Business Travel News October 27, 2008 - (Page 16)

TRAVEL MANAGEMENT TECHNOLOGY Recruitment Company Employs Managed Travel Techniques BY SETH HARRIS CareerBuilder.com in June launched its first managed travel program by implementing a travel management company, a travel policy for its more than 2,500 employees and a preferred supplier program developed from an in-house sourcing effort. The travel management labors have yielded significant savings for the nascent $12 million travel program. Thus far, the Chicago-based company has achieved savings of 20 percent on average nightly room rates, 15 percent to 20 percent on daily car rental rates and total airfare savings of 2 percent, according to vice president of global corporate finance Bill Razzino. In addition, CareerBuilder has gone from what Razzino calls “managed chaos” to processing all reservations for its 1,000 traveler profiles through Orbitz for Business, with more than a 90 percent online adoption rate. CareerBuilder began operations in 1995 and as it grew in employee size, integrated acquisitions and expanded internationally, so did its need for managed corporate travel. “We noted that you get to be a certain size and you need to start leveraging some economies of scale and managing some of your processes,” said Razzino. “We invested a little more in our back office with human resources, finance and operations. There also was a big gaping hole in the area of travel.” CAREERBUILDER’S BILL RAZZINO Outlined wins for company, employees Now, Razzino oversees the travel program along with a travel manager and members of the company’s finance organization for sourcing initiatives. “We are sort of taking a crawl, walk, run approach,” he said. “We weren’t even crawling when we implemented this. Now, we are walking and hope to get up to a jog. At some point, we’ll probably dedicate more resources to travel and pur- months, the success did not come chasing in general.” without change management. With CareerBuilder traveling in From a senior management perunknown territory, Razzino adopt- spective, the choice to formally ored some travel management sourc- ganize a travel program was a “noing processes from his former em- brainer,” said Razzino. ployer, CareerBuilder part-owner The same can’t be said for the rest and existing Orbitz client Tribune of the travelers. “A lot of folks who Co. Razzino also cited his company’s have the best interests of the come-commerce orientation, travel pat- pany in mind and are going to chalterns and workforce demographic lenge whether they are going to get with a concentration of a younger the best prices from Orbitz,” he said. sales force and headquarters prox- “As soon as we said that all of your imity for the selection of the Chica- travel has to be through Orbitz, we go-based Orbitz for Business. expected a big flurry of challenges Meanwhile, Razzino also set out on a trip-by-trip basis.” to obtain negotiated rates with supRazzino was prescient. To quell pliers especially for the company’s pushback, he employed a commuair program. CareerBuilder handled nications strategy that included its own negotiations, but leveraged training sessions and e-mails “outOrbitz’s relationships with the car- lining the win-win for the company riers to put CareerBuilder’s sourc- and the employees” from an efficiening team “in front of the right folks.” cy and cost perspective by “getting Without significant spending data, them one portal to say, this is where airlines were unwilling everybody has to go to offer long-term dis- Access the 2008 Business and it’s a requirement, Travel Buyer’s Handbook counted deals, but and this is our platform see btnonline.com/handbook American Airlines ofthat we are using. fered a six-month trial contract un- There you’ll find all the vendors with til more information is available which we’ve negotiated preferred through Prism Group. United Air- rates so you can get the best price lines has followed suit and offered and so we can monitor your behava contract of similar length. ior to use that data to make sure we Although substantial savings have negotiate the best price.” been achieved in just several ■ sharris@btnonline.com ■ GetThere Changes Mobile Booking Plans As It Scraps Its Tech Partner BY SETH HARRIS Online booking tool GetThere suspended its mobile booking plans after scrapping its relationship with mobile technology provider Usablenet this spring, according to GetThere vice president of product marketing and user experience Suzanne Neufang. GetThere announced the partnership in the summer of 2007 and scheduled full deployment of GetThere2go for later last year (BTNonline, July 23, 2007). Usablenet already provides mobile adaptations of suppliers’ direct Web sites, including several legacy airlines, but there were difficulties in adapting the model for the multi-supplier corporate booking tool. “We jointly discovered they work really well with Northwest Airlines, American Airlines and hotel sites, which have one flavor fits all, but we have 9,000 flavors fits all,” said Neufang. “Each corporate version of the site or subsite was something that they couldn’t handle. We learned a lot in the process and have been upfront with customers that expressed interest in it. That relationship with GetThere is no longer there. They just can’t handle the type of white labeling business we run. They are really good at a B-to-C level, but not really at a B-to-B level.” Usablenet still has a relationship with other Sabre Holdings companies for such mobile offerings as Sabre Airline Mobile Check-in and Travelocity Mobile. According to a Usablenet spokesperson, “The testing of initial prototypes indicated more integration was needed on GetThere’s side.” During the first half of next year, GetThere plans to pilot its own mobile solution for itinerary access and delivery, and “maybe rudimentary bookings,” Neufang said. GetThere will use some of the features from mobile itinerary management tool TripIT, in which parent Sabre Holdings purchased an equity stake last April. ■ sharris@btnonline.com ■ GETTHERE’S NEUFANG Plans to pilot mobile solution 16 Monday, October 27, 2008 www.BTNonline.com Business Travel News http://www.CareerBuilder.com http://www.btnonline.com/handbook http://www.BTNonline.com

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of Business Travel News October 27, 2008

Business Travel News- October 27, 2008
Contents
Inside Track
Profiles In Travel Management
BTN Research
Forum
Lodging
Travel Management Tech
Destinations
Washington Wire

Business Travel News October 27, 2008