POLITECNICO DI MILANO

Scuola di Ingegneria Industriale e dell’Informazione

Laurea Magistrale Management Engineering – Ingegneria Gestionale

DIGITAL IN BUSINESS TRAVEL: A MODEL FOR EVALUATING THE ROI

OF A DIGITAL SOLUTION

Supervisor: Ing. Filippo Maria Renga Co-Supervisor: Ing. Niccolò Ballerio

Marco Marino 852668

Academic Year 2017-2018

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INDEX

Abstract .......................................................................................... V

Sintesi ........................................................................................... VI

Executive Summary ..................................................................... VII

1 Introduction ............................................................................. 3

2 Literature Review ..................................................................... 5 2.1 The Importance of Business Travel .............................................. 5 2.2 The Players .................................................................................. 9

2.2.1 The Travel Manager .................................................................................... 11 2.2.2 The Business Traveller ............................................................................... 14 2.2.3 The Intermediaries ..................................................................................... 16

2.3 Corporate Travel Management .................................................. 18 2.3.1 The Travel Policy ........................................................................................ 19 2.3.2 Phases of the Process ................................................................................. 23

2.4 Digital in Business Travel .......................................................... 26 2.4.1 Online Booking Tool .................................................................................. 27 2.4.2 Mobile and Duty of Care ............................................................................ 31 2.4.3 Payment Solutions ..................................................................................... 35 2.4.4 T&E Management Solutions ...................................................................... 37 2.4.5 Monitoring and Analytical Tools ............................................................... 41 2.4.6 The Importance of Integration .................................................................. 43

3 Research Objective and Methodology ..................................... 49 3.1 Purpose of the Research ............................................................ 49 3.2 Methodology .............................................................................. 53

3.2.1 Interviews ................................................................................................... 54 3.2.2 Main findings ............................................................................................. 62 3.2.3 Analysis of the Survey ................................................................................ 64

4 A Model for Evaluating the Return on Investment of a Digital Solution in BTM ............................................................................ 81

4.1 BTM Process Definition ............................................................. 81

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4.1.1 Pre-Trip Phase ........................................................................................... 83 4.1.2 On-Trip Phase ........................................................................................... 84 4.1.3 Post-Trip Phase ......................................................................................... 84 4.1.4 Sourcing & Control ..................................................................................... 85

4.2 Indicators Definition ................................................................ 86 4.2.1 Pre-Trip Indicators ..................................................................................... 92 4.2.2 On-Trip Indicators ..................................................................................... 99 4.2.3 Post-Trip Indicators ................................................................................. 103 4.2.4 Sourcing & Control Indicators ................................................................. 108 4.2.5 Multi-Phase Indicators ............................................................................ 112

4.3 Differences with Existing Literature ......................................... 116

5 Conclusions .......................................................................... 120

APPENDIX ....................................................................................... i

REFERENCES ............................................................................... vii

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INDEX OF GRAPHS AND TABLES

Figure 2-1. The historical growth of business travel and tourism worldwide (Swarbrooke et al., 2001) .............................................................................. 6

Figure 2-2. Business travel sectors (Davidson & Cope, 2003) ............................ 7 Figure 2-3. Most common reasons for travel, (ACTE Global 2016) .................... 8 Figure 2-4. The three main actors in corporate travel management (Holma,

2009) ........................................................................................................... 10 Figure 2-5. Airlines Distribution Channels (Alamdari, 2002) ........................... 17 Figure 2-6. A model for travel policy compliance (Douglas & Lubbe, 2009) ... 21 Figure 2-7. Savings from travel policy compliance ............................................ 22 Figure 2-8. Corporate travel purchasing process (Holma, 2012) ..................... 24 Figure 2-9. Benefits from the implementation of a SBT (Osservatorio

Innovazione Digitale nel Turismo, 2017) ................................................... 29 Figure 2-10. Savings as a result of the implementation of an OBT (Amadeus,

2015) ............................................................................................................ 29 Figure 2-11. Importance of a travel app for different stages of travel process

(Carlson Wagonlit Travel, 2014) ................................................................. 32 Figure 2-12. The expense management process (Fiscal Management Associates,

2015) ............................................................................................................ 37 Figure 2-13. Uses for metrics in travel program (GBTA, 2015) ......................... 43 Figure 3-1. Presence and Compliance of Travel Policy with SBT ...................... 65 Figure 3-2. Presence and Compliance of Travel Policy without SBT ................ 66 Figure 3-3. Presence and Compliance of Travel Policy with Expense

Management Tool ....................................................................................... 67 Figure 3-4. Presence and Compliance of Travel Policy without Expense

Management Tool ....................................................................................... 67 Figure 3-5. Presence and Compliance of Travel Policy with Monitoring Tool . 68 Figure 3-6. Presence and Compliance of Travel Policy without Monitoring Tool

..................................................................................................................... 68 Figure 3-7. Presence and Compliance of Travel Policy with all the three tools 69 Figure 3-8. Agency fees using online booking tools .......................................... 70 Figure 3-9. Agency fees using phone or email for bookings .............................. 70 Figure 3-10. Online reservation rate for companies using online booking tools

...................................................................................................................... 71 Figure 3-11. Most important mobile app features for travel managers ............. 72 Figure 3-12. Utilization of mobile app for traveller assistance by companies

adopting an instrument for safety and security ......................................... 73 Figure 3-13. Reimbursement process with Corporate Credit Card ................... 74

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Figure 3-14. Reimbursement process with Employees' Credit Card ................. 74 Figure 3-15. Agreements with Suppliers with Monitoring Tool ........................ 75 Figure 3-16. Agreements with Suppliers without Monitoring Tool .................. 76 Figure 3-17. Types of Service/Products Negotiated ........................................... 77 Figure 4-1. Scheme of all the Indicators per category and phase ..................... 115 Figure 4-2. Trade-off benefits framework (Osservatorio Innovazione Digitale

nel Turismo, 2017) ..................................................................................... 117 Table 2-1. The channel used for trip approval (Carlson Wagonlit Travel, 2014)

..................................................................................................................... 31 Table 2-2. Benefits and risks of mobile services (Carlson Wagonlit Travel,

2014) ............................................................................................................ 34 Table 2-3 - Sources of expense report ROI (Certify, 2017) ................................ 39 Table 3-1. Companies of travel managers interviewed ...................................... 55 Table 3-2. Table of call interviews' results ......................................................... 62 Table 4-1. Indicators of the Pre-Trip Phase ....................................................... 88 Table 4-2. Indicators of the On-Trip Phase ....................................................... 89 Table 4-3. Indicators of the Post-Trip Phase ..................................................... 90 Table 4-4. Indicators of the Sourcing & Control Phase ..................................... 91

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Abstract

The digital transformation that in the last years has disrupted, and is continuing to disrupt, the ordinary execution of business activities, both strategically and operationally, has recently affected the management of business travel within the organizations. In the last years, several innovative digital solutions were developed and introduced in business tourism market and they allow to optimize the process, generating both a reduction in overall voice of cost of Travel & Expense and an improvement of the quality of the travel experience. However, the implementation of these digital instruments in the business context is a complex operation, so it is necessary the support of decisional tools that enable to correctly evaluate the benefits obtained as a consequence of such implementation.

The following work of research provides a structural approach for the assessment of the return on investment of a digital solution for the business travel management. The definition of the model is based on a careful analysis of the existing literature, scientific and professional, on online and telephonic interviews to Italian travel managers, and on the active participation to important events of the business tourism sector.

The proposed method allows companies to numerically evaluate the benefits, direct and indirect, that have been achieved in response to the adoption of a digital instrument, verifying that the implementation occurred successfully, and identifying eventual areas for improvements. Moreover, the model can be used as decisional support during the phase of selection of the most suitable instrument, in order to choose the solution that best fits with the requirements and the structural organization of the company. Such evaluation is based on the definition of a set of numerical indicators that covers all the phases of the process and the possible instruments adopted. The indicators definition is based both on the analysis of the features and the resultant advantages of the innovative technological solutions, and on the aspects and activities that are relevant for the correct realization of a business travel management program.

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Sintesi

La trasformazione digitale che negli ultimi anni ha stravolto, e continua a stravolgere, la conduzione ordinaria delle attività aziendali, sia a livello strategico che operazionale, ha recentemente interessato la gestione dei viaggi d’affari all’interno delle organizzazioni. Negli ultimi anni, sono state sviluppate e introdotte nel mercato del turismo aziendale diverse soluzioni digitali innovative che permettono di ottimizzare tale processo, generando sia una riduzione della spesa totale della voce Travel & Expense, sia un incremento della qualità dell’esperienza di viaggio. Tuttavia, l’implementazione di tali sistemi digitali all’interno del contesto aziendale è un processo complesso, ed è quindi necessario il supporto di strumenti decisionali che consentano di valutare correttamente i benefici conseguiti a seguito della digitalizzazione.

Il seguente lavoro di tesi propone un approccio strutturato per il calcolo del ritorno sull’investimento di una soluzione digitale per la gestione aziendale dei viaggi d’affari. La definizione di tale modello si basa su un’attenta analisi della letteratura esistente, scientifica e professionale, su interviste online e telefoniche a travel manager italiani, e sulla partecipazione attiva ad importanti eventi del settore del turismo aziendale. Il metodo proposto consente alle aziende di valutare numericamente i benefici, diretti e indiretti, che sono stati ottenuti a seguito dell’adozione di uno strumento digitale, verificando che l’implementazione sia avvenuta correttamente, ed individuando eventuali aree di miglioramento. Inoltre, il modello può essere utilizzato come supporto decisionale durante la fase di selezione della soluzione più adatta, al fine di individuare la scelta che sia più congrua alle necessità e alla struttura organizzativa della compagnia. Tale valutazione si basa sulla definizione di gruppo di indicatori numerici che coprono tutte le aree del processo e i possibili strumenti adottati. La definizione degli indicatori è basata sia sull’analisi delle caratteristiche e i conseguenti vantaggi delle innovative soluzioni tecnologiche, sia sugli aspetti e le attività che risultano essere fondamentali per la corretta realizzazione di un programma di gestione dei viaggi aziendali.

