Are you missing the strategy... of great account management?
Entertainment travel has always had a strong demand for negotiated rates, one-to-one service and VIP travel. While these services continue to be sought after, a definite shift in attitudes is taking place. There is a strong drive towards strategic account management and sophisticated reporting – two very important elements to cut your travel costs in the long run.
If you think account management = 'high brow', think again. It's the one true way of taking the air out of your costs. And that's because it combines planning and reporting to set you in the right direction and save you money in the process.
What does account management in travel mean?
In simple terms, it involves your travel management company (TMC) taking a big picture view of your travel and determining how you can do it all better. The focus is on delivering both immediate savings, in the rates and fares you are booking, and longer-term savings in your overall travel budget. Account management is about taking a holistic – rather than ad hoc – approach, where all your travel and related entertainment activity is planned and measured to bring costs down.
Why is it the best option?
Too often, travel arranging takes an unplanned approach, with lastminute bookings, the use of many different suppliers, and perhaps a few different agencies thrown in for good measure. This approach is rife with risks and unnecessary costs. Late planning, leading to late bookings, limits your options and savings. Using many travel suppliers rather than a preferred few, weakens your ability to secure lower rates. And booking through various travel agencies makes it harder to track your costs, let alone your travellers in an emergency situation.
So while it may seem easy enough to organise your own travel and strike great deals, the reality is that you'll be kissing time and money goodbye when you could be saving both!
How does account management work?
Account management is best provided by TMCs that have end-toend capabilities. They scrutinise every aspect of your travel and manage it as part of an overarching business plan. The emphasis is on breaking down your travel activity piece by piece and looking at how each of these pieces can be run more efficiently.
The hallmarks of good account management include:
- a dedicated account manager who has the smarts across all areas of travel
- a complete review of your existing travel patterns, culture and travel behaviour
- development of a strategic travel plan and policy that aligns with your goals for the year ahead
- negotiating with suppliers and managing air and hotel programs
- compliance measures to maximise the savings from your policy
- reporting tools to allow the tracking of all your travel expenses, benchmarking of your results, and cost control.
Account managers – your friends for the long haul
A good account manager is worth their weight in gold, and will reveal their cost-saving abilities very quickly, and make cost reduction an ongoing process. They'll be world-wise on all things travel and regularly share this intelligence with you to make sure your future travel is as cost-efficient as it can be. Top notch account managers are those who are not only well practised in travel management, but strategic in the way they look at your travel. They'll analyse the complete mosaic of your travel, and rebuild it with the following tools.
A total review
From the outset, your account manager will work hand-inhand with your business to review everything about the way you move – from travel patterns and class of travel you prefer, to booking processes and the suppliers you use. Drawing on this information and their extensive industry knowledge, your account manager will then make recommendations and develop a travel plan that points you in the right direction.
The travel plan – your roadmap for savings
At the heart of your travel plan will be a policy that creates parameters around elements such as:
- the need for travel ie. is that next trip absolutely necessary?
- the level of flexibility required in your travel
- how your travel is booked ie. by whom and with which travel company
- the timeframes you should apply for your bookings ie. how far in advance
- how to make last-minute bookings when needed
- your preferred airline, hotel and car rental suppliers
- the class of travel used
- payment processes.
The policy essentially becomes the 'travel bible' for your team. Therefore it's important that everyone knows how it works, what the benefits are, and is on board in supporting it. Communicating your new policy to your people is an area in which your account manager can assist you.
This is also where policy compliance measures come into play. These measures can include exception alerts for bookings that are made out of policy, pre-trip approvals, and restricting access to preferred suppliers only. Your account manager can guide you on the best measures for your team, so you can work your policy to its greatest advantage and save on your travel as much as possible.
Policy compliance measures are found within smart travel technologies, which leads us to the critical right hand of account management - reporting.
Travel reporting - the 'must have'
Knowledge is power. In this context, it's easy to see that you can't accurately track all travel costs in your business without the right information tools.
Travel reporting is the answer. It gives you a view into everything from your bookings, to your flights and hotel stays, to your total travel costs.
Importantly, cutting-edge technology also gives you excellent control over your spend by automatically managing specific elements (eg. relating to airfares, room rates etc). It guides your people to stay on policy throughout the booking process, by prominently displaying preferred suppliers and lowest fare options. Out-of-policy options are marked as non-compliant or can be eliminated entirely from view.
This tool can also provide a wealth of information by producing a vast range of reports, such as:
- your total travel spend in any given timeframe
- your overall level of compliance
- any bookings made outside your policy, to identify unnecessary expense
- your air tickets on hold, to ensure these tickets can be used
- the travel activity of a particular person or division
- your use of a particular supplier (airline or hotel etc), so you can track volume levels and use these in future negotiations with that supplier
- the location of your people at any point in time, should you have any travellers caught in an emergency
- benchmarking reports that compare your travel spend with a previous period or with similar organisations in your industry.
Armed with this rich information, your account manager will conduct regular reviews to track your expenditure and target opportunities to make further savings. They'll give you recommendations on priorities for the next quarter and year, so you can reach your targets.
By running reports on a monthly to quarterly basis, analysing the findings and crunching the numbers, we can continuously assess your performance and drive the savings. You'll have peace of mind knowing that your travel is as streamlined as it can be, and enjoy the bottom-line benefit of more value in your budget.
This shift is exciting for the entertainment industry as it gives travel specialists like Stage and Screen the opportunity to demonstrate our added strengths: analysing our clients' travel data, negotiating better rates and deals, and implementing a range of cost reduction measures to maximise long-term savings. At the end of the day, more value for less cost is your ultimate goal.
