|
Business trips in companies are expense factors that shouldn't be underestimated. Travel and extra travel expenses of companies often represent the third biggest cost pool in income statement. In 2006 the number of business trips rose again because of the economic rebound, but at the same time prices for several travel services rose as well.
On the average German enterprises yearly spend 50 bn Euros for business trips. Because of that it isn't amazing that more and more often one searches for approaches to minimize these costs. The premise for the use of intelligent travel management solutions is an extensive analysis of the travel pattern, that means among other things to find out how many business trips and business travellers a company has and which means of transportation are mainly used for travelling. A solution that is more and more practised by companies nowadays is the online booking of business trips. With this the direct travel expenses can be often reduced by 10% or more and the indirect travel expenses (all process costs for planning) actually by 25% or more. The online booking of business trips can be carried out in different ways. There is some software, the so-called internet booking engines (IBE), which make it possible for the employees to book their flights, hotels and rental cars directly online via the company's intranet. With special accounting programs any travel expenses can be recorded, forwarded to the accounting system and finally also be analyzed. For small and mid-size companies, that don't want to integrate such systems in their own IT structure, business travel portals are available, which can be accessed externally. These portals offer fewer functions and are accordingly low priced. In Scandinavia and the US the booking of business trips is already widespread. In Germany the percentage of online bookings is said to still lie below the European average. But also here this method of cost-saving becomes increasingly more
popular.
A functioning online travel management should have in any way an online travel system and should use credit cards. Here the corporate (individual) and the company credit card have to be distinguished. All performed expenses are either charged to the individual account of the employee or to the company's account. Furthermore, a company should have in-house travelling guidelines for business trips and a central travel agency, that means that all locations only work together with a single central travel agency. A travel agency is especially necessary when the business trip is a bit more complicated and therefore difficult to be booked all alone via internet. The advantages of travel management systems are obvious. They make it possible for the company to concentrate all processes, that are necessary for a business trip, in one system and to combine them with each other. The employee has the possibility of accessing low priced and always updated airlines', hotels' and rental cars' offers and he can be sure that the bookings correspond to the travelling guidelines. With this companies can also analyze the booking and travel patterns of their employees more easily. More and more companies in Germany become aware of the importance of these advantages, certainly first of all the reduction of costs. Nevertheless, many companies have some difficulties to actively implement or to use the online booking of business trips. Therefore relevant trainings for employees should be offered and with this their independence should be encouraged. Furthermore, the use of an IBE should be fixed in the guidelines of business travel. It is still a long way until online bookings of business trips are standard all over Germany, but the companies are definitely on the right track.
 more in our newsletters (in German)
article „Corporate
Credit Cards“
|