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Executive Summary

In an economic context more and more competitive and global, the efficiency of the management of business processes has been playing a leading role, bringing companies to focus a higher attention on methods and strategies intended to reduce operating costs. Simultaneously, the digital transformation, that has been disrupting the ordinary management of business activities, allows organizations not only to pursue cost-reduction objectives, but also to increase the quality of the activities performed and of the working context offered to employees.

The abovementioned considerations have lead firms and researchers to raise the attention on a company’s voice of cost which turns out to be one of the most controllable after the one of wages (American Express & A. T. Kearney, 2008), which is the expense of business travel.

Travels undertook with the objective to carry out a business activity have assumed an always higher importance due to phenomena such as globalization, markets’ expansion and the increase of the number of multinational companies that are geographically located in different countries. Employees need to travel to meet actual and possible new customers, participate to company’s meeting or event of the sector, visit supplier and other stakeholders which are part of the company’s value chain. The higher the number of travels undertook by a company, the higher naturally will be the overall expense the company faces, so the business travel management appears one of the most interesting theme. Therefore, companies and travel managers are looking for practices and solutions that allow to reduce the overall expense, while maintaining unchanged the quality of the process offered to employees. The key aspect for the optimization of such process is the diffusion and development of new digital technologies that allow to pursue simultaneously both a process cost reduction, and a higher satisfaction of business travellers and travel managers, who will be able to carry out their activities in a more productive and effective way.

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The digital solutions that companies could adopt to manage business travel are different and cover all the phases and activities of the process, from the booking of required services such as transportation and accommodation, to the data analysis for monitoring and improving activities conducted by travel managers. Each of these technological instruments allows the automation of important activities with a consequent achievement of economic advantages, direct and indirect, both for the company and for business travellers. However, in order to correctly achieve these benefits, it is necessary that the adoption and the implementation of the digital tool is properly executed. Every digital solution categories, in fact, is made by instruments with different characteristics, each of which is able to satisfy certain priorities and requirements. It is therefore fundamental evaluating the different solutions and selecting the one which best satisfy the company’s requirements, taking into account the organizational structure of the firm, the information system already existing and used in the company, and the way activities are carried out by travel manager and employees (Carlson Wagonlit Travel, 2016).

The objective of the following study is to provide a framework for the evaluation of the return on investment of a digital solution for the business travel management process. This evaluation is feasible through a set of numerical indicators that have been defined taking into account the characteristics of the technological solutions and the important aspects of the management process within the company. The model can be used by travel managers to understand if the adoption of the solution allowed to achieve the forecasted benefits, or if there are margins to improve the effectiveness of the tool, increasing the economic return. Thanks to the definition of indicators that cover all the phases of the process and all the possible solutions, the framework can be also used to compare different digital instruments to support travel managers in the selection of the tool that results as the best choice for the company, according with the objectives set and established.

The research starts with a deep and detailed analysis of scientific and professional existing literature. This section can be broadly divided in two parts:

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a first part that is focused more on the business travel management, while the second one analysed in detail the role of digital and the different technological instruments. Firstly, a description on travel managers and business travellers, the two main players involved in the process, is provided. Travel buyer’s role is described as a changing position due to the higher importance acquired recently. They need to accomplish some fundamental task to ensure the realization of a well-structured travel program, including: setting a business travel strategy, drafting and implementing a travel policy, maintaining relation with suppliers, communicating internally (Phocuswright, 2015; Douglas et al., 2015). The implementation of a travel policy is strictly linked with the maximization of return on investment since, digitalization allows to increase the level of compliance rate and, according to Amadeus (2017), companies that have a compliance rate higher than 80% can reduce their travel costs until 23%. On the other hand, travellers are those who undertake the journey and use the services provided by suppliers. Recently, literature showed a direct relation between employee’s satisfaction and productivity. Then, it is important than companies make travel experience as pleasant as possible, so that their employees can execute business activities in the best way.

The second part of literature review gives a description of all the possible digital solutions a company could adopt, defining their main advantages and providing numerical examples about the benefits the firm could obtained after the implementation. The first tool considered is the Online Booking Tool, an instrument that allows to make the reservation of the main tourism services. Companies can save more than 10% on their travel budget by using a booking tool (Amadeus, 2015); moreover, it allows to speed up the process, increase the travel policy compliance and give the possibility to travellers to autonomously manage the journey. Another important solution considered is the utilization of mobile applications to manage the process. Smartphone and tablets assume particular importance during the journey, giving the possibility to travellers to be more productive and stay always in contact for the company for any kind of problem (GBTA, 2017; Carlson Wagonlit Travel, 2014). The attention switches on the instrument to manage the expense reporting process: moving from a

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manual to an automated solution could mean dropping the average total cost to process an expense report of almost 70% (PayStream Advisors, 2016) and also simplify the activity considered boring and stressful by employees. The last tool presented is an instrument for data analytics, that results fundamental to monitor trends and to perform statistical analysis. This tool can lead to several advantages, from the negotiation with supplier to identify bad behaviours, with a consequent reduction on costs. The literature review ends with the description about the importance of the integration between the different systems, an aspect that must not be neglected since it is fundamental to avoid an overlap between manual and automated activities, and to boost the digital advantages.

In the second part of the work, the research objective and the methodology conducted is provided. The research objective, as previously mentioned, is the development of a framework for the evaluation of the return on investment of the implementation of a digital solution in BTM process of a company. The following purpose derives from three main factors emerged in literature:

1. Cost reduction and quality process improvement are simultaneously feasible by using digital technologies.

2. The correct implementation of a digital instrument for the BTM process, in order to achieve the desired ROI, does not depend solely by the characteristics of the instrument, but even by aspects that refer to the internal process management.

3. The choice and the utilization of a digital instrument in BTM require economical quantitative evaluation that allow to assess direct and indirect benefits company should obtain in response to the implementation, and to verify that those benefits have been properly reached, meeting the expectations.

The abovementioned aspects lead to consider both travel manager’s and business traveller’s perspective, the entire process and activities in order to cover any kind of digital solution and, finally, the possibility to evaluate all the direct and indirect benefits quantitatively, considering the characteristics of the process and the digital instruments.

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In order to support and consolidate the themes and the information arisen in the literature review, other analysis and researches have been carried out during the study: call interviews with Italian travel managers, an analysis of the survey of Osservatorio Innovazione Digitale nel Turismo, and the participation to events of business tourism sector.

The call interviews aimed to deeper analyse the way companies are currently managing the process, what kind of digital solution are adopting or have already adopted, and the benefits they have got as consequence of the implementation. In particular, the scenario outlined after the interviews showed a heterogeneity in the way companies are approaching digitalization, from whose mainly still performs activities manually, to firms that have adopted a digital instrument in each phase of the process. The latter ones stated to have obtained different benefits, even though they did not provide a numerical quantification of these advantages.

The other research performed is based on the survey that annually Osservatorio Innovazione Digital nel Turismo sent to a large number of Italian companies to investigate the digitalization level in business travel management. Crossing the results of different questions of the survey, it was possible to verify some aspects transpired in the literature analysis. In particular, the relation between travel policy compliance and digitalization has been confirmed, in fact, companies with a high degree of automation have a travel policy always, or almost always respected. Moreover, travel managers have confirmed that the actual utilization of mobile technologies mainly interest activities executed during the trip. Finally, it looks that the monitoring instrument is not largely used during the negotiation phase with service suppliers, even though it is largely used and many companies set agreements with external providers.

The last section of the work provides the definition of the framework for the evaluation of the ROI of a digital tool. The first step of this development was the definition and division of the whole BTM process in four different phases: Pre-Trip Phase, On-Trip Phase, Post-Trip Phase, Sourcing & Control. While the initial three phases represent the life cycle trip, as reported also in literature, the

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last phase involves all the activities carried out by travel managers horizontally to the classical journey cycle, such as the negotiation with suppliers or statistical analysis. Such subdivision allows to clearly and exhaustively define all the activities performed by travel managers and business travellers, so that all the possible benefits stemming from a digital solution were considered and evaluated.

Once defined the process, a set of indicators was realized in order to numerically quantify the benefits. The indicators were previously divided in three main categories according to the typology of benefit considered: cost, if the indicator quantify a saving of money; time, when is considered the amount of time to perform an activity; other, if the benefit does not belong to the previous categories. Then, they were assigned to a given phase of the process since each benefit could refer to a particular activity. Only two benefits, Travellers Satisfaction and Integration, were indicated as Multi-Phases since the first refers to pre, on and post trip phase, while the second one to the whole process.

The indicators defined per process phase are the followings:

• Pre-Trip: Accommodation Fares, Transportation Fares, Agency Fee, Approval Process, Booking Process, SBT Adoption Rate, Travel Policy Compliance.

• On-Trip: Auxiliary Services, Travel Modification, Safety & Security.

• Post-Trip: Expense Report Cost, Expense Report Time, Reconciliation, Frauds & Mistakes.

• Sourcing & Control: Negotiation, Drafting Report, Key Suppliers, Data Quality.

• Multi-Phases: Traveller Satisfaction, Integration.

Each of the abovementioned indicators has been described providing the following information: a definition to explain the way the indicator can be calculated and some relevant information about it; a mathematical formula; the reason why the indicator should be used, providing relevant sources from literature and interviews to support the explanation; the affected role, that is if the benefits is referred to the business traveller, to the travel manager, or both.

