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travellers, as well as sustainability policies that often revolve around cutting com- pany-wide carbon emissions – a tricky balancing act when overall travel may be increasing at the same time. Louise Kilgannon, an associate at con- sultancy Festive Road and former buyer for pharma giant Astrazeneca, advises: “Take a structured approach – by ensuring that your programme aligns with company goals, you will do a much better job of internal selling as you will be ‘speaking the right language’. “Look at your overall company goals,


how this feeds down into procurement – or the department in which travel sits – and then think about how travel contributes to those goals. For example, if one of those goals is to improve employee satisfaction and retention, does your programme align with this?”


KEY STAKEHOLDERS Understanding the goals of other ‘stake- holders’ within an organisation is key for Beth Sarmiento, travel and HR compliance manager at payment technology provider TSYS. “You have to talk to other key stake- holders, such as finance, HR and even IT, so you can understand their priorities and make sure it’s all aligned,” she says. “For us, I work with finance very closely so that the whole of travel and expense is totally aligned from a corporate point of view.” She adds: “Travellers are stakeholders,


too, and it has to work for them. You have to understand what the business is expecting of their employees. “It’s best to communicate with all of the business units, travellers and cost control managers because they will all have differ- ent views. I am part of the HR business unit so, as a travel manager, I fully understand the policies that make the business tick.” Kilgannon agrees that the most important


factor is to understand the views of other key stakeholders within an organisation. She adds: “This doesn’t need to be the company CEO – although if you can get five minutes of her/his time, well done – but think about the departments affected by travel. “Identify executive sponsors, who work


closely with the C-Level team and can ad- vocate on your behalf. Then look across the business at the departments you work with. This will help you demonstrate that you have looked outside of your own area


68 BBT January/February 2018


who are the worst offenders when it comes to doing their own thing.”


MERGERS & ACQUISITIONS One of the more challenging situations for travel buyers is when their organisation is growing through mergers and acquisitions, which means that suddenly there can be a multitude of different travel policies, programmes and suppliers for a buyer to try to consolidate. “Just because your company has taken


over another firm, that doesn’t mean you should just impose your policy and programme on the new acquisition and their travellers,” says another travel buyer who’s experienced the takeover scenario. “You need to understand their policy and


“It’s best to communicate with all of the business units, travellers and cost control managers because they will all have different views”


to see how travel affects and is influenced by other groups.” Getting buy-in from top executives


is also vital to having a travel policy and programme that can be updated and ad- justed quickly and smoothly to recognise any changes in overall corporate strategy – whether it be a loosening on the travel budget’s purse strings to fuel business growth or an increased focus on issues such as corporate social responsibility (CSR). “Make sure that all co-workers/travellers


acquire a need to contribute by adopting the right business travel and meeting behaviour,” says Galimidi. “Leading by example is very important – senior leader- ship needs to behave in order to get respect and achieve compliance.” This can be one of the trickiest situations


for buyers – particularly if senior managers are not following the policy that has been set down – but all the other employees are expected to comply with it. “It can be difficult when the top layer of


management is not following their own policy,” comments one Europe-based buyer. “For all the talk of millennials booking out of policy, it’s often the C-suite people


programme, and how it works for them in terms of the suppliers they use and their overall travel patterns. “These things can take time, but it’s


always worth talking to people before making any firm decisions – if you act in haste without proper consultation, you could cause some issues down the road with a programme that’s not working across the whole expanded business.” So how do buyers prepare for such cir- cumstances? Kilgannon says it’s crucial to stay “agile” because “change will come” at some point. She adds: “Develop a rigorous way of prioritising projects and be quick to reassess if criteria changes. Most travel programmes are a balance of employee satisfaction, safety and savings. At any point, the focus can change from one to another so look at how you can plan for future scenarios.” Galimidi suggests creating a “travel


process council” that can meet every three months – either in person or as a ‘virtual’ meeting – to manage any changes that need to be made to travel policies and programmes during mergers, acquisitions and other major developments within an organisation.


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