A Complete Guide to Corporate and Business Travel
Effective business and corporate travel management ensures that all your employees stay productive, comfortable and safe during business trips while staying within your allotted budget. When implemented correctly, business travel management procedures allow companies to maximize travel funds while providing for the needs of their professionals on the road.
To achieve this goal, finance and travel managers must formulate, fine-tune and implement a company’s corporate travel policy, which covers travel arrangements, cost management and travel safety.
Managing business travels can be difficult, especially when dealing with a seemingly endless list of tasks, including making travel arrangements, booking accommodations, ensuring employee safety and ensuring you don’t exceed your budget. It can be a challenge for businesses of any size. However, with the right tools and policies, your company can better manage its corporate travel affairs and gain the most from this investment.
This guide will go over the details of corporate travel management, including industry challenges, traveler security, establishing travel policies and travel cost management.
What is Business Travel Management?
Corporate travel management refers to planning, tracking, managing, reporting and calibrating your company’s business travel requirements. Some would ask why a face-to-face meeting between entrepreneurs, business leaders and clients is essential in a digitally powered world. The answer is that nothing can replace personal interactions when building a solid foundation for existing and future relationships.
Taking the time to meet another person shows that you’re invested in their success. Personal interaction fosters better communication, ensuring that each person in attendance gets the complete message, sometimes lost in digital and written communication.
Your eye contact, body language, strong presence and tone of voice are dynamics that can display the strength of your commitment, which can be challenging to convey through an email or video conference call. In addition, in-person business meetings build loyalty with those we do business with, establishing a solid relationship with clients and business partners.
Challenges in Business Travel Management
Companies today spend an average of $1,400 for each employee on a business trip (Fyle, 2020). Like many companies, your travel budget will consist mainly of the following (Travel Pulse, 2020):
Lodgings and accommodations (34%)
Airfare expenses (27%)
Traveler meals (20%)
Car rentals (19%)
Aside from keeping travel expenditures in check, there are a few other challenges that travel and finance managers must tackle.
Managing Multiple Travel Requests
Managing travel requests for a small enterprise with 50 or fewer employees should be easy enough, which can be handled by a finance team, among other tasks. On the other hand, a travel manager manages travel requests in larger organizations, especially when business travel becomes more regular.
Approval processes should be clear with a few touchpoints. In addition, documentation should also be reduced as much as possible.
Travel requests can be inconsistent, and sometimes they don’t follow established protocols. When travel problems arise, you can receive unique requests you need to handle on the fly. Your travel manager needs information and resources to help employees remotely, making new travel arrangements if necessary.
Tracking approved requests is also essential so you can account for current expenses. You may have to follow up with managers or team leaders to have travel requests approved and processed. Managing all these processes and touchpoints can be complex and laborious, which is why process automation is crucial in business travel management.
Booking Flights
Companies can’t rely on commercial booking providers since they may not be equipped to provide the services you need. When dealing with commercial travel agencies, some employees pay for travel expenses out of pocket, and managers need to go through many emails, cancellations and travel itinerary changes. You’ll need a more efficient method to book flights backed by travel agents available 24/7 who can provide VIP support and cater to your unique needs.
Reducing Process Errors
With so many requests and records to manage, your staff is bound to experience errors in booking, recording and expense tracking. Every mistake will cost money to fix. For instance, if an employee booked the wrong flight, it will cost your company to have the flight changed. Some of the other errors you need to address include: categorizing expense types, incomplete or wrong expense claims (e.g. car rental, lodging, food) and lost receipts and other essential documentation.
Flexibility and Self-Service Options
When formulating company travel policies, giving your staff some legroom when planning their trips is crucial. This option can be a better idea for employees who are seasoned travelers since they can find better and more affordable options. Furthermore, it reduces the number of tasks for your finance and travel staff.
