Game plan


Why your travel programme needs an effective technology strategy


By MARK FRARY


type a letter more quickly than on a man- ual typewriter or, more recently, book an airline seat without having to speak to someone to do it on their behalf. Yet forward-looking companies are rec- ognising that technology goes far beyond useful tools, and having a planned technolo- gy strategy is vital in order to drive benefits that can not only change behaviour but also keep travellers happy and deliver on corporate objectives. “Strategy is always something visionary,”


F


says Yvonne Moya, who recently joined consultancy Festive Road and was previ- ously travel buyer with Unilever, IBM and Deutsche Telekom. “If you don’t think about what you really


want you can’t create a roadmap. But if you create a roadmap, it can change. Technology changes and requirements change. No-one knows what type of technology we will have tomorrow. Is blockchain going to translate into really tangible projects? Who knows?”


82 BBT January/February 2018


OR FAR TOO LONG, COMPA- NIES have considered technol- ogy a tool, enabling employees to do something useful, such as


Her advice is to first identify overall objectives when considering a technology strategy. “A lot of people start with thinking, ‘I need that app’ or ‘I need digital payments’ or something similar. They are starting in the middle and are really disappointed when it doesn’t help,” she says.


ASK THE CUSTOMER A travel buyer from a multinational pharma company says the traveller should be at the heart of an organisation’s technology strat- egy. She says her company is undertaking a survey of its more than 15,000 regular travellers to find out “what they would want to see in terms of technology and best practice, and in terms of ease of use and 24/7 accessibility”. “No one ever thought it would be a good


idea to ask the customer before,” she says. Getting the technology right means


putting some other elements in place; it has implemented American Express busi- ness travel accounts and is in the process of consolidating its agencies. Technology is helping the company get much more competitive versus its industry peers. The buyer says: “We went through a huge benchmarking programme and we


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