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The end of the research explains the main differences and advantages of the model proposed compared to the ones existing in literature. The first main advantage is given by the fact that travel managers will be able to numerically evaluate the ROI of a digital solution, identifying the possible areas for improvements. Moreover, the framework considers not only direct benefits, but also the indirect ones, in order to detect a clearer picture about the investment. Finally, the research wants to provide a tool useful to compare digital solutions of the same category, in order to support travel buyers in decision-making process and give them the possibility to choose the best instrument analytically.

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Part One

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1 Introduction

Companies all over the world have always travelled with the purpose to carry out business activities. The necessity for travelling, however, has assumed a higher importance in the last years due to phenomena such as globalization, the expansion of the market and the continuous increase of international exchanges and investments.

Similarly, companies have been started to pay more attention to the cost they bear to undertake the journeys and to the way these trips are managed within the company. Such attention arises from two important events occurred in the last years. The first refers to the economic crisis of 2008 that obliged companies to significantly decrease their cost in order to survive to the period of recession. One of the voice of cost to reduce was right the one of Travel & Expense, that in most of the cases represents the second or third voice of cost for companies. The simplest way to reduce this expense would have been to decrease the number of trips undertook during the year, or, to completely eliminate it, not travelling at all. However, as previously mentioned, travels are an essential part of an organization’s business activities, so corporations have started to seek for possible way to minimize the cost, while maintaining the same level of annual trip, what is called business travel management.

The second important phenomenon occurred that has been disrupting not only the way companies manage travel, but entire business models, is the diffusion of digital technologies. Digitalization is basically changing all the activities performed within a company and this is affecting particularly the business travel management. The market of tourism, in fact, particularly benefits from digital technologies due to the type of service that is consumed and to the way different actors involved along the supply chain can communicate each other. Nowadays, service providers in business travel industry give technological solutions to carry out basically every activity of the process, and these tools offer the possibility to optimize the process by decreasing costs and, at the same time, by significantly simplifying the process.

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The adoption of technological solutions, however, requires a process of selection and right implementation within the company in order to obtain the forecasted advantages. Companies are complex entities with different processes, tools and made by individuals who need to be guided ad supported to the digital adoption. At the same time, the number of digital solutions provided is large and it is not easy to understand which is the best one to implement and that can be the best choice for the organization and the employees.

The following research is born by these considerations and it proposes to investigate the relation between digitalization and business travel management, developing as final output a framework that can support travel managers and companies in the process of adoption and implementation of such solution.

The first section of this work is intended to provide a detailed and exhaustive overview of the business travel management process and the numerous digital solutions that in the recent past have deeply changed this activity.

Firstly, the literature review provides an explanation about the importance of business travel, the main players involved in the process, both considering internal company actors and stakeholders, and the way activities are managed and carried out inside a company. Then, the attention moves on digital instruments offered by the market that can be adopted by companies to improve the process, both effectively and efficiently. The review aims to analyse the benefits the different tools could bring to a company, providing also quantitative and numerical data.

The abovementioned topics have been described and documented by using a broad combination of academic researches, professional papers and internal sources provided by Osservatorio Innovazione Digitale nel Turismo.

This in-depth analysis, jointly with the surveys conducted and detailed in the section of the methodology, will allow to define and realize the final objective of this work, a framework for the evaluation of the return on investment of a digital solution in business travel management.

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2 Literature Review

2.1 The Importance of Business Travel

Business travel is the set of all travels undertaken by a person on his own behalf or on behalf of an organization for the purpose of carrying out a business activity (Douglas & Lubbe, 2006).

The importance of travelling for companies has increased significantly in the last twenty years. The expansions of the markets, the global production chains and a higher number of dispersed multinational companies has led to the need for face-to-face encounters between workers of different locations (Gustafson, 2013; Jones, 2013). Meeting people for business is essential to buy, sell and negotiate, coordinate and employ managerial control, and create a professional network based on trust (Faulconbridge et al., 2009).

The industry has faced a remarkable change in the past 50 years. The deregulation of air traffic, occurred in Europe in the early 1990s and the development and diffusion of Information Technologies have facilitated the growth of business travel and tourism (Mason, 2000; Phocuswright, 2008). Certainly, the activity of travelling for business has been undertaking for thousand years, since, with the coming of agriculture, communities began to trade products, moving often for many kilometres. However, since the beginning of the second half of the twentieth century, business tourism has been considerably growing as shown in figure 2.1 (Swarbrooke et al., 2001; Beaverrstock et al., 2013):

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Figure 2-1. The historical growth of business travel and tourism worldwide (Swarbrooke et al., 2001)

The continuing growth of the sector has large positive effects on the entire global economics. A study conducted by the World Travel & Tourism Council in 2011 has examined the relation between business travel and economic growth, finding a direct correlation between international travel tourism and global trade growth. Business tourism boosts economies, increases incomes and allows to create new jobs.

The scientific literature proposes different ways to classify business travel, since the reasons and the functions leading people to travel for professional purposes can be different. A first classification divides business travel into two different categories, individual business travel and business tourism (Figure 2.2). The former group refers to company’s employee who regularly and necessarily travels. The reasons why the traveller undertakes the journey involves one-to-one meetings, giving consultations or presentations, or conducting investigations. Conversely, travels that involves groups of people and often are discretionary such as group meetings, exhibitions and incentive trips, are classified as business tourism (Davidson & Cope, 2003).

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Figure 2-2. Business travel sectors (Davidson & Cope, 2003)

Business trips have been also classified according to their functionalities by Welch & Worm (2005) in four different categories: the first group refers to intra-company journey, so all the movements between employees of the same company who meet each other for internal project development, group meeting or internal courses. Business trips undertaken to meet customers and supplier have been categorized as inter-company. The third group refers to journeys undertaken for fares and events. Finally, the last category represents trips to meet external stakeholders that does not belong to customers’ and suppliers’ groups.

The reasons why companies spend large sums of money in travels are different and all of these have the objective to bring an economical benefit. Different researches have analysed motivations for undertaking a business trip and here a list of the most common and important is listed (ACTE Global, 2016; Amadeus, 2015; WTTC, 2011; Latta, 2004):

• Maintaining customers. The most common reason is for maintaining and developing existing customers. Personal meetings are deemed fundamental to avoid clients could move to another company.

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• Increasing customers. Business trips allow to increasing sales and find new possible customers. WTTC showed that almost one third of a company’s new sales is obtained thanks to travels.

• Internal meetings. Since more and more companies are geographically located in different areas, employees might need to move for internal meetings or project development.

• Suppliers and event. Companies travel also to preserve relationship with stakeholders along the supply chain and finally to participate to event where other relationships can be established.

Figure 2-3. Most common reasons for travel, (ACTE Global 2016)

Despite nowadays ICTs technologies offer several alternatives that allow to avoid the trip to meet a customer or a supplier, such as video and call conferences or virtual meetings, literature showed that technology is adopted as a complementary service rather than a substitute to travel (Roy et al., 1998; Aguilera, 2012).

Business trips represent a significant portion of the entire travel sector, accounted for 13% of all international tourist arrivals in 2016 (UNWTO, 2017). Basically, the same result has been obtained at national level, where travelling

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for professional and business purpose represent the 14% of trips made by Italian tourists (ISTAT, 2017).

Business travel industry in the Italian market has come back to the pre-crisis results. According to Nuovo Osservatorio sui Viaggi d’Affari, the total amount of trip during 2017 was 30.8 million, 3.5 % higher than the previous year. The overall spending reached EUR 19.7 billion, with a growth of 5.1%. Forecasts are positive also for the 2018, with a positive spending increase that could range between 2.5% and 4% (NOVA, 2018).

2.2 The Players

The market of business tourism involves different actors along the supply chain, and a successful corporate travel management process depends on an interactive relationship between all of them (Douglas & Lubbe, 2006). The industry can be classified as a business consumption service, with a complex purchasing process that has several distribution channels and unpredictable prices (Holma, 2012).

Each of these groups has different interests to defend and the relationships between different stakeholders can include both mutual interests and potential value conflicts (Douglas & Lubbe, 2006; Gustafson, 2012).

The different players can be divided in four different groups:

• Service Suppliers. They represent the companies that provide to the different services travellers need during the trip. The most important ones are those of transportation and accommodation since they represent the biggest trip costs.

• Intermediaries. This group is formed by all players that link the company with service suppliers, executing activities of the corporate travel process of an organization and providing specific services. Intermediaries are

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Travel Management Companies, Global Distribution Systems and Online Travel Agencies (Douglas et al., 2015)

• Travel Managers. They are responsible to manage the business travel process of the company, setting the rules and the guidelines of the internal procedures and communicating with the other actors of the supply chain.

• Business Travellers. They are the final users of the services offered, undertaking the trip to accomplish their business dealings as efficiently and effectively as possible (Marin-Pantalescu, 2011).

Figure 2-4. The three main actors in corporate travel management (Holma, 2009)

The figure above (Figure 2.4) shows the relation between the different players. In this scenario, travel buyers might interact directly with service providers, or through the disintermediation of an agency. Basically, agency companies play the role of aggregator of the demand, simplifying the benchmarking and purchasing activities (Holma, 2009).

Travel managers and employees are grouped in the same categories since the represent the company’s players who purchase the services and benefit from them.

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2.2.1 The Travel Manager

Business travel is one of the most substantial voice of cost for a company, but it is also highly controllable and there are many ways to reduce it (McNulty, 2009). Moreover, studies showed a correlation between efficient travel management, and enterprise profit growth and asset efficiency (Dyment, 2009). For these reasons, in the late 1960s in the United States, the travel manager professional role emerged (Gustafson, 2012). This role has acquired more and more importance over the years, even though in small and medium-sized companies the business travel management is not strictly formalized, and the presence of a designated role for this task is more spread in relatively large companies.

