Travel
Value Management ™US corporations spend over $155 billion each year on travel and
travel related expenses, roughly $600 million each business day. At any given time,
thousands of business travelers are on the road doing company business.
Despite the enormity of the expenditures, there is surprisingly little information
available to answer a basic questions -- What is the value of business travel? Companies
regularly examine the expected return on capital investments, expenditures for advertising
and marketing programs and a host of other business activities and processes. But few if
any companies even attempt to determine their return on the huge investment in business
travel.
Without an understanding of the value of business travel to the company, strategic
management of this important expenditure is impossible. In the absence of a strategic
perspective, travel is managed as though it was simply another purchase made by companies.
Travel management programs often reflect this purchasing orientation.
In this purchasing approach, there is little or no systematic differentiation of trips based
on expected outcomes. There is also little systematic consideration of key trip
characteristics that are likely to produce those returns. Cost becomes the primary
consideration. Value becomes synonymous with lower cost.
The Travel Value Assessment is a process facilitated by Global
Telematics and Lehman Associates that is the first step in changing the assessment and
management of business travel from a focus solely on cost to a focus on the value that
business travel brings to a company. As a result of our work, companies will be better
able to manage this key business activity to maximize returns to the company.
We call our approach Travel Value Management
™.
Along the way, we:
Fundamentally
alter the view of business travel from one of a cost to be controlled, to one of a managed
expenditure to be leveraged to provide maximum return to the company.
Develop the
necessary tools and procedures to enable companies to assess the contribution travel makes
to the company by understanding its value contribution in specific business processes.
Differentiate
business travel by key characteristics such as trip purpose and expected outcomes to
enable companies to make strategic decisions about travel expenditures.
Encourage
greater collaboration between corporate travel managers and travel suppliers where the
emphasis is on developing travel services that produce maximum returns to the company at a
least cost.
If you are interested in taking advantage of this new approach to travel management, call
1-206-781-4475 or email tvm@globaltelematics.com.