Business Travel News - January 28, 2008 - (Page 6)

NEWS Amex Europe Head Herrick Pursuing Growth One year after a promotion to senior vice president and general manager of American Express Business Travel in Europe, the Middle East and Africa, David Herrick in late October in Munich met with BTN editor-in-chief David Meyer to discuss the division’s rapid growth, streamlined operations and plans to match the size of Amex’s North American counterpart. BTN: What have you done in your first year? David Herrick: Much of my first year has been around some basic things and making some organizational changes. I’ve brought in some people from the outside of the industry and some terrific ones from inside, and we have a nice balance now. I’m a big believer in getting the organization right first and the rest will come.We’ve got a great organization and some terrific people. For example, Marc Hildebrand, who ran TQ3, is running central Europe and Russia for us. We’re increasing our sales force and pulling in more product people. BTN: How many people do you have? Herrick: We have 6,500 in Europe. The majority of them are front-line agents. We’ve probably got 300-plus sales and client general managers out in the marketplace. We have a number of marketing people and advisory services. Sales and client people have to know everything about their customer and everything about the business. There are certain times when they have to be the expert, but other times they need to rely on our product people or our advisory people or whoever to come in and assist with a specific challenge. Within the marketing group we’ve got specific product people. We have people on the distribution side in the supplier relations group. Our setup is very similar to what you would find in North America, but to a lesser degree in terms of numbers. In Europe, I have 18 markets that make up my region and you have to take into consideration the local cultures. We operate in four subregions. I rely on the heads of each of those from a local perspective on what’s going to make it work for us in that market. BTN: What are the regions? Herrick: The Nordics: Sweden, Denmark and Norway; U.K. and Ireland; Germany, Austria, Switzerland, Central Europe and Russia; France, Benelux, Spain and Italy. We’re very good at providing a global product. What we’ve got to find is that balance to help our customers. We’ve rationalized our service centers in Europe. We used to have 50 business travel centers in France. Now Continued on page 8 PROFILES IN TRAVEL MANAGEMENT Policy, Rearden Tool Help Upgrade Travel Program ConAgra Foods has rolled out a new globConAgra also has seen dramatic increases al travel policy and online travel procurement in preferred travel vendor use. The corporaplatform that has driven up adoption levels, tion implemented its first national hotel proincreased preferred supplier usage for lever- gram and increased preferred hotel compliage in future negotiations and enabled the ance from 30 percent to 60 percent in the company to begin to corral first 30 days of rolling out the meetings and events expenonline platform. ditures and procure ancillary “Through our online booktravel services online. ing tool, all of the preferred The company deployed hotels are marked as such so the new travel policy and they can quickly see the preRearden Commerce’s Perferred relationship without sonal Assistant online travgoing outside the tool,” Jackel procurement platform sison said. multaneously as part of a The travel policy reinforced mission to “simplify” the need to book through the processes and practices, said appropriate channels—online ConAgra procurement cateor through Omaha, Neb.gory manager Amanda Jackbased travel management son, who manages travel company Travel and Transcontracts, the online bookport. “We wanted to pull toAMANDA JACKSON ing program and the policy. gether all of our data and ConAgra procurement manager Since July 2007, the Omaspend so we could leverage ha, Neb.-based company that in future negotiations,” with $22 million in annual U.S. booked air vol- Jackson said. “The main reason we did this ume has harvested a projected annual sav- was that we wanted to go back to one of our ings of $3.5 million through lower average air- must-dos as a company and nourish our peofares, a 3 percent increase in preferred air ple by focusing on the safety of our travelers. carrier use—giving its top airline an addition- In order to know where our people are traval 4 percent share of its business—a 4 per- eling, we wanted them to book through the cent increase in the use of nonrefundable appropriate channel so we could get the retickets and a 50 percent increase in the num- porting on the back end.” ber of car rental bookings made online. Jackson said the backing of senior management was instrumental to success. Con-Agra’s executive vice president of human resources COMPANY: CONAGRA FOODS and CFO endorsed the initial communicaHEADQUARTERS: OMAHA, NEBRASKA tions program, which ran from April through ANNUAL U.S. BOOKED AIR VOLUME: $22 MILLION July 2007. Jackson collaborated with the corporate communications department to deBacked by a senior management endorse- velop a strategy to educate employees and ment and a strategic communications and departments who had a history of noncomtraining program, the company was able to pliance with the travel program. reach an 81 percent adoption level for air The communications program was combookings in 30 days on eligible transactions— plemented with weekly training sessions for bookings with less than three destinations— the first two months, onsite demonstrations surpassing its goal of reaching a 75 percent with Rearden staff and refresher sessions. According to Jackson, half of ConAgra’s 6,000 online adoption rate within 90 days. ConAgra previously used multiple policies travelers underwent training before rollout. and had an 11 percent adoption rate with its Before companywide release, Jackson testincumbent online booking tool, said Jackson, ed the online program with 300 pilot users. —Seth Harris who joined the company in October 2006. 6 Monday, January 28, 2008 www.BTNonline.com Business Travel News http://www.BTNonline.com

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of Business Travel News - January 28, 2008

2008 Hotel Rate Hikes Appear On Par With 2007
Business Travel News - January 26, 2008
Buyers Air Merger Concerns
Contents
GSA Deploys End-To-End Travel Technology
Marriott Adopts Regional, Account-Based Sales Focus
BTN Delivers New Look, Keeps Focus
Carlson Taps Joly as CEO
BA To Launch Transatlantic Carrier
Amex Europe’s Herrick Augurs Growth
Savings Smorgasbord
Fuel Costs Fire Up Domestic Fare Hikes
Extended Stay CEO DeLapp Gives Recap
Fine-Tuned Expense Tool

Business Travel News - January 28, 2008