The professional background of these workers group is quite heterogeneous; a travel manager could be recruited from outside the organization, usually with a past experience in the travel sector, or selected between one of the internal employees who works in a specific company’s function. In the last case, the role could be a full-time dedicated to the travel manager functions, or part-time, with functions in other departments such as procurement, finance or human resources offices (Gustafson, 2013).

The role and the skills of a travel manager have significantly changed over the years. The increase in volume of corporate travels and the disruptive technologies led to the necessity of a professional role with competences more and more specific and dedicated. Academic authors and professional actors of the travel industry tried to identify the main activities that a travel manager is asked to perform. Merging the scientific literature with the professional, these activities can be summarized on the following points (Phocuswright, 2015; Mission, 2015; Douglas et al., 2015; Gustafson, 2012):

• Setting a business travel strategy. Since travel expenses are one the most relevant cost of several companies, an efficient management of the process could become a source of competitive advantage for the organization. Travel managers, with the support of the top management,

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have to define the objectives and the path to follow, in order to focus on travel’s impact on the company’s overall goal.

• Drafting and implementing a travel policy. The travel policy is the main document to take control of the organization’s travel activity. The development of this paper is one of the first activities the manager has to perform. It contains all the rules, permissions and guidelines a traveller should follow in the entire journey process, from the approval to the expense report. Once the policy has been defined, it has to be distributed to all the travellers of the company and clearly and effectively communicated.

• Maintaining relations with suppliers. Business travel management involves different actors, from service providers to travel management companies. Establishing a good work-relation between the company and its stakeholders it is important to get favourable prices and customized solutions. This aspect includes high performance skills in negotiation and statistical thinking, reason why sometimes travel managers come from procurement department.

• Communicating internally. The travel buyer’s role necessitates a high degree of communication and cooperation with top management and travellers. Senior managers have a key role in supporting and adopting the guidelines, and a continuous change of information with travel manager is the base for achieving the objectives defined. Moreover, communication with travellers give the possibility to receive feedback and understand their satisfaction about the process, and finally to clearly explain what they are allowed or not to do.

• Selecting and implementing digital tools. Digitalization has significantly changed also this business process. Several new tools, that cover the

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entire cycle of business management, give the possibility to manage the activities more efficiently and also to improve the travellers’ conditions. A capable travel manager has an overall vision of the solutions and should be also able to select the most suitable tools for the company.

The travel manager’s professional role has never been so important until now. The figure is expanding, not in terms of more work to do, but rather more responsibility, more strategy and management. “Travel mangers become advisers rather than order takers”, playing a central role, not just on compliance and travellers satisfaction, but on the overall success of the company (Phocuswright 2017). This future role evolution is confirmed by the same travel managers that in a recent research conducted by the Global Business Travel Association (2015) in the 84% of the cases stated that their role will become more strategic in the next 3-5 years. According to a research conducted by Sabre (2015) there are four main factors that have been changing the importance of travel manager’s role:

• Spread of digital technologies. 8 out of 10 travel buyers are involved in evaluation and implementation of technological solutions that can boost productivity and decreasing overall travel costs. The digital adoption has to be in line with the strategic objectives of the company.

• Data analysis. Decision-making will be based on detailed analysis thanks to the big amount of data available, so travel buyers will be able to demonstrate economic benefits of their process management.

• Globalization. The number of global companies is increasing and this makes the role more complex since negotiation will be carried out with more and different suppliers and travellers will have different socio-cultural characteristics.

• Safety and security. This has become one of the most important priorities since terrorist attacks and natural disaster have increased, so travel managers, in collaboration with TMCs, are asked to build a duty of care program for safety and security of business travellers.

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2.2.2 The Business Traveller

A person who travel for business purposes is defined as “a traveller whose expenses are paid by the business he works for” (Pender, 2005)

The distinction between business and leisure tourism has been treated in several scientific researches. According to the World Tourism Organization (UNTWO, 2013), people travelling for business are considered fully-fledged tourists. Some characteristics allow to distinguish a business traveller to one who travels for leisure purpose. The key difference mentioned and analysed in literature is price sensitivity (Dresner, 2006; Holloway, 2004): business travellers pay much less attention to price since they are not able to modify the date or the destination of the trip. Moreover, they really care about time, they desire to accomplish their job in the most effective and efficient way, considering aspects such as the speed and the convenience in getting to their destination, or the punctuality and reliability of the carrier (Marin-Pantalescu, 2011), following their personal agenda. The main point of contact between the two of them is given by the fact the both business and leisure travellers use the same kind of services, from transportation to accommodation. This similarity has increased in the last years since, from the economic crisis of 2008, companies have been starting to significantly reduce travel expense looking for cheaper solutions as low-cost carriers.

The experience faced by a business traveller during a journey has been analysed and classified in four different moments (Unger et al., 2016):

• Trip Preparation. Days before departure are mainly employee to prepare the trip from a professional perspective rather than travel arrangements. Business travellers are really efficient in preparing and packing since they are used to travel.

• The passenger Experience. This time is considered spent at the airport and in the airplane. On the one hand travellers considered this phase annoying due to waiting unproductive time; on the other, many

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employees exploit this time to relax since their work activity could be limited.

• The destination Experience. During the stay, workers spend almost all the time working, including business meal or next-day preparation in the hotel room. This is due to the fact the workers try to reduce the time spent away from home.

• Homecoming. This moment can coincide with the trip preparation depending on the days before the next trip. Travellers rapidly comes back to home habits and try to compensate the absence from the family.

The four different stages described above during the business trips are strictly linked to one of the most important aspect where literature is focusing the attention, traveller’s satisfaction and comfort. Tired or stressed-out employees could not be able to do their job effectively, leading to a negative impact on the return on investment of the business trip (Chen, 2016; Concur, 2016; Ladkin, 2016). For this reason, companies have been starting to prioritize the so called “traveller-centricity”, a strategic aspect that takes in consideration traveller’s needs and requirements to select the most appropriate tools in the management of trips. A travel-centric approach allows to have happy and productive workers, focusing the attention on the aspects and the needs that are more relevant for them (ACTE Global, 2016; Carlson Wagonlit Travel, 2016). Notwithstanding travellers’ opinions and happiness have become an essential aspect for companies, several organizations do not have a formal method to gather information about employees’ satisfaction and feedbacks about the travel experience. A comprehensive view about how travellers judge the quality of travels can be performed conducting interval surveys or interview, or creating an online user group where employees can share their feedbacks and opinions (ACTE Global, 2016).

Characteristics and needs of travellers are changing, employees want more flexibility and customization, and the possibility to use their personal devices (Concur, 2016). Different priorities have emerged looking at the age of travellers who have been divided in three different groups: Millennials (age between 18

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and 34 years), Generation X (age between 35 and 55 years) and Boomers (age major than 55 years). The two youngest groups seem pay more attention in the quality and efficiency of booking and expense reporting activities. They ask for a numerous variety of suppliers, easiness in make a change and the possibility to perform the expense reporting digitally. On the other hand, boomers identify as main drivers for satisfaction the relationship with their family, and the efficiency during the journey. However, all of them agree on some factors that adversely affect their well-being that are not sleeping enough, the impossibility to practice sport, and eventual overnights that could extend the trip (YouGov, 2017; GBTA, 2016).

2.2.3 The Intermediaries

The complexity and diversity of tourism market services implies the necessity of organizations which act as intermediaries among the value chain, linking the suppliers’ offer to the final demand (Douglas, 2000). That is the reason why Holma (2009; 2012) talks about a “triadic relationship”, different and more complicated from a buyer-seller one.

The impact of information technology has deeply changed and transformed the structure of distribution, creating new players and solutions, partially overcoming the incumbents one (Kracht & Wang, 2009). The possibility to purchase the service online created new business models and new ways to establish a contact with suppliers. Figure 2.5 shows as example all the possible channels that a company could use in order to purchase an airline ticket.

In this scenario, an important role is played by Global Distribution Systems (GDSs), organizations founded with the support of several airline companies to manage the booking and purchasing process of tickets. GDSs evolved during the years, widening their offer that nowadays includes several digital solutions that can be used by companies for managing the travel process (Carlson Wagonlit Travel, 2016).

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Figure 2-5. Airlines Distribution Channels (Alamdari, 2002)

Historically, the main organizations, which operated as intermediaries, were travel agencies. A Travel Management Company (TMC), or business travel agency, is an organization specialized on the complete or partial management of company’s travel portfolio that brings together travel buyers and service providers (Douglas et al., 2015; Holma, 2009). As well as for travel managers, the role of travel agencies has changed during the years, moving from a booking-maker role to an advisor and a consultant for travel buyers. Information technologies development and the associated diffusion of online travel agencies forced TMCs to reshape and innovate their offer, providing technological solutions that can assist companies in managing the process (Amadeus, 2015; Andreu et al., 2010). Their role is thus dependent on their ability to provide valued-added services that can support travel managers in the expense management process, enforcing the compliance, and providing data and information about on the performances.

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2.3 Corporate Travel Management

Douglas and Lubbe (2006) define the act of managing the business travels of an organization as “the maximization of travel services to the employees and the minimization of the cost of providing those service”. This support function is significantly important in many companies’ business strategy, since Travel and Expense (T&E) costs are usually, after the one of wages, the most controllable voice of cost in the Profit and Loss Statement, accounting for around 15 % of a company’s revenues (American Express,2008; Upton, 2005; Anderson et al., 1999).

As previously mentioned, this company’s function started to appear in Europe in the early nineties, in conjunction with the deregulation of the airline industry. The more the number of employees who travelled for business, the more the attention companies put on corporate travel trying to reduce the overall expenses for travel (Sherry, 2014).

