This client is one of the largest global providers of products and services that span the drilling, evaluation, completion, production and intervention cycles of oil and natural gas wells. One of the company’s key objectives is efficiency, both in terms of delivering results for its clients as well as leveraging its worldwide infrastructure. Efficiency is also a highly valued feature when choosing suppliers.
The Challenge
The company was already an existing client of ATPI Energy Travel in the UK – but made the decision to consolidate its travel business across Europe. They wanted to improve traveller safety and know where their people were at all times; this also involved working with a third party security provider, which ATPI Marine & Energy could integrate directly with for seamless data flow. The company was looking for a consistent travel service across Europe, improving fragmented processes and efficiency of the travel booking process.
This move towards more standard processes would also contribute to savings, along with ATPI Marine & Energy’s innovative fare technology and ability to source offshore fares.
Norway was one of the countries that would be part of the European consolidation, however, the region had a good relationship with the incumbent travel management company (TMC) and the travel team was not keen to make the change. Additionally, the business division in Norway had previously set and managed its own travel policy – a consolidated policy led by the UK market was not a popular local decision.
To ensure the implementation process was a success and the new travel programme started positively, it was important to ensure an efficient, seamless process for all offices and stakeholders involved – especially in regards to limited disruption to the high record of online bookings.
The Solution
On winning the account in Norway, ATPI Marine & Energy appointed an implementation manager to oversee the entire implementation process from start to finish and also for on-going account management.
The implementation process started three months prior to the agreed start date. During this period the implementation manager had weekly phone calls with the client’s offices in the UK / Norway and ATPI Marine & Energy teams to ensure the global implementation plan was followed.
In addition the team in Norway also had local involvement in the planning and strategy behind the consolidation including booking procedures, travel profiles, online booking set-up and identifying agreements with travel suppliers such as airlines and hotels.
A large amount of system and process work, involving the above elements, was done by ATPI Marine & Energy in advance of the handover. Traveller profiles were set up and online booking training for both travel administrators and travellers were held in the client’s offices.
The Result
It was a new experience for the Norwegian client teams to follow a global travel policy. As a result ATPI Marine & Energy played an important role overseeing all information and communications directed from HQ in the UK to the division in Norway.
Due to a thorough implementation plan and process, and the commitment from all partners involved, Norway was successfully implemented as scheduled. Contributing to this success was the positive relationship between ATPI Marine & Energy and the client with regular communication between the two companies.
In regards to online bookings, the client’s travel is mainly domestic, with some European and Intercontinental flights. ATPI Marine & Energy’s recommendation to book all domestic and point-to-point travel (in Europe) online meant the company would still benefit from cost savings of booking complex travel offline.
With a previously high record of online bookings, success would be measured by the level of online adoption from the start. An extensive training programme introducing the online booking tool in combination with a user-friendly booking system, led to an online adoption rate of 80% from day one, achieving a successful consolidation.