GLOBAL INSIGHT
WORDS AMON COHEN
INDIA IN MOTION I
A burgeoning economy, innovative IT and growing expertise give India the potential to carve out a presence in travel management. BBT delves into developments as part of a new series of Global Insights
NDIA IS THE COMING NATION IN business travel – in more ways than one. The country has registered the fastest-growing corporate travel spend of any major market for each of the past six years, according to the GBTA, expanding by double-figure percentages every 12 months. But that’s just the start. Any complacent assumptions that
countries outside North America and Western Europe are only ever on the receiving end of the gospel of travel management may soon need revision. “Increasingly, the regional or global travel management role is moving to India,” says Gaurav Sundaram, president of the con- sultancy ProKonsul, whose CV includes stints as India country director for both Egencia and the GBTA. “It’s a kind of knowledge process outsourcing” – a trend helped by English being the lingua franca of India’s educated classes as well as the global business community. That’s also the view of Jafles Pacheco, who oversees
travel from headquarters in Zurich, Switzerland, as global head of indirect material spend for the high-tech industrial group Oerlikon. “There is definitely a growth in global travel managers based in India,” Pacheco says. “We have people taking on responsibility for procure- ment in Europe even though they are based in India.
92 JANUARY/FEBRUARY 2020
They still cost less than a European travel manager even if they have to travel more. It will become a threat to European travel managers.” Pacheco is also deeply impressed by the technology
developed by Indian travel management companies and other providers, which he believes will eventually be exported to other markets. He has come close to buying in Indian tech tools for his own programme. “They are very flexible at customising technology for customer requirements,” he said. “From a cost and quality point of view, I was very interested. The only big concern was compliance with the European Union’s General Data Protection Regulation. My data privacy lawyer said no.”
LAND OF CONTRADICTIONS Yet despite pockets of leadership, it would equally be wrong to portray India as a country where travel management is uniformly practised to a high standard. Maturity levels vary, to say the least. Sundaram estimates 10-20 per cent of Indian compa-
nies have travel programmes comparable with those of better-managed businesses in the West. Others, he says, “are still very elementary”.
If there is one word that summarises this highly complex marketplace, he continues, it is “diversity”.
buyingbusinesstravel.com
Page 1 |
Page 2 |
Page 3 |
Page 4 |
Page 5 |
Page 6 |
Page 7 |
Page 8 |
Page 9 |
Page 10 |
Page 11 |
Page 12 |
Page 13 |
Page 14 |
Page 15 |
Page 16 |
Page 17 |
Page 18 |
Page 19 |
Page 20 |
Page 21 |
Page 22 |
Page 23 |
Page 24 |
Page 25 |
Page 26 |
Page 27 |
Page 28 |
Page 29 |
Page 30 |
Page 31 |
Page 32 |
Page 33 |
Page 34 |
Page 35 |
Page 36 |
Page 37 |
Page 38 |
Page 39 |
Page 40 |
Page 41 |
Page 42 |
Page 43 |
Page 44 |
Page 45 |
Page 46 |
Page 47 |
Page 48 |
Page 49 |
Page 50 |
Page 51 |
Page 52 |
Page 53 |
Page 54 |
Page 55 |
Page 56 |
Page 57 |
Page 58 |
Page 59 |
Page 60 |
Page 61 |
Page 62 |
Page 63 |
Page 64 |
Page 65 |
Page 66 |
Page 67 |
Page 68 |
Page 69 |
Page 70 |
Page 71 |
Page 72 |
Page 73 |
Page 74 |
Page 75 |
Page 76 |
Page 77 |
Page 78 |
Page 79 |
Page 80 |
Page 81 |
Page 82 |
Page 83 |
Page 84 |
Page 85 |
Page 86 |
Page 87 |
Page 88 |
Page 89 |
Page 90 |
Page 91 |
Page 92 |
Page 93 |
Page 94 |
Page 95 |
Page 96 |
Page 97 |
Page 98 |
Page 99 |
Page 100 |
Page 101 |
Page 102 |
Page 103 |
Page 104 |
Page 105 |
Page 106 |
Page 107 |
Page 108 |
Page 109 |
Page 110 |
Page 111 |
Page 112 |
Page 113 |
Page 114 |
Page 115 |
Page 116 |
Page 117 |
Page 118 |
Page 119 |
Page 120 |
Page 121 |
Page 122 |
Page 123 |
Page 124 |
Page 125 |
Page 126 |
Page 127 |
Page 128 |
Page 129 |
Page 130