However, managing business travel is not an easy task. The function of travel management aims to balance employers’ satisfaction with company’s strategic objective, ensuring cost control, adherence to travel policy and reporting and data management (Goodwin & Marble, 2003). Travel budgets might be higher than 25% for those companies that do not have the support of a travel management department (Runzheimer International, 2000).

Furthermore, the diffusion of disruptive technologies has led to the development of more and more complex travel programs, although not always effective. The complexity of the relations between internal and external stakeholders makes the development of a well-structured process a challenge for most companies (ACTE Global, 2017).

According to a study conducted by American Express in collaboration with A.T. Kearney (2008), companies that result the best performers in business travel process management accomplish the following six main tasks:

• Defining and implementing a clear travel policy, and enforcing processes

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• Collaborating with suppliers in order to exploit their competences and to obtain the best benefits

• Investing in digital solution and having a high adoption rate of tools and system usage

• Centralising back-office activities and outsourcing the non-core activities to a third party, in order to achieve economies of scale and access to specialised skills.

• Pay attention on travellers’ satisfaction as well as cost efficiency

• Exploiting data and information gathered to continuously improve the process, controlling expenses and increasing the bargaining power over suppliers.

2.3.1 The Travel Policy

The travel policy is the basis of a successful business travel process. The document provides the common standards for travels, such as transports, accommodation, type of comfort, restrictions, and so forth; moreover, it establishes the administrative routines concerning the entire process journey, from the pre-trip approval to the expense report management; finally, the paper could also include information about safety and security during the trip and environmental aspects followed by the company (Gustafson, 2013).

Of course, the major purpose of the document is to maintain the voice of T&E within a certain planned budget. However, a well-balanced travel policy should be focused not only in preventing over-spending, but also in increasing productivity and traveller satisfaction (American Express & A.T. Kearney, 2008). Clarity, communication and senior management commitment are also fundamental aspects to take into account for an effective travel policy that has to be successfully reported to all the people involved and strengthened over time (Jenkins, 1993; Carlson Wagonlit Travel, 2016).

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In order to obtain the goals defined through the policy, it is necessary that all employees follow the rules and the procedures that have been defined. For this reason, the concept of travel policy compliance is relevant as well as the document itself. A research carried out by ACTE Global (2016) showed that nearly the 20% of T&E expenses is not compliant with the company policy.

There are several reasons why travellers break the rules, deliberately or not, from last-minute bookings to unknowing violation of a rule. In the academic field, Douglas & Lubbe (2009) developed a model to deeper analysed the factors that lead to traveller non-compliance. The authors identified two main groups of factors (Figure 2.6):

• Corporate related factors. These determinants are composed by company’s rules and regulations over which the traveller does not have a higher degree of control. Organizational factors can refer to the level of control of the company, that can be high, medium or low; they include also the clarity and communication of the document to all the employees; finally, to the general ethics and justice on which the company is founded.

• Personal related factors. The second category of factors concerns personal and subjective characteristics of the employee. Aspects such as the ethical behaviour, the level of satisfaction and self-interest and honesty can positively or negatively influence the compliance choice of a traveller. Clearly, personal factors depend on the single individual and can vary within an organization.

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Figure 2-6. A model for travel policy compliance (Douglas & Lubbe, 2009)

A high level of compliance rate can yield relevant benefits to the company; a recent research conducted by Amadeus (2017) revealed a direct relation between percentage of compliance rate and total travel costs: companies that are able to achieve a compliance rate higher than 80 percent can decrease their total indirect costs per traveler of 23 percent. This relation is also confirmed by a business consultant who stated that to a compliance increment of 5 percent corresponds a drop in travel costs of 10 percent (Douglas & Lubbe, 2008).

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Figure 2-7. Savings from travel policy compliance (CWT, 2016)

Being compliant in the entire travel process is not only a way to reduce company’s expenses. Following the guidelines indicated by the company, employees allow the travel manager to track the information about the business trip and this is relevant for the activity of reporting and analysis. Moreover, as described in the section about the travel manger’s role, the travel management department spends effort and time to negotiate fares with supplier, and the choice of an air carrier or a hotel out of policy would undermine the expected benefits (Amadeus, 2017).

What finally emerges about the role of policies is the interrelation with the adoption of digital tools and the standardization of procedures. The interplay between this different aspects can substantially increase the benefits for the company, but also for travelers. The best example is given by a company that implement an online booking tool, clearly defining and communicating the process steps and integrating the policy within the tool (American Express & A.T. Kearney, 2008)

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2.3.2 Phases of the Process

The most common way to identify the different phases of travel management process inside a company is referring to the life cycle of a journey, so considering the phases pre-trip or planning phase, on trip and post trip (Lenz et al., 2015). This cycle (Figure 2.8) includes activities performed both by buyer managers and travelers, at strategic and operational level, involving also in some cases the support of a travel management company that could, completely or partially, performed some activities of the process. Strategic activities are usually performed by managers since they deal with the definition of the policy and the negotiation with suppliers. On the other hand, travelers are used to perform activities as the booking or the payments that can be classified as operational (Holma, 2012).

As previously mentioned, some of the most important activities a travel manager should perform are the definition of a travel policy and the set of the agreements with service providers. This activities are not strictly related to the life cycle trip, but refer more to the strategy implemented by the company in managing the process and are carried out horizontally to the journey phases.

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Figure 2-8. Corporate travel purchasing process (Holma, 2012)

Once the necessity of travelling arises, employee starts to plan the trip. This initial planning phase can be different according to the policy’s guidelines established by the company and it is a good example to understand how companies can differently act towards its employees; often, the traveller needs to a formal authorization by a manager with a higher hierarchical level, but, in some cases, the pre-trip approval can be considered as a mere formality, or even not requested at all (Gustafson, 2013). The second and last part of the pre-trip phase is the booking activity that can be executed through the established channels in policy, independently by the employee or with the support of the travel management company, that has also the task to communicate all the relevant information about the destination and to provide the required documents.

The central part of the process is the on-trip phase, characterised by the transportation to and from the destination, and by a possible accommodation. This is one of most challenging part since employees are away from home and

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changes and modifications due to several factors can occur. Communication and duty of care program of the company are fundamental to avoid any kind of problem (Amadeus, 2017). Moreover, time spend by travellers to reach the location can be stressful and unproductive depending on the distance and the complexity of the trip.

In the post-trip phase the employee comes back home and he needs to report all the expenses he had to bear during the trip, usually presenting the receipts of the payments. As explained in the next chapters, this process can significantly vary according to the automation level and payment method adopted by the company. Finally, once all the expenses have been reported, the travel department of the company will proceed to the control and to the analysis of the data for carrying out the monitoring activities.

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2.4 Digital in Business Travel

Information technologies and digitalization have been disrupting the business models of any kind of industry. The adoption of digital technologies leads to improvements on productivity, innovation, cost efficiencies, agility and quality of work. This incredible transformation is completely changing the way of run the business, even though it is only the initial part of this processing for companies (Accenture, 2016).

Since the advent of digital, also the business travel industry has considerably changed, even though at a slower pace than the leisure travel market. Companies and travellers can benefit from different solutions that affect the entire business travel process, improving the quality of cycle trip for travellers and helping travel managers in reaching their objectives. Technologies such as mobile, digital payment and data consolidation for predictive and personalised interactions “will be play a defining role in the future of the travel industry, as both an enabler and a driver. Organisations and their travellers will demand greater user experience, no boundaries to accessing their travel and expense environments, and total security around bookings, payments and data” (CIO of Hogg Robinson Group, Amadeus, 2015). The statement by the CIO of HRG, global company in travel management solutions, reported some of the most important digital priorities on which the attention will be focused, both by digital solutions providers, travel managers and business travellers. Several researches have been investigating about the travel managers’ priorities on technology solutions. The studies conducted by the Global Business Travel Association (2015) and CWT (2015) showed these important aspects:

• Analysing and reporting. Travel managers indicated that their role will be affected by instruments for analysing and tracking data, fundamental to negotiate contracts, to monitor compliance and to identify hard-dollar savings.

• Use of mobile. Mobile applications have been indicated as relevant for future booking activities, in particular for younger traveller who

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constantly use their mobile devices. Moreover, travel buyers claimed that the use of mobile plays a significant aspect of companies’ duty of care.

• Boosting productivity. All travel managers agree that digital solution can significantly simply the travellers’ experience, in all the phases of the trip. This is a way to be more productive on the destination and also to be more satisfied about how process is carried out.

The adoption of a digital instrument for managing the process is not a stand-alone activity. These tools need to a process of integration with internal business software and a correct implementation in terms of procedures and change management. The non-execution of these activities increases the risk to provide company tools that are only partially integrated within the organization, keeping manual activities and duplicating phases of the process. For this reason, the choice of a digital instrument has to follow a structured process so that it becomes a real support with a high level of adoption rate (Carlson Wagonlit Travel, 2016).

Almost all the activities of the corporate travel process have a mismatch with a digital solution. The most important tool refers to the process of travel request and booking, travel and expenses management, data analysis; recently, also tasks usually performed manually, such as the expenses control or administrative operations, have been simplified thanks to digital instruments. In the next paragraphs the principal instruments are described more in detail, focusing the attention on the benefits a company would obtain as a result of the implementation and also to possible problems that could reduce.

2.4.1 Online Booking Tool

An online booking tool (OBT) is an internet travel portal used by companies to manage their business travel online, specifically designed around the need of business travellers and organizations. Unlike to leisure booking websites,

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booking tools are designed to support company travel processes, integrate the policy and have the visibility of a selected group of vendors (Click Travel, 2017). The instrument can be considered as a self-booking tool when it gives the possibility to employees to independently buy a ticket or book an accommodation for uncomplicated trips (Gustafson, 2013).

