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Corporate Travel Management Solution in a large Software Company :
About the company

The Company is a multi division, multi location global corporation with nearly 15 office locations spread across the globe. The company is engaged in Software services and BPO operations , mostly for its overseas clientele. The Company has about 20000 employees in its operation. Almost 25% of the employees need to undertake business travel for various work. Due to strong international business profile of the company, employees most often take short or long duration overseas trips. The travel spend of the company is close to INR 350 Million.

Scenario before implementing Travel Solution
  • Processing of travel requests were being handled in each location independently
  • The entire process was form based and manual
  • Visa requests were being processed manually
  • Car hire and accomodation requests were being routed separately
  • Travel Policy compliance was being checked manually
  • Agency bills for Ticketing was being entered manually by accounts people
  • Reconciliation at the end of the year with Travel Agency was a dreaded task with many disputes and major amounts had to be written off
  • Refund against cancellation was often delayed. There was no process to monitor this
  • Users did not have any knowledge on the ticketing status and had to follow up personally
  • Travel Manager had to approve bills practically without reference to the supporting details of Travel Request
  • Traveler’s special instructions to Travel Desk were often verbal, resulting in errors
  • Traveler’s Travel prferences (Seat, Meal etc) had to be informed each time
  • Traveler’s passport / visa details had to be informed each time while traveling abroad
Highlights of the TravelGrid solution

TravelGrid solution, proposed to the client by Channel Mentor had to adress the above process issues. Besides the solution was provided with the following highlights
  1. Users could manage their own preferences and personal data in a "My Account" page
  2. Users were able to build their Travel Plan in a travel request form page before sending to Travel desk
  3. Insurance request was being automatically generated for the Travel insurance desk
  4. Visa requests were being created by employees online
  5. Car & Hotel booking requests were being made as part of Travel request
  6. Forex tour advance as per policy was included in the Travel request
  7. Users could request modification or cancellation of their Travel Plan, Advance
  8. Travel desk had all booking requests and other service requests listed chronologically
  9. Agency could update the Travel booking confirmation details which automatically triggered mails
  10. Admin desk could update employees’ accomodation and vehicle hire requests status online
  11. All agency bills, uploaded into the Portal were automatically linked to the booking requests
  12. Cancellations were traceable and controllable by Travel manager through appropriate reports
  13. Bill approval at accounts were carried out online
  14. Uploadable GL account posting records were generated automatically by the system
  15. Railway booking for domestic travel also were handled similarly
  16. A printable Travel Statement was generated in the system in each user’s screen providing complete cost history of his bookings and cancellation. This could be directly attached to the expense settlement report
Benefits for the Company

The benefits were almost immediate. Some of these are listed below
  1. The Company could do away with Travel desk of each individual location and centralize all Ticketing operations at a single place.
  2. The company could continue with more than one travel Agency without any hassles as the system reconciled each agency’s booking and billing data automatically
  3. Payment to Travel Agencies became smooth and without any disputes
  4. Refunds pending from agency were immediately traceable. Therefore refunds could be adjusted promptly
  5. Errors while booking became fewer as information provided were structured and accurate
  6. Interaction between Traveling employee and Travel Desk became unnecessarry as all required information were there to click and view
  7. Travelers became more accountable for repeated cancellations and started planning there travel better.
  8. Agency performance could be monitored as delays were visible in history.
  9. Papers were eliminated in this entire process
  10. Cost data posting to ERP became automated with uploadable excel
  11. Visa request handling also came online with status and traceability
  12. Car and Hotel bookings had complete traceability
  13. Forex disbursement was accounted in a auditable way
  14. Efficiency of Travel process improved dramatically as all stakeholders spent 30-80% less time in his role in the Travel process.
Follow up actions

The Company followed up its successful implementation of TravelGrid in India with further roll out in US, UK & Singapore. There are plans afoot to enhance the platform with modules that bring more and more employee expenditures on to the automated compliance and workflow process.