Talking business
The Southern Universities Purchasing Consortium
(SUPC) offers its 100-plus members “a wide range of collaborative purchase agreements covering most commodity areas”. To what extent is travel a “commodity”? I think when you are buying at a consortium level, it is a commodity. The challenge
Bob Papworth talks to Kathy Duffie, deputy head of procurement at the University of Exeter and chair of the Southern Universities Purchasing Consortium Travel Group
comes when you bring it down to the institutional level – it then becomes a much more personal thing. At the end of the day, our travellers want a journey that is most conducive to their needs, and they are not necessarily responsive to things like creative ticketing. This means we have to find other ways to maximise value out of our travel spend.
SUPC was originally established to buy
stationery. How does purchasing travel differ from buying other goods and services?
I suspect the biggest difference is that, where travel is concerned, there is very little consistent pricing. That can cause problems for us, because although we invest heavily in building relationships between ourselves and
universities and institutions. The type of travel and the size of spend will vary from one institution to another, so there is no one solution that fits all. For example, here at Exeter we have a global reach and significant air spend, but another university will have a massive rail spend, so how we manage travel here might not translate to another institution. That said, we are always willing to help and give advice.
The stereotypical
academic is seen as being somewhat other-worldly. Are they ‘good’ travellers? Yes, they are, in that they know what they want in terms of service, and the quality of that service. They are usually very well-informed about their destinations because they are seasoned travellers – if they are conducting research that can only be done in a particular country, for example, they will know that country really well. That means that when we are looking for companies to join our framework, they have to be very experienced as well as highly professional – there’s nothing worse than dealing with an agent who knows less about the destination than the traveller does.
Academics know what they want in terms of service, and they are usually very well-informed about their destinations
our agents, and the travellers themselves, when the traveller books through the agent and then subsequently finds the same ticket cheaper elsewhere, he or she will question whether the relationship with the agent is fit for purpose. Our travellers go absolutely everywhere, all the time, but we lack the means to collect the data that would give us forward visibility of their itineraries that would help us negotiate volume deals with suppliers. It’s very frustrating.
40
SUPC is primarily a procurement organisation. Do you also offer travel management advice to universities and colleges? We don’t offer a consultancy service as such, but if we find a particular process or solution that works for us, we are always willing to share that with other
With budgets under constant
scrutiny and pressure, cost containment is clearly crucial. Are your clients/travellers generally policy-compliant? That really comes down to an individual institution’s travel policy and whether it is mandated, but, in general terms, I would say they are very price-aware. You will always get loyalty scheme members using their favoured airlines to get the extra points, but as a rule our travellers understand the need to use preferred suppliers
Within your travel management/purchasing role, how important is traveller safety and security? It is very important, although it’s not my particular area of responsibility. At Exeter, all of
JANUARY/FEBRUARY 2014
Page 1 |
Page 2 |
Page 3 |
Page 4 |
Page 5 |
Page 6 |
Page 7 |
Page 8 |
Page 9 |
Page 10 |
Page 11 |
Page 12 |
Page 13 |
Page 14 |
Page 15 |
Page 16 |
Page 17 |
Page 18 |
Page 19 |
Page 20 |
Page 21 |
Page 22 |
Page 23 |
Page 24 |
Page 25 |
Page 26 |
Page 27 |
Page 28 |
Page 29 |
Page 30 |
Page 31 |
Page 32 |
Page 33 |
Page 34 |
Page 35 |
Page 36 |
Page 37 |
Page 38 |
Page 39 |
Page 40 |
Page 41 |
Page 42 |
Page 43 |
Page 44 |
Page 45 |
Page 46 |
Page 47 |
Page 48 |
Page 49 |
Page 50 |
Page 51 |
Page 52 |
Page 53 |
Page 54 |
Page 55 |
Page 56 |
Page 57 |
Page 58 |
Page 59 |
Page 60 |
Page 61 |
Page 62 |
Page 63 |
Page 64 |
Page 65 |
Page 66 |
Page 67 |
Page 68 |
Page 69 |
Page 70 |
Page 71 |
Page 72 |
Page 73 |
Page 74 |
Page 75 |
Page 76 |
Page 77 |
Page 78 |
Page 79 |
Page 80 |
Page 81 |
Page 82 |
Page 83 |
Page 84 |
Page 85 |
Page 86 |
Page 87 |
Page 88 |
Page 89 |
Page 90 |
Page 91 |
Page 92 |
Page 93 |
Page 94 |
Page 95 |
Page 96 |
Page 97 |
Page 98 |
Page 99 |
Page 100 |
Page 101 |
Page 102 |
Page 103 |
Page 104 |
Page 105 |
Page 106 |
Page 107 |
Page 108 |
Page 109 |
Page 110 |
Page 111 |
Page 112 |
Page 113 |
Page 114 |
Page 115 |
Page 116 |
Page 117 |
Page 118 |
Page 119 |
Page 120 |
Page 121 |
Page 122 |
Page 123 |
Page 124 |
Page 125 |
Page 126 |
Page 127 |
Page 128