The booking solution is becoming more and more important thanks to the possibility to increase the flexibility and optimizing the pre-trip phase, and also for the effectively way to enforce policy compliance. (Douglas et al.,2015). The first aspect is mainly related to a process simplification and to empower employees about travel decisions. Self-booking tools avoid the exchange of several emails and calls between traveller, manager and TMC that are a waste of time. Moreover, the employee is able to choose autonomously the hotel he prefers and most appropriate departure time to avoid stressful and unproductive situations.

This is also confirmed by studies conducted by academic and professional actors. According to the survey conducted by Osservatorio Innovazione Digitale nel Turismo in 2017, Italian companies which adopted a self-booking tool have obtained the following benefits, where the most rated one is simpler and faster booking activity (Figure 2.9):

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Figure 2-9. Benefits from the implementation of a SBT (Osservatorio Innovazione Digitale nel Turismo, 2017)

The second major benefits about the implementation of this solution is about cost reduction. Amadeus (2015) revealed that in response to the adoption of an online booking tool companies saved more than 10% on their travel budgets (59% or respondents as show in the figure 2.10).

Figure 2-10. Savings as a result of the implementation of an OBT (Amadeus, 2015)

50%

58%

19%

17%

28% Better T&E reporting

Reduction in opportunistic behaviours

Spot key suppliers

Speed up booking activities

Saving on travel expenses

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A recent survey conducted by Phocuswright (2014) to business travellers found out that the majority of respondents is not satisfied or completely satisfied about their company’s booking tool, thinking they can find lower fares and better rates in other internet booking channels. Travellers will be more confident if the self-booking tool will include a variety of sources like low-cost carriers and GDS. Moreover, an important characteristic to increase the adoption rate of the tool is the user-friendliness, since an intuitive and fast instrument will be accepted and utilized more easily (Amadeus, 2007).

When the employee books outside the selected channel, the company will miss three opportunities in terms of return on investment (Amadeus, 2017):

• Volume discounts through the consolidation of spend

• Data consolidation that improve the quality of analytics to facilitate sourcing decisions

• Maximization of contract conditions to get an agreed target or an eventual rebate

As we mentioned above, the tool usually supports the integration of the travel policy, so possible violations can be simply avoided blocking the reservation or sending an alert to the traveller (Gustafson, 2013). This lead also to a reduction of opportunistic behaviours as emerged from the major benefits obtained after the implementation of the tool.

In order to conclude the description about the digitalization of the booking process, pre-trip approval should be considered. As already mentioned, sometimes travellers need to an authorisation by a senior manager to undertake the trip. Here too this activity can be automatized through a digital instrument that most of the time is an extension of the booking tool and it allows to decrease the approval time and to track the reason for the trip. Moreover, a trip authorization is a simple way to avoid out-policy expenses on the first phase of the process (Business Travel iQ, 2016). A study conducted by Carlson Wagonlit Travel in 2014 showed that 70% of travellers needed an approval for every trip, and in 60% of the cases this was made with a digital tool (Table 2.1)

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Approval Process % of responses

Via a tool 60%

By email 25%

Verbally 4%

Other 2%

Combinations of the above channels

9%

Table 2-1. The channel used for trip approval (Carlson Wagonlit Travel, 2014)

The research shows that performing the activity with a digital tool is the fastest way to approve or reject a travel request and also to realize changes about the trip.

2.4.2 Mobile and Duty of Care

Considering that the number of mobile devices is higher than the worldwide population, smartphones and tables are becoming an essential element also in business travel industry and the management of its process (Euromonitor International, 2017). Mobile technology is recognized as one of the major aspects where companies and TMCs have to focus the attention since the availability of more and more applications will make the traveller’s busy lifestyle easier (Dougals et al., 2015; Dickinson et al., 2014).

The applications offered by the market can significantly vary, covering almost all the activities of the process. Anyway, the level of utilization of smartphones and tablets in the different phases of the cycle trip is highly different. Considering the booking activity, percentages say that mobile is adopted only partially and desktops and laptops are the most preferred and used channels. According by Amadeus (2017), only the 11% of the total bookings are purchased

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through a mobile device, but the percentage is estimated to significantly increase in the next years. Clearly, mobile devices acquire most importance for bookings in specific circumstances such as last-minute reservations or changes while on the road (Carlson Wagonlit Travel, 2014) where travellers are unable to use a desktop and re-booking though mobile devices results much faster.

The phase where mobile is currently being used more and where is also considered more important, both by travel managers and business travellers, is the on-trip phase (Figure 2.11), concerning key aspects as ease of doing business, productivity and well-being.

Figure 2-11. Importance of a travel app for different stages of travel process (Carlson Wagonlit Travel, 2014)

Using their smartphones, travellers are now connected everywhere at any moment, getting access to travel information without any restriction (Phocuswright, 2014). A GBTA research (2017) shows that 64% of travellers find information about the trip on their devices, looking at the itinerary. Services such as flight status updates, travel alerts or destination map provide to decrease the complexity of the trip and to relax and increase the productivity of travellers (Amadeus, 2017; Carlson Wagonlit Travel, 2014).

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Moreover, the importance of mobile is increasing also in the expenses report activity. Thanks to the Optical Character Recognition (OCR) function, travellers can simply digitalize a paper receipt taking a picture of it. This process is extremely useful in the phase in which travellers need to justify their expenses, that could be performed during or after the trip, creating the report and collecting all the receipts. Thanks to the use of an app, this could be generated automatically, without the need to scan o email, and with a step further to read the data on the receipts (PayStream 2017; Concur, 2016)

Strictly related to mobile digitalization is the concept of Duty of Care, defined as the moral and legal obligations of employers to their employees in maintaining their well-being, security and safety when working away from home (ATPI, 2015). This aspect has acquired more and more importance in the last time, since travel disruptions and several exogenous events such as natural disaster or terrorist attacks led companies to pay more attention on travellers’ security. Safety and security have been becoming the number one priority for travellers and travel managers above cost control (WTTC, 2017).

Mobile technology represents one of the most important aspects of a company duty of care program. Thanks to smartphones employees can be geo-localized, so travel managers are able to know where travellers exactly are at any time. Also, a 24/7 service allows to stay in touch with the company or the TMC for the entire trip, receiving support for any change or problem occurred. (ATPI, 2015).

Although, as explained, apps and mobile bring several benefits to travellers and to the company, travel buyers has to face some issues about its implementation. According to the research “Tap into mobile service” conducted by Carlson Wagonlit Travel (2014) the major problems indicated by travel managers interviewed are:

• Security issues. Smartphones and tablets can be easily stolen or lost and that could bring to a loss of private information about the company or the individual, since they usually are less protected than laptops.

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• Lack of program compliance. As highlighted, mobile gives the possibility to book or adding services at any time in any place. Obviously, if mobile booking channels do not integrate travel policy, information will be lost and employees could choose non-preferred suppliers. For this reason, travel managers need to define and integrate a mobile strategy as part of the business travel management process.

• Lack of available features. Suppliers and TMC still have to work on the development of the most suitable app. At present, a bunch of applications is available with different characteristics, but travellers will use only a service that is user friendly and provide effective benefits to the trip. Also, compliance is still not fully addressed by mobile providers, an aspect that is fundamental for managers. This is an explanation of why mobile is considered one of the top priority for the future by all the industry actors.

The table below provides a wrap up on the major benefits and risks for the use of mobile according to travel managers:

Benefits Risks

• Higher connectivity with travellers

• Higher risk of non-compliant behaviours

• Increased control over trips

• Higher risk of data security

• Higher well-being/comfort for travellers

• Diluted features among service providers

Table 2-2. Benefits and risks of mobile services (Carlson Wagonlit Travel, 2014)

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2.4.3 Payment Solutions

Every time travel managers and business travellers purchase a service from a supplier during the pre-trip phase or while employee staying at destination, they need to use a payment solution to finalise the operation. These payments methods are different and they can have an impact on the overall business travel process (Phocuswright, 2017)

The use of some electronic payments and new digital solutions allow to bring several benefits to both actors. An electronic payment is a solution that allow to avoid the physical change of money, by making a virtual transfer of the requested amount (ECC, 2013). According by BCD Travel (2015), the most used solutions by organizations and their travellers are credit cards, that can be divided in three different groups (PayStream Advisors, 2017; Standard Bank, 2016):

• Corporate Credit Cards. These cards are made available by companies for their own employees. This solution can be used both before departure and at destination. Then, usually, travellers need to justify the expenses made presenting the receipts.

• Lodge Cards. A lodge card is a payment solution specific for travel expenses. These cards are held by travel agencies and used to make payments easily during the pre-trip phase such as the reservation for flight and accommodation. They allow a simple consolidation of travel expenses for future analysis.

• Personal Credit Cards. These cards personally belong to travellers and they are usually used for expenses occurred during the trip, but in some occasions also during the reservation phase. Once coming back, the employee will prepare the documents needed to send to the accounting/administration department for the reimbursement.

Other two digital payment solutions appear in last years that have been adopting by companies with growing frequency are virtual payment and mobile payment. The first one refers to a virtual card with a 16-digit number that is generated automatically each time they are used (Amadeus, 2015). On the other hand, a mobile payment allows to make a financial transaction using a mobile device,

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such as smartphones and tablets, thanks to the near-field communication technology (ECC, 2013).

So far, organization have been adopting a mix of the payment solutions presented above (CWT, 2015), even though virtual and mobile solutions have a low adoption rate since they have appeared recently, and their diffusion is only partially. Anyway, virtual credit cards in particular are expected to grow due to the several benefits they bring to the companies: they cut the process eliminating receipts, so the post-trip reconciliation will be more efficient, they can be used with several suppliers and enforce the travel police reducing frauds (Carlson Wagonlit Travel, 2015; HRS, 2018). Recently, HRS (2018) highlighted that a company could save 12% in the average hotel room rate after implementing a virtual payment solution. Moreover, the advanced booking shifted by two day and half before.

