By MARK FRARY
THE TMC
THE TMC
CHRISTOPHE TCHENG, vice-president, core products and platform architecture, American Express GBT
AMERICAN EXPRESS GBT LAUNCHED A NEW PRE-TIP TOOL, EXPERT APPROVAL (EA) LAST SUMMER. Christophe Tcheng says the product came out of an expressed desire from travel buyers to have a single approval tool that would work with different online booking tools around the world. EA has been integrated with Concur and Get There already and, following the TMC’s acquisition of KDS, it will be integrated with that too. “EA was developed to help travel manag- ers change the behaviour of their travellers,”
BUYINGBUSINESSTRAVEL.COM
says Tcheng. “One of the things we have built into EA is cost-efficient channel shifting. In the product we have busi- ness rules that dictate how the traveller should book. If they get approval to book, the travel manager can configure how the booking is to be done, depending on origin, destination, traveller status or length of trip.” EA also provides estimated costs for a
trip as part of the approval process, using a real-time fare scan. “It is not completely accurate but the ballpark is going to be right,” says Tcheng. The tool can also be configured to define
budgets at a unit or division level, where the line manager sees the budget going
down as each trip is approved. “The idea is to have cost cutting, but even more effective is everyone in the company knows about their travel budget and can approve knowing how much is left,” he says. Tcheng emphasises that safety and se-
curity is a vital part of pre-trip approval. “Duty-of-care is moving to the top of the agenda. We integrate risk intelligence in EA so if you want to go to a dangerous country, we will display risk levels. You can design specific approval rules for these countries and the company’s security officer can engage with the traveller, provid- ing additional advice and support around the trip.”
BBT January/February 2017 53
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