POLICY INTEGRATION BY CATHERINE CHETWYND
GETTING IN SYNC
INTEGRATING PROCESSES AND POLICIES ACROSS DEPARTMENTS IS CHALLENGING, BUT CAN BRING A RANGE OF BENEFITS TO BUSINESS
THE OPPORTUNITIES FOR INTEGRATING PROGRAMMES from various corporate departments and disciplines into travel are varied. Meetings and events (M&E), risk management and expenses are obvious contenders; while another is the ‘total hospitality solution’, where mobility, relocation, facilities and HR are all integrated with travel for procuring and managing accommoda- tion. Integration at any level provides greater visibility, leading to better duty-of-care and compliance, creating a benign circle.
While at the moment there is little evi- dence of organisations approaching ‘total hospitality’ integration, there are certainly degrees of integration being practiced, and the benefits are being recognised. At software giant Citrix, travel and meet-
ings work with HR where the need arises. “Temporary accommodation for transient and M&E is slightly different from longer- term accommodation for relocation, but we still work together to look at different areas,” says global category manager Jef Robinson. “If someone is relo- cating from one office to another, there is a wealth of experience locally concerning that office. It is a manual process and integration is cultural rather than technological.” Meanwhile at telecoms
firm Alcatel-Lucent, the mobility programme resides with HR, and tickets are booked through the global travel policy when moving people to or from the
BUYINGBUSINESSTRAVEL.COM
UK. There is also a degree of overlap with processes such as the expense management system, where city caps are programmed into the expense management tool, so that claims for an amount above the cap are flagged up. “They are stand-alone policies and tools, but there are areas where we have overlap and integration,” says regional travel manager Mike Butcher. At serviced apartments firm Oakwood
Worldwide, EMEA managing director Debbie Lundon says: “We are seeing the blending of corporate travel and mobility programmes, resulting in more companies turning to serviced apartments in lieu of hotels as an option for business trips lasting longer than a week.”
ROOT AND BRANCH
Risk management and M&E tend to be the elements most commonly integrated into travel policy. The risk factor was debated at a BBT Forum earlier this year. There, Matthew Judge, managing director of security specialist firm Anvil Group, said travel safety policy should be an integral part of other company policies, and this can be achieved through “branching” – where all company policies that impact each other contain a “reference branch” to the other relevant main policies or procedures, to ensure consistency. Integrating MICE (meetings, incentives,
conferences and exhibitions) is challeng- ing – travel managers face difficulties and resistance when rounding up sufficient data from disparate bookers around an organisation (see Buyer’s Guide, p28). However, those who achieve it end up with control of meetings space inside and outside the organisation, and get to see
opportunities to combine transient and meetings requirements to negotiate better rates. And in different ways, Citrix and pro- fessional services company Capgemini are going for broke, with global integration, giving ultimate visibility.
Citrix is about to launch Cvent event-
management software, which will allow the company to customise meeting request forms and work flow. “In addition,” says Robinson, “I have worked with Interna- tional SOS [ISOS] and Cvent to ensure that security has visibility of M&E in a proactive way. This way, the security team can work with meetings owners, and potentially myself, to mitigate risk at a destination or even move a potential meeting or event to a lower-risk destination where necessary.” “For the larger value events, it also allows
security to evaluate a particular hotel and check issues, such as unauthorised access, particularly where senior executives are attending or those from partner or client companies,” says Robinson. “We are selling Cvent on the basis that this is a major aspect – and to mitigate risk in general.” Eliminating meetings in risky destina- tions where Citrix has offices is not an option. “We take the political climate and various factors into consideration, and work with stakeholders, meeting planners and travellers before they go to these places so they understand various risks,” he says. “Greece is a good example but Turkey and many other southern European destina- tions, and all the Middle East countries, not to mention other areas of world, all involve risk, so to have a degree of integra- tion is extremely important, if not vital, for corporates and international companies these days.”
BBT SEPTEMBER/OCTOBER 2015 53
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