When you break your corporate budget up into sections of importance, you might be surprised to see that “travel” is right up near the top. Many major corporations, like Amazon and FedEx, spend six figures on air travel alone!
Research over the decades has consistently shown that corporate travel nets a strong return on your investment — provided it’s done strategically.
In the past, it was more challenging to optimize your dollar and streamline the travel process, reducing the potential ROI. But with today’s technology and a highly competitive hospitality industry, the fortune is in your favor as a travel manager.
The key to this boosted profit margin is to leverage the technology as it becomes available. From improved, efficient workflows to higher-quality accommodations at discounted prices, the evolution has changed. Here are some ways you can benefit.
1. Enjoy the Perks of Faster, Easier Booking
Finding the ideal flight or lodging accommodations is much easier than it used to be. You can grab your laptop or desktop, set your filters, compare the results, and make your final selections.
Or, even better, download the app and do the same thing on your phone while between meetings or relaxing on your couch. Isn’t technology great?
Although booking a trip has never been simpler, you might feel like you have too many options. Look for an app that includes your most frequently used filters, like scheduling large events at a hotel if you plan conferences regularly.
Those platforms are specially designed to allow you to book multiple rooms at a corporate rate. That way, instead of booking every guest yourself, you can share the discount code with them, and they get the reduced room when they book their room. You can monitor your travelers’ arrivals and departures from a central dashboard.
If you haven’t found a program that does what you need yet, keep looking. As technology continues to evolve, features become increasingly detailed. As they say, if you need it, there’s an app for that.
2. Track Your Travelers and Expenses
Gone are the ages of submitting paper receipts and storing hundreds of boxes full of paperwork for seven (or more) years. Now, document tracking programs help you store everything in one secure cloud-based spot.
These programs have seemingly endless benefits. They’re cost-effective, saving paper, storage bins, and time on task finding old receipts. Type in the time frame or other details, and you’ll find the document you’re looking for within minutes.
Because they’re cloud-based, they’re more secure than leaving sensitive documents lying around or in an easily broken locked file cabinet. If you have information that could identify a client, it’s your responsibility to keep it safe. Scan the file, then store it on a secure cloud and shred the paperwork.
While your travelers are on the road, they can use virtual credit cards and other digital payments to pay for their expenses, letting you follow their spending in real time.
You set pre-approved filters based on your company’s Meals & Incidentals policy. You don’t need to sign off on them or reimburse anyone. The receipts are instantly in your accounting software, where you can track them and use the reports features to drive future business decisions.
3. Increase Productivity With Remote Work On the Go
Think about everything you can’t do when you’re away from your office. Now imagine how much more you could get done if you had everything you needed while you were waiting for your next flight connection or meeting.
Travel management technology gives you the power to accomplish all of those to-do tasks on your list, no matter where you are.
Your data is stored on the cloud and accessible with your personalized credentials. If a client calls you, you can instantly address their issue and get back to what you were doing.
Since the pandemic, remote work has skyrocketed, and customers expect 24/7 responses. Whether you use travel management technology to make yourself easily accessible or to bring in a virtual team, you’ll land and keep more client loyalty when you leverage technology.
Conclusion
Your travel management hat requires hundreds of moving parts at any given time. Sure, you can do it yourself without technology, but why give yourself extra stress and possibly drop an important ball?
Leveraging technology will make your workload run more efficiently, increase your bottom line, and help drive future business targets.