Talking about credit cards, adopting a corporate or a lodge solution allow the company to speed up some activities of the process. Particularly for the pre-trip phase, if employees are able to carry out the payment with a centralized solution, they will not need to use their own money and also the reporting expense activity will be easier since the invoices will be directly linked to their profile (AirPlus, 2015).

A study conducted by Amadeus (2017) pointed out the following benefits for companies that use corporate cards:

• Integration between TMC and accounting function to easily report expenses on travel.

• Expense made by employee are directly linked with its own profile so there is a clear disclosure on the payment.

• Integration with a T&E tool allows a direct association with the payment and a greater employee autonomy.

• Data consolidation for successive analysis and reports on the overall expense.

Looking at the benefits mentioned above, it is clear the important correlation between the payment solution and the Travel & Expenses management tool described in the next chapter.

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2.4.4 T&E Management Solutions

The acronym T&E means Travel & Expenses or Travel & Entertainment Expenses, and it represents in most of the cases the second largest operational cost for a company. According to a research conducted by the Aberdeen Group (2012), it accounts for 8% to 12 % of the average organization’s total budget.

The set of activities undertaken by a company in order to monitor payments, reimburse and audit expenses incurred by employees before and during the trip is called Expense Management. This process (Figure 2.12) starts when the first payment occurred, usually during the booking in the pre-trip phase. Then, a trip related report is created in order to take note of all the expenditures the employee will bear. Once the business traveller ends her trip, the expense report has to be send to the department which deals with this task, attaching all the receipts of the relative spend. In the last part of the process, travel manager and her staff will check the report for eventual frauds or mistakes, and finally they will send the reimbursement (Fiscal Management Associates, 2015).

Figure 2-12. The expense management process (Fiscal Management Associates, 2015)

When the process described above is carried out manually, it can result extremely stressful both for travellers and travel managers. A manual expense reporting is time consuming, involves a lot of paper and usually implies lengthy reimbursement periods. However, different players in the market give the possibility to companies to automate the process through the adoption of a digital expense management solution. The implementation of a partial or a full T&E management tool can significantly decrease the costs involved in the

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process. A research by PayStream Advisors (2016) shows the average total cost to a process an expense report can drop from 26$ to 7$.

However, cost saving is not the only benefit company can get from this digital tool. As previously highlighted, the process can be stressful and boring for travellers and buyers. The implementation of an automatic system would bring benefits for both sides. Different studies and researches highlights the importance of this digital solution, and possible benefits resulting from the implementation can be summarized and classified according to traveller and company point of view (PayStream Advisors, 2017; Certify, 2017 Fiscal Management Associates, 2015; Concur, 2014):

• Looking at the traveller point of view, advantages are related to the collection of the receipts and the creation of the expense report. Possibly, thanks to the digital solution, the traveller could collect its receipt in a digital format and upload the pictures in the expense management solution. This is not only an easy way to perform the process, but it also avoids a significant amount of unproductive time. Moreover, thanks to the easier way to check the report for travel department and to a reduction in unintentional errors, employees will receive the reimbursement quicker. The result would be a more satisfied and productive business traveller.

• As well as for travellers, a T&E management solution makes travel manager’s job more efficient. First of all, it allows to improve the visibility over the spend, since the software keep track of reports and allow a more detailed categorization over the expenses. In this way, managers are able to understand in more depth travellers’ behaviour and possible improvement to decrease the overall spending. Moreover, the process automatization allows to carry out the reconciliation phase quickly, so travel manger and her colleagues can spend their time in other tasks. Finally, a system that track all the expense allow to enforce travel policy

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compliance and to detect and prevent potential frauds, since employees will be more reluctant in breaking the rules.

Moving from a manual management of T&E to an automated professional solution is essential for companies. According by Amadeus (2017), almost 5% of all direct costs in expense claim are related to expense management and the implementation of an automated solution could halve this percentage. On this perspective, it is really peculiar what emerged by a PayStream’s study (2017): the 22% percentage of companies interviewed claimed that they do not think that the adoption of T&E management tool would lead to a positive return on investment. This percentage reaches even the 44% considering organizations belonging to the financial sector. This belief is due to the fact that companies do not have consciousness about the actual cost of the manual process and the quantitative differences, both for hard and soft savings, could be obtained performing the activities automatically.

Table 2.3 shows all the possible sources that could be used to evaluate the return on investment of T&E management digital solution:

Sources of Expense Report

ROI %

Improved efficiency process 57%

Reduction in processing costs 48%

Mobile Accessibility 22%

Elimination of payment for duplicate expenses

21%

Reduction in staffing requirements

18%

Reduction in fraudulent expenses 17%

Increased employee productivity 21%

Table 2-3 - Sources of expense report ROI (Certify, 2017)

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Besides the already mentioned benefits in process efficiency, cost reduction and productivity, what is also important is mobile accessibility. The possibility to capture receipt scanning through the smartphone it is an important characteristic to save over three hours per month to employees. Travellers can upload expense claims without the need to scan or email and technology is able to read the data on the receipt and automatically draw the report (Concur, 2014).

The Fiscal Management Associates (2015) defines three steps to follow in order to help organizations on the choice of the most suitable solution for the management of Travel and Expense. The steps are:

• Define company’s strategic priorities. Managers should ask themselves what are the biggest challenges occurred during the activities. In this way, the final choice of the system will be based on the most important requirements the company needs to solve.

• Comparing different solutions. The second step aims to evaluate different tools in terms of characteristics, taking into account the priorities previously defined. Solutions should be compared considering features such as integration, time for implementation, mobile support and so on.

• Selection of the tool. Once priorities have been compared to the features of the different existing solution in the market, the company will be able to choose the most appropriate tool to automate its process and to obtain the desired benefits.

As well as for other digital solutions, integration is a key aspect to best benefit to such an instrument. The importance of integration will be later discussed in a specific paragraph of the work.

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2.4.5 Monitoring and Analytical Tools

“Measure what is measurable,

and make measurable what is not so.” G. Galilei

This statement, from whom is considered the father of the modern science, encompasses the importance of information and data in a decision-making process. Nowadays, the incredible amount of data that are produced in every activity and field allow to get access to information more and more accurate and detailed. Also in the business travel process, the relevance of data can positively influence the decision-making process of travel managers through the utilization of digital tools.

An automated solution for data analytics is extremely useful to control expenditure and obtain possible savings exploiting the increasing amount of travel data that comes from different sources (Carlson Wagonlit Travel, 2015). Travel buyers can easily create graphs and table to have a clear picture about the expenditure and the travellers’ behaviour during the business travel process.

Data analytics solutions can be used for different activities that can be grouped, considering different literature studies, in four categories (Osservatorio Innovazione Digitale nel Turismo, 2017; Carlson Wagonlit Travel, 2016; 2015; GBTA, 2015; Aberdeen Group, 2012; Gustafson, 2012):

• Negotiation: information about expenses and travels allows to managers to increase their bargaining power for the negotiation phase with suppliers, understanding who are the most used providers and which are the services that have the greatest impact on the overall travel expense. This is relevant due to the dynamic pricing and yield management strategies that characterize the travel industry offer. In this way, it could be possible to get more favourable fares or programmes that better fits company’s attitudes, such as flexible tickets for last-minute reservations.

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• Predictive analysis: thanks to data and information gathered, analytical tool allows to perform predictive analysis on possible future scenarios, also forecasting and planning the future budget. Analysing traveller’s behaviour, it will be possible driving the traveller experience and improving the travel program.

• Behaviour change: reports give information about the attitudes of travellers on the different phases of the process. In this way, it is simple monitoring the compliance of the travel policy and avoiding opportunistic behaviours. Moreover, buyers could carry out what-if analysis, for example analysing a possible change on the advanced booking or directing travellers’ choice on preferred suppliers to reach target set.

• Monitoring trends: the data consolidation gives the possibility to understand trends that are occurring in the company in terms of travel expenses and process efficiency. Carlson Wagonlit Travel (2015) reports that, through a travellers’ segmentation, a company was able to find out that almost half of the travel expenses was generated by the 15% of all travellers, so it was decided to pay more attention on this employees’ segment. This kind of analysis can be performed also for category of expenditure.

A survey conducted by the GBTA Foundation (2015) on a numerous sample of travel buyers found out the following result among the ways travel buyers use data and information:

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Figure 2-13. Uses for metrics in travel program (GBTA, 2015)

Utilization of all this information can be also exploited by travel managers for improving the performances of their travel program through the definition and monitoring of a set of key performance indicators (KPIs). Indicators have a significant role in the decision-making process to work smartly and quickly to reach objectives set with the top management (Advito, 2010).

Data can be considered as the heart of travel management process, even though the consolidation of the information is considered by buyers one of the most challenging aspect in their role (ACTE Global, 2012). The adoption of a fragmented approach in the process could lead to isolated data silos that can be easily aggregated (Amadeus, 2017). This bring the literature analysis to focus the attention on the concept of digital integration in business travel.

2.4.6 The Importance of Integration

The term integration in information technologies refers to the capacity to link different information system in order to exploit some benefits such as a broader accessibility, more timeliness of data and avoid duplication of information.

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Moreover, integration allow to achieve the full cost saving when processes have a high degree of automation (Voss & Schubert, 2004).

