Last Updated on: March 29, 2024 at 8:58 am
There have been misconceptions regarding companies that provide travel management solutions for many years. Many companies with small travel budgets and SMEs see many travel management platforms as quick ways to squander money. To make matters worse, the field of travel management is littered with common knowledge, many clichés, and purported falsehoods.
Small firms and low-frequency business travellers overlook engaging a TMC because they believe they are too small to benefit from their services. This is an absolute myth. One persistent misconception is that engaging a TMC is simply impractical in their current situation.
Nonetheless, studies reveal that when it comes to travel expenses, SMEs and low-frequency business travellers spend more per person than their corporate counterparts. These companies are not even booking better hotels, rentals, or flights. This is caused by insufficient knowledge, connection, and expertise that travel management companies have.
Ultimately, there’s a call for business travel management, no matter how small a company is or how seldom they travel. When you use the right corporate travel management solution, any corporate travel benefits your business greatly.
In this article, we'll take a look at:
Many rates, methods, memberships, vendor contracts, etc., are completely unknown to most firms. Since most organizations lack a TMC to guide, they miss out on major cost-saving potential without recognizing it.
To get favourable contracts for your business, or if the trip volume is not yet large enough for your contract, you will need to negotiate with airlines, hotels, and car rental providers. TMCs excel in this specific task.
Not hiring the services of a TMC can lead to many inefficiencies, such as misplaced documents and unreadable receipts. Moreover, the pressure on SMEs and other companies, especially if you are getting numerous emails each week with requests for travel, inquiries about itineraries, problems booking flights, last-minute adjustments, and cancellations, can be tasking.
Nobody knows where they stand without a proper travel policy. Acceptable and inappropriate behaviours cannot be identified and addressed, and guidelines regarding spending cannot be set without a clear policy.
A travel management business may help you develop a strong policy and enforce it by, for example, only offering trip alternatives that satisfy all standards.
Post-business travel reports are time-consuming and labour-intensive. It’d require you to always keep track of things before and during travel, resulting in taking out your focus away from what matters more.
Without a TMC, it may not be easy to get reports and analyses of a business trip.
In reporting your travel expenses, most travel management service companies will put all information regarding your business travel program together. This makes it easier to track your expenses.
A professional travel manager will be significantly more qualified to handle this than someone with little prior expertise. Managing travel expenditures is possibly the most important aspect of the job. Simplifying spending won’t be easy without a decent TMC.
In the current corporate climate, expense reimbursements after a work trip are typical. This allows businesses to have some control over employee spending. However, this control is only fictitious. The procedure can cause ambiguity.
Additionally, expense reports result in a great deal of unpleasant, time-consuming manual work for both the finance staff and the workers. Hours are spent by employees collecting receipts, inputting transaction information, and filling out expense reports. The request cannot be forwarded to finance unless management has approved it. There may be numerous back-and-forth parties that could happen before the decisive action.
A corporation’s framework for supervising and assisting business travel is known as travel management. Ideally, it is best to outsource this responsibility to a professional travel management company. Travel management companies have shown to help
Corporate travel management organizations often roll out new products and services for sustainability. Finding the ideal TMC gives you access to sustainability solutions that enable your company to actively track how useful a travel policy is to the company. Additionally, you’ll be able to choose wisely depending on the sustainability of your merchants.
Setting up your sustainability tools may take time, work, and energy. Or, you may choose a corporate travel management business and benefit from immediate access to already-existing technologies.
The ideal travel management firm will provide a unique collection of tools to assist you and your team in maximizing the booking platform and managing the change in your organization.
A good travel policy specifies what, how, and where travellers can spend. A single credit card for all expenses provides detailed and accurate management information. In addition, it enables businesses to bargain with suppliers if they have a large enough spending. In essence, a TMC platform assures the smart use of funds It also guarantees accuracy with reports and easy implementation for when a traveller would want to spend from their own pocket.
When you trust professionals with making your travel plans, managed travel provides a new form of travel freedom. More time, less worry.
By using a TMC for your business travel program, you stand to earn more time and experience less stress as a travel planner. In addition, you’ll gain from a standardized, omnichannel booking and trip management experience as opposed to maintaining several spreadsheets and wasting time visiting numerous booking websites.
A travel management expert will give you the avenue to lay any comments, complaints and worries 24/7. Booking through numerous platforms and suppliers may first seem like a smart idea. For instance, a travel management expert will know what to do or solve the problem if you or one employee is stranded at an airport due to a flight cancellation. Regarding customer service, being shuttled between contact centres is an unpleasant process. The travel agent will handle late-night calls or travel situations.
Travel management companies employ personnel dedicated to your travellers’ safety around the clock, 365 days per year. To predict who would be impacted by these situations, they keep an eye on developments with the pandemic, weather, strikes, airport closures, and safety issues. They alert customers, travel brokers, and travellers as soon as any important information is available.
Onboarding a TMC or tool comes with an upfront fee, of course. But the advantages far exceed them. For example, working with a TMC can help you save a lot of money on things like flights, VAT reimbursements, corporate lodging, events, group reservations, door-to-door transport, and many other things.
In other words, you make the most of pre-existing knowledge and business alliance advantages that would take your company years to develop.
At TruTrip, we love the S as much as the Ms in SMEs, but what can you get from our platform?
The case study highlights the critical role of business travel in facilitating growth, networking, and client engagement for organizations across sizes, including Small and Medium-sized Enterprises (SMEs) and low-frequency business travellers.
This is especially true for organizations like the Speakers Institute, where even limited business travel can open doors to global markets and invaluable networks. However, navigating the complexities of travel arrangements with limited resources can quickly become a stumbling block, leading to inefficiencies, unnecessary expenses, and lost time.
The journey of Speakers Institute, mirrors the quintessential challenges and triumphs of modern business travel management. Initially wrestling with the cumbersome and time-consuming process of coordinating travel via traditional methods. Their transition to using TruTrip marks a significant pivot.
TruTrip’s introduction not only alleviated the manual hassles of booking and managing trips but also infused efficiency, accuracy, and ease into every step. From tedious back-and-forth communications to seamless bookings and approvals.
If you’re intrigued by how strategic travel management can redefine the boundaries of what’s possible for your organization, dive into the full case study. Discover the detailed story of how the Speakers Institute, led by the forward-thinking Nayeli, turned travel logistics from a headache into a strategic asset.
No matter how small or seldom your business travels are there is still a need for an excellent travel management company like TruTrip. Be on the path to becoming a global leader, find out how we can give you the help you need by booking a demo or signing up for a free trial.
TruTrip streamlines booking, management, and reporting for hassle-free business trips.