BBT EDITOR PAUL REVEL TALKS TO AMERICAN EXPRESS VICE-PRESIDENT AND GENERAL MANAGER FOR GLOBAL BUSINESS TRAVEL UK, CHAMPA MAGESH
EVENTS OVERTAKE US as I meet Champa Magesh in London, near the Blackfriars HQ of American Express’s business travel division. News is out that a deal is signed that will see the Qatar Invest- ment Authority and an investment group lead by Certares invest US$900 million in American Express Global Business Travel, in exchange for a 50 per cent stake. The deal has been on the cards for some
time – Buying Business Travel reported on the plans in September last year – but with the ink still wet on the agreement, Champa doesn’t go into many details. “I believe it is incredibly exciting for the business – a differ- entiator for us,” she says. “To our knowledge, this is the largest investment ever made in a TMC [travel management company]. It will be put back into the business –we want to enhance our suite of products and services, and we want to grow internationally – that’s very important.” Amex’s TMC division cur- rently operates in 139 countries. Champa was appointed to the role of
vice-president and general manager at American Express Global Business Travel UK in July last year. Before joining the com- pany’s business travel division, she had been with Amex for seven years; and prior to that, she held various senior roles around the world, including in procurement with Cisco Systems. “I’ve been in the situation that a lot of the stakeholders I now work with have been in. I understand the pressures they face – across multiple industries,” she says.
INDUSTRY SHIFT With all the changes we hear about in booking technologies, distribution, behav- iour and expectations, how does a TMC stay relevant? Champa agrees there has been a shift in “the entire ecosystem” of the travel industry, but says Amex is equipped to deal with it. “TMCs have to grow and adapt. I
28 BBT MAY/JUNE 2014
CHAMPA MAGESH is vice-president and general manager for American Express Global Business Travel UK, responsible for the growth, profitability and strategic priorities for the UK business. During her seven years at American Express, Champa has held increasingly senior roles in client management. She was previously the director, international currency card and global dollar card, UK, for Amex Global Corporate Payments.
Champa has more than a decade of international business experience in procurement and supply, information technology, card payments, merchant acquiring and business-to-business relationship management. She has held a range of management positions in the UK, the US, Kuwait and India.
Prior to American Express, Champa worked for Cisco Systems and the Royal Bank of Scotland. She has an MBA and Masters in information management from Arizona State University, and is currently based in London.
think absolutely there is an evolution, as there always is in any business cycle,” she says. “At American Express we’ve been in business 160 years, and it’s always been about evolution and adaptation.” She says the TMC is being required more and more to help companies fulfil their duty-of-care obligations and, increasingly, is required to help clients with securing more fragmented data. “You have more third-parties in the data supply chain. Our customers want to engage with travel partners who can guarantee the security of that data.”
DIGITAL CAPABILITIES The other area where Champa sees a strong future is in digital capabilities. “The access to technology in the consumer space is ubiq- uitous,” she says. “Why would a traveller, who in their consumer life engages with technology, have a different expectation in their business life?” But does a corporate need a TMC to
provide that technology? “What the traveller ultimately expects is an end-to-end service” replies Champa. “It’s the fulfilment of that service – and then the back-end reporting as well. So from an end-to-end perspective, there’s definitely a need for the TMC –and also, it’s the TMC creating the digital ability so the traveller can access the service. It’s not just about the pretty application, it’s about what it does – and being able to rely on it, day-in and day-out. That’s our focus: to deliver the ecosystem of applications, whether we do it in-house or whether we do it with third parties.” But she stresses that alongside technology advances is the trend of increasingly personalised service – which is key for a TMC to achieve success. Is this a modern, more cost-efficient take on the traditional TMC ‘high-touch’ services? “It’s definitely a modern way of
BUYINGBUSINESSTRAVEL.COM
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