Investment in corporate travel creates opportunities for your company to capture market share and increase revenue. However, your company can increase the return on investment (ROI) only by streamlining the corporate travel management process.
While streamlining the cost-intensive business process, you should focus on making business trips successful without escalating the average business trip costs. Hence, you must implement strategies that control costs while helping employees accomplish business travel costs.
At the same time, you must streamline the process using travel management solutions and adopting major trends like sustainable business travel. We are making it easier for you to streamline this multistep process by discussing some actionable strategies and useful tools.
Tools and Strategies for Streamlining Corporate Travel Management
Draft Granular T&E Policies
While making travel and expense (T&E) policies, you must combine fixed and flexible guidelines. The flexible guidelines will enable employees to choose. At the same time, employees can mitigate travel risks and stay safe by adhering to the fixed guidelines.
However, you must make it easier for employees to access and understand relevant guidelines by dividing the policy documents into small sections. For instance, you can set separate sets of guidelines for domestic and international travel. Likewise, you can set booking guidelines for each employee level.
Ensure Policy Compliance
It becomes challenging for your organization to control costs when employees violate T&E policies. You need to ensure that employees book in-policy travel products and avoid out-of-policy expenses. Also, they should promote sustainable business travel by opting for eco-friendly travel products.
Travel management solutions make it easier for your company to ensure T&E policy compliance. The software will ensure that no employee violates policies while choosing and booking travel products. Also, they will send automated notifications when any employee violates preset T&E policies.
Secure Corporate Rates and Discounts
Your T&E policy must encourage employees to save money on business travel booking by leveraging deals and offers provided by suppliers. But you can reduce average business trip costs only by securing corporate rates and discounts.
Your travel manager can negotiate with multiple suppliers to enable employees to book travel products at less than market rates. Otherwise, you can enable employees to book travel products at negotiated rates using a travel management company.
Centralize Business Travel Booking
Your company can prevent policy violations and control costs by centralizing business travel booking. You can centralize the travel booking process using the travel management company. The company will book only in-policy travel products for each employee while considering his travel choices and preferences.
At the same time, the travel management company will save money by booking travel products early, opting for fully flexible tickets, and getting negotiated rates. However, you also have the option to centralize business travel booking by implementing the right T&E software.
Provide 24/7 Travel Support
Many employees engage in business travel for the first time, while many employees travel to new destinations for business purposes. They need up-to-date information to plan business trips, make travel itineraries, and customize travel checklists.
At the same time, each employee needs real-time information and support to overcome emerging business travel challenges. You must mitigate potential business travel risks by round-the-clock travel support. Also, you need to ensure that an employee can contact a support executive and get the required assistance anytime and anywhere.
Meet Duty of Care Obligation
While considering travel management tools and strategies, you must not ignore your company’s duty of care obligations. The moral and legal obligation requires you to ensure the safety and security of each employee when he travels for business.
You ensure the safety and security of work travelers in several ways – tracking their real-time locations and delivering real-time information. At the same time, you must partner with a global health and security risk management firm to provide emergency assistance to each work traveler, regardless of his current location.
Automate Expense Reporting
Your company cannot streamline T&E management without abandoning paper-based expense reports. Travel management solutions enable your employees to submit digital expense reports and receipts. Employees scan receipts and invoices by accessing the software on their mobile devices.
The software will generate automated expense reports by capturing information from the scanned documents. The automation eliminates data entry errors and expense fraud. Also, your finance team can speed up travel expense reimbursements by reviewing the digital expense reports.
Streamline Travel Expense Management
Your organization can increase the ROI of business travel without tracking, reviewing, managing, and auditing travel expenses efficiently. You can streamline travel expense management using integrated T&E software. Your finance team will use the dashboard provided by the software to track travel expenses in real time.
Also, the software makes them audit travel expenses regularly by creating digital audit trails. The real-time travel spending visibility will help you find cost-saving opportunities and make informed financial decisions.
Automate the Entire Process
Automation helps you streamline the travel management process and reduce costs simultaneously. Your company can automate the cost-intensive process completely by implementing integrated T&E management software that uses intelligence technologies.
In addition to automating business travel booking and travel expense management, the software will help work travelers get travel support and emergency assistance. However, you also have the option to automate crucial steps in the process using corporate booking tools and expense management solutions.
Analyze T&E Data
In the age of big data, you cannot streamline any business process without leveraging real-time data. Travel management solutions help you collect, update, and analyze T&E data without putting in extra time and effort.
You can use the software to analyze T&E data by generating custom reports using various parameters and metrics. At the same time, the software shares data-driven insights that help you increase the ROI of business travel by updating policies and controlling costs.
Conclusion
You can streamline a complex business process like corporate travel management by implementing several strategies and best practices. However, your strategy must prioritize end-to-end process automation using travel management solutions.
At the same time, your company must impress investors, customers, and other stakeholders by adopting the hottest trends like sustainable business travel. Hence, you should streamline the cost-intensive process by combining the right strategies and tools.