What area of your program requires the most support from data and analytics? Is it to monitor compliance? What about to maximize savings from your air and hotel contracts? Maybe it’s to drive operational efficiency for your travel team?
Regardless of your program’s size, objectives, or approach, data has become a key element for all travel programs. Travel managers spend a considerable amount of time today leveraging and analyzing data for a variety of different purposes. According to the new Travel Manager 2020 report produced by GBTA and Sabre, reporting and analytics ranked as one of the top three most time consuming activities for 57% of travel managers. In fact its importance is growing as travel managers look to take a more data driven approach to making decisions and running their programs. The majority surveyed as a part of the study also expect to spend more time in the future on travel data and analytics.
So what areas are travel managers spending the most amount of their time analyzing? According to the new Travel Manager 2020 study, negotiating contracts with suppliers actually ranked as the top use for data and metrics by North American travel managers. Unfortunately only 35% of those surveyed are actually satisfied with the reporting capabilities currently available to them. Part of this is because their data often resides in a number of different locations and formats, and part of it is because the way data is used within their organizations is often varied across their many internal stakeholders.
The key question is: With better data and tools could travel managers actually reduce the amount of time they spend on supplier agreements while also potentially increasing their effectiveness and incremental savings? It sounds like a big ask based on the data challenges travel managers are faced with today, but it is possible.
To help navigate these questions, we’ve created a toolkit designed to arm you with the insights needed to tackle this incredibly important topic. Included is a brand new article titled 3 Ways Data Can Deliver a Big Impact to Your Air Program which examines some of the pitfalls and opportunities in air program data as well as many more resources designed to help you transform your air program through the use of data. Visit our Travel Manager 2020 microsite to explore this new content and learn how to do more with data without breaking a sweat.