Your company’s travel policies should include a broad travel inventory so you can save money and still give your employees more freedom regarding travel options. For example, you should have more options for travel arrangements, lodgings, hotels, dining and other needs. With more options, you can find ways to save money while keeping your employees happy.
Formulating and Implementing Travel Policies
Travel and finance managers create policies for travel cost management that may be difficult to understand. As a result, many policies end up unread and aren’t enforced. Some employees find the guidelines difficult to understand, while others see them as too bureaucratic.
Ensuring Traveler Safety
Travel safety and implementing a plan to help employees be safe and healthy while on the road is another challenge. Managers need to establish safety tracking and provide employees with advisories while they travel to reduce disruptions and issues along the way.
Overworked In-House Team
Performing in-house business travel management tasks allows you to work with a trustworthy travel manager or finance staff. However, as your travel needs grow, you may find your team overworked. Because of this, many companies today outsource to a trusted travel management agency that can equip the company with tools and strategies for better corporate travel management.
Principles of Effective Travel Management
Managers can make corporate travel less troublesome by following a few proven principles. Remember that employees don’t want to read through many confusing business travel rules. Approval processes should be clear with a few touchpoints. In addition, documentation should also be reduced as much as possible.
Keep your travel management policies easy to understand, Employees don’t want to read through many confusing business travel rules.
Your corporate travel management policies and processes should be based on the following principles:
Impact on business: Establish policies and systems to reduce unnecessary travel with little impact or benefit. You don’t only save money, but you’re also keeping employees from using unnecessary travel.
Transparency: Corporate travelers should have easy access to travel policies, resources and tools, which helps them determine how much they’re allowed to spend on their travel and therefore choose their preferred options.
Trust: Managers should allow employees to book flights, hotels and accommodations as long as established policies approve them. This lifts some of the finance staff's workload.
Streamlined processes: Travel approval and other processes should be simplified and automated, catering to all the needs of traveling professionals.
Establishing effective travel policies and using streamlined tools can help your company stay on track with corporate and business travel. With these resources, you can cater to the unique needs of your travelers, ensure their safety and security, and improve expenditure transparency.
Establishing Travel Policies That Your Employees Will Read
Your corporate travel policy is a collection of procedures and rules that informs employees how to plan, book and get funding for company-related travel. This document should be reviewed and updated regularly or as needed to adapt to the changing needs of travelers and conditions in the travel industry.
Here are some of the rules and procedures you can include in your company travel policy:
How to book a trip and get it approved by a travel manager or the finance department.
Air travel policy guidelines (business/economy bookings) include frequent flyer miles, preferred airlines and other air travel procedures.
The operating budget for airfare, hotels, car rentals, food and other needs.
Guidelines on lodging, hotel policy rules and which incidentals can be reimbursed.
A list of preferred vendors for each area of travel.
How employees can suggest travel options and have them approved by management.
Include guidelines for entertainment, meals and phone call charges.
Your employees can use tools to submit travel requests, receipts and expenditure reports.
Rule exemptions for emergencies and special needs.
The reimbursement process.
A list of permitted expenses and those that aren't covered in travel reimbursement.
Information about the company’s travel insurance carriers.
Emergency procedures in case the health or safety of travelers becomes compromised.
The duties of travelers while on the road, such as reporting and regular communication.
Your company’s travel debriefing process.
Established policies streamline booking and approval, which reduces the hassles usually associated with these processes.
Benefits of Establishing a Robust Travel Policy
When you establish clear corporate travel guidelines, you make everything fair for travelers and managers. Everyone should understand that your company’s travel policies aren’t just a collection of rules, but positively impact the company and employees on business trips.
Company Policy Benefits to Professional Travelers
Established policies streamline booking and approval, which reduces the hassles usually associated with these processes.
Travel policies help travelers plan their trips with established procedures that reduce errors in booking, documentation and reporting.
Procedures outlined in the company travel policies help ensure employees' safety during their travel. It can include regular reporting, tracking, constant communication and safety advisories.
