at time of booking and in real time. This process eliminates closed projects.
That electronic invoice arrives in an Excel
file format which can then be uploaded straight into Hyder’s accounting system for billing out to clients in a timely fashion. This includes low cost hotels such as Travelodge and Premier Inn. “This used to take days and now it takes about an hour,” says Pullen. “In doing this we can now reclaim 100 per cent of VAT,” she adds. Previously, Hyder was only able to claim
“We’ve shifted people just ten minutes away from our Victoria offices and it’s made all the difference”
between just 50 and 75 per cent of VAT paid.
Step 4 Hyder implemented Inntel’s internally-developed online booking tool for hotel bookings, and this was the next step for the new partnership. The tool is pre-populated with Hyder’s preferred hotels, and has already achieved high adoption levels of 92 per cent. Although user-friendly, Inntel
organised web training where necessary for the support staff that book travel for the engineers. “The system is very intuitive so requires very little training,” says Dibble.
Step 5 Hyder’s preferred hotel programme
has expanded, adding hotels where new projects have begun and, as a result, the company’s average hotel rate has reduced dramatically, from £98.00 to £86.00. The difference is even more marked in London where
the rate is down to £90 from £140 previously. “We’ve shifted people just ten minutes away
from our Victoria offices and it’s made all the difference,” says Pullen. “Inntel has been proactive in noticing new room nights in a certain area and taking the initiative to negotiate better rates.” Adds Dibble: ”We went through a rate exercise in London and added cheaper hotels in other areas of the city, such as Jury’s Inn in Islington, and made a good saving.”
Step 6 In spring 2011 Hyder acquired
Warrington-based bespoke bearings company ESR Technology. Inntel subsequently absorbed the extra travellers and their new business destinations, among them the Middle East and Aberdeen. “We’re delighted to have been able to work
with Hyder to meet their cost-saving and streamlining objectives and look forward to the next chapter with them as they continue to grow from strength to strength,” says Dibble. Looking to the future of her travel pro- gramme, Pullen is considering upgrading to Inntel’s new version of its conference booking tool, We Meet, across the company. More importantly, looking back at the last
12 months of bedding in a new supplier, she says: ”It’s really seamless and I don’t really hear from them at all, which is always a good sign.”
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