Technology has transformed how we interact with the world, as individuals, and as businesses. In business travel, the volatility of changes in the industry has made technology solutions essential to stabilising corporate strategy. If you can’t keep up by investing in valuable corporate travel management solutions, not just your employees but also your bottom-line risk being affected.
On a strategic level, a major benefit of using a travel management solution is having access to real-time and historical data on all aspects of your company’s travel program. This allows you to make better decisions in real-time as well as plan and prepare for upcoming trips based on past experiences and learnings. Bringing technology into your travel management program helps you implement corporate policies seamlessly, generate reports on the fly, and save money through enhanced efficiency.
It is understandable if you are not sure where to begin or how to select the right software for your company’s purpose. The industry is saturated with endless choices. Nevertheless, there are five essential categories of software systems that you must have in place. Additional systems build on these initial five; once you have a system that covers each base, your travel management service is well on its way to bringing you greater effectiveness.
In this article, we'll take a look at:
A finance solution ensures that all transactions are accounted for and processed properly. The finance department keeps track of everything from spending limits to expense reimbursements in real-time.
Having corporate travel management solutions that simplify this process will enhance your company’s transparency and help you manage your budget efficiently. For example, one smart way to reduce your business travel costs is to use a finance management system that offers cashback on transactions.
A good finance system for travel and expense management should have features that help you generate expense reports automatically, ensure full visibility into travel costs and transactions, as well as prioritise accurate data presentation. For instance, a simple tool for scanning receipts can go far in enhancing the efficiency of your company’s travel management.
Companies should have policies in place regarding how employees can spend money when travelling on business trips. Not just that though, but general guidelines and rules concerning all aspects of travel management, including approval requirements, policy conditions, exceptions, etc.
A policy automation system makes it easy for corporate travel managers to enforce these policies by setting up expense limits or sending alerts to employees. This type of solution helps in automating your policies including the corporate travel booking process, approval process, expense reports etc.
Ultimately, this saves you time and effort, especially while managing the policy changes when you have to be flexible with its implementation.
A travel management system with smart policy automation will enable you to create different policies for different teams, adjust the policy according to the current needs, control flight and accommodation booking seamlessly, automatically reject travel requests that don’t align with the company’s objectives, and more.
A good approval process plays a key role in making sure that all your employees follow your company’s policies regarding travel policies and expenses.
This type of solution helps in automating your approval processes with ease by applying rules and conditions to approve or reject requests for travel. The approval process should be clear and intuitive so that employees can easily see who is responsible for approving their requests, what approvals they need from whom and how long it will take for them to get approvals.
You can streamline your company’s travel approval process by encoding the approval requirements, rejection conditions, possible exceptions, approval responsibilities, and other rules concerning the process into a simple software system.
This type of solution will help ensure safety at every step of your travel process by giving details about weather conditions, flight delays etc., which would affect your travel plans.
You can also monitor travel trends, and risks and automatically send alerts to managers and employees about risks and restrictions before the trip starts. This will help you take the appropriate safety precautions for your employees or even cancel the plan entirely if there is a substantial risk involved.
As a business leader, you owe your employees a duty of care, which you must fulfil by setting up a safe, employee-first environment for them to work in, even when their responsibilities take them out of town.
For instance, at this time when COVID-19 is still out there, contact tracing apps remain especially useful in tracking the state of a traveller’s health, as well as the risk of them contracting a disease.
From making a reservation to paying for it. This is one of the most important parts of managing your corporate travel program. It involves making sure that all your employees have access to an easy-to-use booking platform that allows them to book flights, hotels, rental cars, and other services without any hassles.
This can save time and money by removing the need for manual input from employees or managers. It also helps avoid double bookings and duplicate payments. Such a system should also be able to conveniently handle cancellations, rebooking, refunds, and so on.
If your company uses agents, it would be helpful to link them with your software system so that they can receive requests from travellers directly and process them accordingly.
Keeping tabs on several different corporate travel management solutions is a hassle; it can even counter the essence of investing in technology in the first place. TruTrip has fulfilled the needs of many companies by being the ultimate integrated travel management solution. Sign up for a free trial and experience this for yourself.
TruTrip streamlines booking, management, and reporting for hassle-free business trips.