With offices in all five continents and strong relationships with independent firms in Europe, the Middle East and Latin America, our client advises a diverse mix of clients, from Fortune 100 and FTSE 100 corporations to emerging companies and from individuals to local and national governments. ATPI Corporate Travelbegan working with the UK offices of this legal firm, in early 2010.
The Challenge
The legal firm had been using a top-four travel management company (TMC) and a leading hotel booking agency to meet its travel needs. But the firm had become disillusioned with the service it was receiving.
The TMC lacked a clear travel policy, and therefore had no control over bookings. The process was clunky, and meant completing a travel form and faxing or calling a service provider. Slippage to other, non-approved TMCs and web booking engines was running at 42%, which led to policy non-compliance, billing errors and risk management issues.
The legal firm wanted to consolidate their business travel, be able to book online, and receive more efficient management information (MI) to help them make important travel decisions and continuously improve processes.
The Solution
To fulfil the legal firm’s objectives, ATPI Corporate Travel focused on the following:
Developing an online one-stop travel ‘shop’ for users
Providing real savings through better management of opportunities
Improving the reliability of processes for billing, compliance and MI
Providing sector-specific added value with extra services
The online booking tool provides a one-stop travel shop for users by including a dashboard with single sign-on, a traveller tracking system, a feedback facility, links to ATPI and relevant third-party services, and different levels of travel policy management and authorisation.
There was also comprehensive training for all users at UK offices followed up by sessions for ‘Super Users’ in each location.
By switching to ATPI Corporate Travel, the legal firm achieved savings in many areas. Having access to a preferred hotel programme increased compliance and reduced costs. The new policy also eliminated fully flexible rail tickets and made notable savings by using the ‘single
trip’ fare option with the Evolvi booking tool. And, as a result of reviewing airline corporate reward programmes, ‘miles’ no longer expired and rewards usage was managed centrally.
ATPI Corporate Travel also saw the need to for improved MI reporting for the firm, developing customised reports to include pre-trip information, billable and non-billable expenditure tracking, and carbon emissions data.
Additional services for the legal firm include VIP travel for partners, automated matter number attribution for invoicing, management of partner conferences and a customised events and meetings programme.
The Result
Four months into the contract, online booking adoption was already high. There were like-for-like savings of 30% and non-authorised or non-compliant travel had been eliminated.
In 2012 the legal firm was still making monthly air travel savings of 27%, and 94% of rail travel was booked online. ATPI Corporate Travel’s improved MI reporting means the firm can compare figures year on year, and keep track of adoption rates.
We couldn’t be happier with ATPI Corporate Travel’s service. Dealing with a single, highly effective TMC has brought us improved MI and better online booking tools.
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