Comment: IT and intimacy

Ajay Sodha, chairman of Key Travel, discusses the growing importance of customer understanding in the procurement process and how technology can help.

"Across the business travel sector, companies are under intense scrutiny. Customers want to be sure they're getting the best deal possible, but also that they are using a travel management company which fits them culturally as well. This demand has had a significant impact on the business travel sector as a whole.

Ajay Sodha, Key Travel

"Despite focusing on the Third Sector - not-for-profit organisations - we've seen the development of procurement systems in charities and universities that are just as robust as those of any corporate organisation.  Indeed, a client with a travel expenditure in excess of £5 million undertook an EU approved tender process with 14 travel management companies before approving us as a supplier. The process included a pre-qualification questionnaire, followed by a full invitation to tender to shortlisted suppliers, with successful bids subsequently shortlisted for final presentations.
 
"As a result of the increasing intense scrutiny that we face, it is now critical to make our competitive advantages very clear to our customers, if we are to differentiate our business from others. For example, value is a given but we must make the breakdown of costs crystal clear so that travellers can easily justify every expense to the business.
 
"Although challenging, this attitude has also necessitated a greater understanding of client's businesses which in turn has positively led to improved customer service. Traditionally the travel industry has been characterised by many ‘box-pushers', businesses that offer standard products that are not tailored to specific and, often unique, customer needs.  If you can move beyond just flogging flights and hotels to a real understanding of how travel is strategic for the business, you can really impress your customers. Moreover, by understanding the nuances of how the organisation runs operationally, client service can be offered that really makes a business stand out from the crowd.
 
"Technology has helped us here. Working with Amadeus allows us to access the most relevant content so that we can better serve the needs of our clients. It also helps us to be more efficient, significantly enabling us to spend more time working with clients to understand their specific needs.  Yet this confidence must in turn be passed onto our customers as true benefit; we feel that our customers believe that an informed choice has been made to employ technology that best serves their needs but is open and flexible enough to cope with any new demands that might arise. To this end, we have found that flexibility is key to long-term customer retention.
 
"Only a flexible technology infrastructure allows travel companies to adapt their products and services to their clients. For example, we have a fairly unique client base as they travel a lot, and often to dangerous parts of the world. The Corporate Manslaughter Act means that organisations need to take every step available to make sure that the associated risk to travelling employees is mitigated as far as professionally possible.
 
"We help them do this through real-time data from Amadeus that can be processed through a number of risk management tools, enabling clients to track exactly where individuals are, whilst also tracking incidents and the associated level of risk connected to the area. This then feeds into the clients' incident response protocol enabling them to react quickly and appropriately if their employees ever get into sticky situations.
 
"Green concerns are making an increasing impact on customer acquisition and retention. CSR is arguably more important to the third sector and it is growing in importance. The green agenda was dominant in 2007/2008 before the economic bubble burst, but was quickly overridden by cost considerations. Now that the economy is starting to recover, I think we'll start to see organisations becoming much more transparent, particularly about their impact on the environment, in the coming year. As a result, it's critical for us to work with technology suppliers to show exactly how our customers' travel will impact the environment so that they can make informed decisions.
 
"Altogether, technology is the central, critical enabler for helping us understand business demands and then meeting them through information and services. Whether you're working with the Third Sector as we are, or with corporate customers, this will remain true."

www.keytravel.co.uk