CORPORATE CASE STUDY
Tony Silver, senior buyer, McNicholas REVOLUTIONISE BOOKINGS HOW TO...
With some 1,500 staff spread across the UK, this family-owned infra- structure service provider based in Elstree, Hertfordshire, knew there was a better way of booking travel other than the reactive system in place. What McNicholas did was to revolutionise travel for the company
T
ony Silver was keen to improve on a travel booking system where the average booker arranged travel just a day in advance.
However, two attempts at making changes
he knew would benefit the company – with two large TMCs – were thwarted, as Tony explains. “With a large TMC the software is geared up to the top ten clients. The TMCs were not able to adapt their systems to fit us, we had to adapt to fit them,” he explains. “All we wanted was a system that was as easy to use as when a booker makes their own personal holiday arrangements.” Read on to discover
Tony Silver, Senior Buyer, McNicholas
Tony has been in the procurement
business for nine
years, fi ve of which have been at McNicholas, a
specialist in utilities, communications,
renewables and the rail market. Here he
works across several different categories and brands within the consumer electronics and construction
industries. He has a passion for saving money, building
relationships and improving
effi ciencies around the business. He holds a Business
Degree from Oxford Brookes University.
STEP 1
McNicholas’ 1,500 staff previously made their own travel bookings and the company had approximately 100 purchase cards in circulation. Bookers would search for the best deal to suit their needs online, then email the booking over and receive a fax confirmation, then reconcile it in an Excel document. The small
“We never got to trial the previous systems. TMCs didn’t really want to go down that route, so we learnt from that,” says Silver. He created a project team – himself and
colleagues Natalie Bosher (executive PA) and Susannah Sharples (cost manager) – to trial systems from two potential suppliers. They decided that Click Travel was the better fit, not least because their system had been developed in-house. McNicholas was particularly impressed by
the rich content offering on Click’s portal, called Travel Cloud, which did not rely exclusively on GDS content. “Click’s live content is amazing,” says Silver.
how McNicholas achieved exactly this.
amount of air travel that was being booked was made via public sites. There was no management information, nor negotiated rates or preferred deals in place.
STEP 2
Travel Cloud includes live availability from
the likes of
laterooms.com, HRS, booking. com, Premier Inn, Travelodge, Aer Lingus, and easyJet, for example. “It’s also a single solution, so you sign in
once and every booking type can be made within the exact same system without sending you to a third party solution,” explains Silver. There are a minimal number of screens to make a booking and because it’s so easy to use adoption has been really high.
“With a large TMC the software is geared up to the top ten clients. The TMCs were not able to adapt their systems to fi t us – we had to adapt to fi t them”
06 THE BUSINESS TRAVEL MAGAZINE
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