Business Travel News - September 14, 2009 - (Page 16)

TRAVEL MANAGEMENT CWT Restructures Globally, Promotes Koetting BY SETH HARRIS Carlson Wagonlit Travel’s June transition of Mike Koetting to COO of North America came as CWT, like other travel management companies, made structural changes to deal with account and sales activity. CWT also is building European and Asia/Pacificbased teams to manage the consolidation projects of North American clients, said CWT North America president Jack O’Neill. There al- ready is a team of six in place in Europe. “Because there is so much sales and rebid activity going on, much of which is price-driven, we are seeing a lot of corporations going through the sales process with a price focus and not necessarily a strong drive to change agencies,” said Koetting. “Our challenge is to find a way to respond to the client’s need to reduce cost, but in a way that increases efficiency for both of us, so that decreasing our clients’ cost doesn’t mean an erosion in our profit.” The abnormal level of activity was one of the main drivers of moving Koetting over from his role as executive vice president of global supplier management, O’Neill said (BTNonline, June 22). Koetting now oversees the U.S. regional senior vice presidents, CWT Canada leadership, the vice president of traveler and transaction services and the vice president of business development for the corporate, small and midsize enterprise markets. “The most important thing we can do is be out with our clients,” said O’Neill. “We have a pretty thin work structure. We are the largest in the U.S. government space. I’ve got Canada, staff functions— client services and marketing, and we probably have 12 or 14 people. For Mike to take over the leadership for CWT’S MIKE KOETTING Focused on raising efficiency operating the business helps me and the organization.” ■ sharris@btnonline.com ■ New Orbitz For Business President Implementing Sales Strategy BY SETH HARRIS nine months, Petito expects to Orbitz for Business president launch new points of sale in some Frank Petito, who has led the trav- non-English-speaking countries in el management company since mid- Europe and possibly Asia/Pacific. June, has started to implement his “There are folks who are more adstrategy for the travel management vanced in their international evolucompany, which includes building tion,” Petito said. “They’ve got a bigoff the international momentum de- ger presence overseas and that’s veloped by former something we need senior vice president to build over the and COO of the travcoming years. That’s el management comgoing to be a longerpany Dean Sivley, term play.” who became presiNot on the horizon dent and CEO of is the pursuit of travel insurance clients based in new company Travel international markets Guard in May. with local sales and Petito, an Orbitz account manageveteran, also plans to ment teams. integrate preferred “I don’t want to Orbitz leisure supplicome across as beFRANK PETITO er programs into the ing exclusively foTailoring preferred programs TMC and make Orbcused on profitabiliitz For Business ty, but I don’t know even more critical to the strategy of that I am quite ready to build out Orbitz Worldwide president and a huge sales force in advance of CEO Barney Harford, who took the having a pretty clear booked busitop spot in January (BTNonline, ness there,” said Petito. Jan. 7). Another part of Petito’s strategy Using Travelport’s Traversa online is tailoring for the corporate marsystem as the underlying technolo- ket preferred supplier programs gy for the Orbitz for Business Inter- from its parent company, especialnational product, the TMC is operat- ly for its small and midsize clients. ing in Australia, Canada and the The company recently reintroduced United Kingdom. In the next six to its hotel merchant program into Or- bitz for Business, offering its clients more than 80,000 preferred hotel properties. “I want to bring great deals to our corporate travelers,” he said. “At Orbitz, we facilitate the sale of $10 billion worth of travel. That’s a scaled business.” Petito previously served as sen- ior vice president of corporate development for parent company Orbitz Worldwide. He joined Orbitz in 2002 and served on the executive team that steered the company through two initial public offerings and its 2004 acquisition by Cendant. ■ sharris@btnonline.com ■ HRG Brings Technology To America BY SETH HARRIS HRG this month will begin to deploy technology previously exclusive to Europe in North America, including its proprietary online booking, pretrip auditing and point-of-sale agent desktop tools. This month, HRG is rolling out its online booking tool, HRG Online, in North America for use with Sabre global distribution system bookings. In the fourth quarter, the HRG TripPass automated pre-trip approval tool will be able to approve bookings made on the Galileo global distribution system. HRG will add Amadeus and Sabre GDS approval capabilities in the first quarter of 2010, according to North America executive vice president of technology Ted Brooks. HRG plans to test Point of Sale, its multisource agent desktop tool, in North America by year-end. One focus of the tool, which it now is testing in a European call center, is processing hotel transactions and making the hotel inventory and data more robust, said Brooks. HRG is building a realtime hotel rate auditing tool for integration into Point of Sale. HRG also plans to roll out a new global reporting solution to help users create template reports and manage them through a dashboard-style interface, a more hands-on and conceivably cheaper way for buyers to build and maintain customized reporting needs. Brooks said HRG is testing the new HRG Online Reporting tool and clients will begin transitioning to the new platform from the two-year-old legacy system in the coming months. ■ sharris@btnonline.com ■ 16 Monday, September 14, 2009 www.BTNonline.com Business Travel News http://www.BTNonline.com

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of Business Travel News - September 14, 2009

Business Travel News - September 14, 2009
Contents
Inside Track
Profiles In Travel Management
Forum
Aviation
Lodging
Travel Management
EuroBTN

Business Travel News - September 14, 2009