Policies provide travelers autonomy, giving them flexible options to choose their preferred travel arrangements.
Corporate Policy Benefits for the Business
Established policies allow the company to control the flow and frequency of corporate travel, preventing expenditure spikes.
Managers and leaders must establish a company culture that fosters fairness and transparency.
Policies optimize travel funds, allowing managers to allocate budgets where they’re most needed.
Policies reduce interoffice friction over reimbursements and travel expenditures.
Making Your Company’s Travel Policies Visible and Readable
Earlier, we mentioned that one of the biggest challenges is making employees read and understand corporate travel policies and guidelines. Consider the following tips to help convince employees to review your company’s travel policy documents.
Create a separate document: Travel policy guidelines should be saved in a separate document, not embedded in other company policies and bulletins.
Make it accessible from any device: Instead of printing the guidelines or distributing them via email, you can post your travel guidelines on a cloud server, which employees can access on their phones, laptops or other devices at any time.
Make it easy to read and concise: Don’t phrase the guidelines like a legal document. Instead, reduce the jargon and simplify the rules and regulations for each step. Divide the document into separate sections, making it easily scannable so travelers can easily find the steps they need to follow.
Add checklists: Create checklists for the procedures so employees can check off each step they’ve accomplished.
Include an FAQ section: This is a handy resource for employees. It allows them to find the information they need to get their travel approved and find solutions to their concerns.
Allow employees to submit feedback: When employees provide feedback, it allows you to determine their actual travel needs. In addition, they can offer suggestions that can benefit your travel process and will enable you to update your company’s travel policies to match industry changes.
Incorporate policies in your travel management software: Automating your booking and expense tracking system allows you to incorporate travel policies into the business travel processes. For instance, when your employees submit travel requests, a list of approved hotels can be displayed, which they can choose from. If they want to book lodgings in a hotel that’s not on the list, the system should allow them to submit a request for approval. The travel management system can also alert them to specific travel policies they need to be aware of to have their request approved.
Automating your booking and expense tracking system allows you to incorporate travel policies into the business travel processes.
Automating Corporate and Business Travel Systems
Automating business travel management is crucial to streamlining your booking and approval processes, tracking employee whereabouts, improving traveler experience and efficiently managing travel expenditures.
Intelligent travel management tools like SAP Concur allow you to integrate expense management, allowing managers to trace travel spending and decide on travel requests based on accurate travel data. This tool also allows you to reimburse employees more efficiently, reducing delays and keeping your travelers happy.
With this type of travel management automation tool, you gain the following benefits:
Automatically capture and process reports and receipts.
Easily change and enforce travel spending policies.
Configure settings according to policy changes and your business needs.
Access analytics and expense data for decision-making and expense planning.
Optimize Your Corporate and Business Travel Process
Many companies today work with dedicated corporate travel management specialists like CI Azumano Travel. With the help of these experts, you reduce the workload of your in-house staff and equip your team with the latest technologies to track and manage business travel.
CI Azumano Travel combines the expertise of expert travel advisors with predictive analytics solutions. The company is a certified SAP Concur partner, giving you all the advantages of this corporate travel management software.
Consider the following case study:
Proven Travel Management Solutions for Leading Healthcare Company
Established spend visibility for international business travels
Improved traveler satisfaction by reducing communication and reporting challenges
A leading healthcare company with over 35 years of industry experience has closed an international acquisition, which necessitated travel to different countries. They needed to establish a travel policy and capture unmanaged spending. CI Azumano Travel experts implemented management solutions to mitigate language barriers, provide in-house assistance, and eliminate challenges of booking airlines and hotels.
CI Azumano Business Travel has a team of experts dedicated to helping businesses better manage corporate travel needs. We provide custom solutions tailored to the needs of our clients. Give us a call today or fill out our online contact form and our travel management specialists will be more than happy to assist you.