When we are talking about managing the second largest spend in a corporate, it is never easy selecting the right corporate Travel Management Solution. It is challenging to satisfy all these three groups of stakeholders; CFOs, Travelers and Travel Admins when it comes to Corporate Travel. Travel Management Solutions have evolved a long way from there and can be a 360-degree platform for all travel needs and more.
What Does Travel Corporate Management Solution do?
Corporate travel management is a company’s structure to facilitate business travel. This includes planning a business trip, organising a corporate event, or any other necessary task for the corporate traveller. Ensuring the process is handled properly and according to compliance is the job of corporate travel agents.
Here are 10 indicators for you to think about before selecting the right Corporate Travel Management Solution
User Experience
One doesn’t want users to fill endless forms to raise a travel request and re-fill if there is a small change in the plan. We are in the age of Conversational UI and anything that takes beyond 60 seconds to raise a request should be shown the door. The Corporate Travel Management solution should not make your users think a lot and spend a lot of time raising requests and approving.
Travel Policy Management
A comprehensive travel management system is not just about booking. It should be an integral part of your travel management system. Having a clear and concise policy that spells out what can or cannot be booked will ensure that costs don’t exceed budgets.
Large Inventory
The larger the inventory and the broader the possibilities of getting a better deal that meets your budget and the traveller’s expectation. The best solutions must get you content from both local and international sources so that all the travel can be managed from a central location.
Configurable System
Each company will have its own policies, processes, workflows, organization structures, taxation policies, integrations and so on. The one size fits all approach will never work in this context. Check if your travel management solution can be configurable to each of your business and user requirements.
Flexibility in Booking
Some organizations might prefer to have their employees manage their own travel and some others might want to book on behalf of employees and a few others follow a mixed approach. Does your travel management solution allow this and adapt to multiple workflows?
24X7 Support
The support needs to be 24X7 and no less. Employees travel around the clock, especially if you are a global organization. The support should be offered through all the channels – email, phone, chat.
Invoice and Tax Management
Planning a business trip automatically means handling several invoices. Keeping track of all these bills, dealing with lost receipts and tracking expense claims could be baffling. When considering your options, make sure that the system consolidates all the bills from a trip into a single folder. This will significantly ease the burden on the finance department.
Approval Management
Most of the travel solutions have hierarchy-based approval management. However, given the matrix organizations, we work in, the approval management needs to be broader.
Transparency and Insights
Travel is one area that can lead to several manipulations from booking to cancellations to reimbursements. As a CFO, you need to have a transparent system that gives you real-time insight into any manipulations.
Integrations
It is important for the travel solution to be able to integrate with a company’s systems, so that data integrity is maintained. It should integrate with the HR and the Finance systems for a seamless experience for users and CFOs alike. In addition, you should get a comprehensive dashboard of your travel program that allows you to slice and dice the data as per your organization structure.
Gamification to Change User Behavior and Save More
The system must-have features that nudge and reward the users to modify their behaviours to save for the organization without sacrificing their safety or experience. Modern Travel Management Solutions have AI, ML and gamification features that read the user behaviour and nudge them along the way to help them make the right decision.
How Systrix’s Corporate Travel Software Can Help?
With Systrix’s Corporate Travel Software, you can streamline all your key finance processes like travel reimbursement claims, travel approvals, and budget requests. We are a travel software solution provider in the Middle East region, which streamline the travel business and enhance productivity by providing travel IT solutions. Get your free demo today.
17 Must-Have Features In A Travel Management System