For most organizations with a regional, national or global presence, business travel is the pivoting point for growth as it involves the much-needed face-to-face interaction with clients, build crucial business relationships, grab & secure new deals and improve business flow. But this routine exercise should take a strategic route, rather than an ad hoc approach if the goal is to improve visibility of travel expenditure data, better employee satisfaction, cut down manual routines and realize faster ROI. It is critical that business owners or CFOs streamline their internal processes as for their firm’s travel planning and optimization of expense reimbursement processes to lower business travel costs.
What is a travel policy?
Any policy compliance would start ‘internally’, and that is why a travel policy that is generated and controlled internally forms the basis for keeping things under wraps. A travel policy is a framework that sets reasonable, measurable, consistent and accountable standards helping employees appreciate and follow the company’s travel expenses and reimbursement process. It essentially lists how your employees should travel; where they should stay such as hotels, resorts, clubs, etc; what cabin class they should travel in, and if they manage compliance to company preferred suppliers. Generally, they should be very concise and simple in an understandable format.
The travel policy should be written and owned internally by your travel manager who is responsible for the measurement, tracking and execution of corrective action for non- compliance and reporting of several updates concerning travel management.
It goes without saying, from the definition outlined above, that good travel policy design is critical to maintain, control and contain costs across your travel spend. A travel manager who is pro-active will not only help the business owner or the CFO to form a travel policy, but ensure thorough implementation and monitoring of company-wide policy compliance.
Streamlining Internal processes
Note that only a high level of automation can improve internal processes for controlling travel management and ensure a seamless process for business travel planning to travel expenses claim reporting.
Tripeur, our cloud-based corporate travel & expense management software, can set the internal processes of your travel management that is completely automated and can be monitored from an application, in a logical manner, with the help of a feature-rich admin control panel. The typical business traveller starts by creating a travel plan and makes an internal request for it with all the required travel details & data.
As the travel manager of a company can pick reliable travel service providers, partner with them and negotiate better travel deals, packages and offers for cost-effectiveness, as a pre-set process, the completed travel plans are now sent for his or her review, and then approval. As for the expenses management, the travel manager can monitor and utilise in-app expense reporting and financial transaction tools for updates and upgrades. Because Intelligent Analytics help any business owner or CFO to make well-informed decisions, it will help him or her to micro-manage the alloted travel budget.
The right internal culture should be driven by a centralised approach that is also consistent to travel across your business, and improve the way your company travels as a whole (i.e. ‘demand management’). Also an automated streamlined travel management process helps understands one’s unique travel patterns and needs, maximises booking value and protects a business traveller’s security. Because Tripeur is capable of managing the end-to-end demands and processes of business travel, it is the way forward for companies with a strategic goal to enhance the effectiveness of their business travel.