KesselRun “De-Mystifies” Corporate Travel for an Organization Busting at the Seams

Has your company recently merged or been acquired? Has your corporate travel budget skyrocketed over the past 12-18 months due to higher travel need? Do you get frustrated because you’re not sure if travel dollars are being spent wisely? Do you suspect that you are not really optimizing your travel spend? If you answered “yes” to any of these questions, you are in a pretty typical situation. The CFO of a large manufacturing company in the Southeast found himself answering “yes” to all of these questions and after the recent announcement of GDS deregulation and simplified faring from the major carriers decided to take control.

KesselRun helped “de-mystify” its complex corporate travel program that included three operating companies, redundant vendor relationships, and ill defined internal metrics around meeting corporate objectives. KesselRun consultants have a tremendous amount of experience consolidating complex programs and “unbundling” component parts of a program in an effort to cull out the most valuable pieces and then “re-bundle” programs into a concise value-added program that meet corporate objectives. The first step in the process is to identify key stakeholders and map out corporate objectives for the program. Once that baseline is established, a model is developed and executed that will match strategic objectives with action items that produce immediate results.

In this case, KesselRun helped align all of the operating companies’ policy, preferred vendors, and technology. Part of this process entailed sourcing a travel agency partner and leading an RFP initiative to technology vendors who are expert at back office integration, including online expense reporting. KesselRun collaborated with key stakeholders on a change management program to better integrate the firm’s competing corporate cultures. This included an online adoption consulting initiative that was customized based on industry best practices. And finally, to keep the CFO current on the program, KesselRun implemented dashboard technology that provided a real time snapshot of the success of the program, with a focus on 10 Key Performance Indicators that were identified as critical to the overall success of the program.

The results have been tremendous. 90 percent of the travelers have perceived a better overall experience from a travel policy perspective. All four travel managers are “very pleased” with the integrated nature of the program and cite synergies among the groups that were not present prior to consolidation. And, while the fast changing nature of the industry will continue to shift, necessitating almost continual attention and program modification, the CFO is satisfied that access to KPI’s at a glance through dashboard technology will enable him to make informed decisions and keep the “mystique” out of the program once and for all.