Several times in the academic and professional articles previously mentioned, it has been highlighted the fundamental role of integration among the different solutions adopted by a company in the management of the business travel process. The importance of integration in the process is twofold: on the one hand integration allows to better exploit the capabilities and features of the different digital solutions adopted by the company, considering also the possibility to integrate this solutions with the other system already adopted by the company such the enterprise resource planning (ERP) (Certify, 2017); on the other hand, data consolidation is much simpler when information sources are not isolated and there is no need to manually aggregate data coming from different systems and solutions (Amadeus, 2017)

The possibility to integrate digital solutions that travel managers and business travellers use in the different phases of the process allow to achieve higher cost savings and a major process efficiency. For example, using an automated solution for the management of T&E jointly with a corporate credit card allow to reduce expense transaction cost claims by 78% and processing time by 24%, since the expenses will be directly linked to employee’s profile (Amadeus, 2017). Process efficiency will be higher also in the case self-booking tool can interact with the expense management solution, since there is no need for other data entry requirement and the reconciliation phase will be easier (Certify, 2017). For these reasons, many companies which provide digital solutions for the process have become to focus the attention on tools that cover all the phases of the BTM process, the so called end-to-end solutions. An end-to-end solution allows to streamline and automated all the activities, from the booking phase to the analytics one, providing until 55% of lower expense processing costs (Aberdeen Group, 2012).

The other relevant aspect where integration plays an important role is data consolidation. In order to conduct analysis and drafting reports, travel managers need information coming from several sources and systems used, and this is considered one of the most challenging aspect since it is not an easy task having

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a timely availability of information (ACTE Global, 2012). Moreover, if the company does not consider an integration on different levels of the process, some information could be lost. The best example arises from mobile utilization: smartphones and tablets are basically used by all travellers, and companies that not set a mobile strategy are not be able to manage the employees’ utilization of these devices, missing relevant data (Carlson Wagonlit Travel, 2012).

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Part Two

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3 Research Objective and Methodology

The second section of the study aims to provide a clear description of the main objective of the research and the methodology used to achieve the final purpose.

In the first paragraphs, the correlation between the main concepts emerged in the literature review and the research objective is presented, describing the area that will be furtherly analysed.

Furthermore, the work focuses the attention on the researches and the methodology performed in order to empirically investigate the proposed question. Firstly, the call interviews conducted with some Italian travel managers are presented, giving a deeper explanation on the way Italian companies are currently managing the business travel process. Finally, the analysis on the survey of Osservatorio Innovazione Digitale nel Turismo is explained in detail, providing important information on the Italian panorama that will be useful to consolidate the final framework.

3.1 Purpose of the Research

The first section of the work provided a wide and complete illustration about business travel process management and existing digital solutions companies could adopt in order to improve the efficiency and the effectiveness of the process. This initial analysis, based on scientific and professional literature, allows to identify some critical aspects on which the objectives of the following research are based. In particular, the main factors emerged are the following ones:

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1. Cost reduction and quality process improvement are simultaneously feasible by using digital technologies. Historically, researches showed that organization’s and business travellers’ needs do not coincide. Whereas employees’ give greater importance to comfort and convenience, travel managers, who act on behalf of the company, prioritize cost control and reduction (Gustafson, 2012; Douglas & Lubbe, 2006). Digitalization allows to disrupt the traditional way business travel was managed (Phocuswright, 2014). Current available technologies enable not only to pursue cost reduction of the overall travel expense, but also to improve the quality and effectiveness of the activities performed by business travellers and travel managers along the whole business travel process. This consideration leads the research to focus the attention on all the company’s actors involved in this process, which might benefit from the utilization of a digital solution.

2. The correct implementation of a digital instrument for the BTM process, in order to achieve the desired ROI, does not depend solely by the characteristics of the instrument, but even by aspects that refer to the internal process management. As explained in the first section, managing business travel is not an easy task. Technology allows to improve several aspects of the process, but it is not a sufficient condition in order to achieve expected benefit. Studies confirm that the ROI maximization for these digital instruments relies also on some fundamental enablers. Firstly, it is important that the technology is properly used, ensuring the right level of adoption rate (PayStream, 2017). This has to be supported by a correct implementation and integration of the solution with the already existing technologies in the companies, otherwise organizations could end up with the opposite of what they are trying to achieve (Carlson Wagonlit Travel, 2016). All of that requires the support of a clear travel policy that communicate travellers the way these instruments should be used.

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For these reasons, the following study aims to evaluate the adoption of a digital solution considering not only the features and characteristics of the tool, but also the abovementioned aspects of the business travel management process inside a company, that have a significant role in the ROI maximization.

3. The choice and the utilization of a digital instrument in BTM require economical quantitative evaluation that allow to assess direct and indirect benefits company should obtain in response to the implementation, and to verify that those benefits have been properly reached, meeting the expectations. One of the activities a travel manager should perform is the selection and evaluation of a digital solution that best satisfy company’s and travellers requirements. Despite of different studies provide quantitative example on the advantages stemming from the several benefits of a technological tool, the literature review has given rise to the need of a complete and exhaustive framework that could support the economical assessment of a digital adoption. The fact that a portion of companies believe that such implementation would not bring a positive return on investment (PayStream, 2017) lead to the conclusion that there is a lack of awareness between the actual costs of the process and the economic advantages that could be obtained after a technological implementation. Moreover, travel managers admit that it can be difficult evaluate time to recoup the initial investment and what to expect in terms of features and benefits, so the supporting key to the adoption of a digital solution can be a pragmatic approach to the evaluation of the possible achievable benefits (Certify, 2017, Carlson Wagonlit Travel, 2016). Therefore, these observations bring the research to focus the attention on the quantitative measurement of the digital benefits, defining an approach that could support travel managers in the decision-making process of digital solutions.

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The set of these considerations defines the overall objective of this research that aims to develop and define a framework for the ROI evaluation of a digital solution in the BTM process of a company. The model has to consider the feasible benefits both from the travel manager’s perspective and from the business traveller’s one. Moreover, all the aspects involved on the ROI maximization of the implementation need to be quantitatively evaluated in order to define a correct and precise economical value of the investment. Finally, the framework has to provide the possibility of a ROI evaluation for any kind of digital solution for the business travel management, covering all the phases and activities of the process.

In the next paragraphs, the methodology applied to develop the research work will be deeply and detailed analysed and discussed.

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3.2 Methodology

The first part of the work pointed out the importance of digitalization in the business travel management process. It is pretty clear that companies can choose between several new technological instruments that cover all the activities the travel manager is asked to perform, and also all the different steps of the business tourist’s journey. Digital tools allow not only to decrease overall costs, thanks to a more efficient and precise management, but they also give the possibility to increase the quality of the service deliver to travellers, partially breaking down past trade-offs the travel buyer had to refer.

Another important aspect emerging in the literature review is that, the merely implementation of a digital solution cannot be sufficient to maximize the return on investment and to obtain all the possible benefits. The adoption of a new Online Booking Tool without a complete and well-defined travel policy could even lead to a negative effect.

Therefore, there is the need to develop a framework that allows to quantitatively evaluate the benefits achieved in response to the implementation of a new digital solution in the business travel management process.

In order to deeper investigate the themes emerged in the literature analysis and to achieve the final purpose of the study, two different analysis and researches have been carried out:

• Analysis of the survey of Osservatorio Innovazione Digitale nel Turismo sent every year to the large Italian companies’ database to research the digitalization level in the business travel management process in the national scenario.

• In-depth call interviews with Italian travel managers to investigate the current management of the business travel process in the companies, the technological solutions adopt in the different phases, and the advantages and benefits obtained and sought in response to the digital implementation.

The abovementioned researches allow to support and strengthen the final framework developed and explained in the last part of the study.

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In order to add additional value to the work, some meetings and event of the sector have been attended, in particular: Workshops of Osservatorio Innovazione Digitale nel Turismo, ACTE Milano Forum, and BizTravel Forum. The participation to these important events allow not only to enrich and enlarge the knowledge about the sector, but also to get in the touch with the reality of business tourism. Meetings make possible to assist to testimonies of expert travel managers and technological service providers. The arguments, already treated in the different papers, have been contextualize to different companies’ reality, and this permitted to understand the complexity of some themes. Some of the interventions and speeches have been mentioned during the work to integrate the information gathered through the literature and surveys, in order to strengthen the study realization.

In the next paragraphs, the survey and the interviews will be deeply analysed and described.

3.2.1 Interviews

Thanks to the collaboration with Osservatorio Innovazione Digitale nel Turismo, 6 call interviews to Italian travel managers were carried out to understand which digital solutions companies are adopting in the national scenario and the way the travel buyers evaluate the benefits obtained. Since the available companies’ database was quite heterogeneous, and given the fact that the objective of the call was to analyse the differences with a new digital implementation, companies were selected on the base of how many and which digital solutions they recently introduced, or are interested in introducing, and how many and which benefits have been obtained after the implementation of these tools.

The interviews were conducted on the base of open-ended questions. After a brief introduction about the main objectives of the interview, travel managers were asked to generally describe the business travel management process of the

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company, outlining the actors involved, their roles, and how the different phases of the process, such as booking or expense reporting, are manged.

Then, the attention passed on the digitalization; questions of this part aimed to explain the reason why the organization felt the need to digitalized its process and also which digital instruments the company implemented recently. Regarding the digital instruments, the interviewee was demanded to talk about the advantages found after the implementation both in terms of cost reduction and traveller satisfaction (the information was given in a qualitative way).

In the last part of the interviews the subject matter was the level of integration between the digital solutions and the internal software of the company such as the ERP. As previously mentioned, integration is one of the most important aspect in order to get all the possible advantages, even though it is not always easily achievable. Also, managers were asked to explain the future plans about possible new implementations and eventual changes in the process. Calls ended up with a question on relevant actual trend at which the company is interested in, such as Mobile or Sharing Economy, and how they are acting on this way.

The following table shows the more important information about the companies which travel managers interviewed work for; each single interview is analysed in detail, explaining the process the company is carrying out, the digital tools implemented and benefits obtained.

Company

Industry

N° of Employees

Decathlon Italia Retail 7,000

Hugo Boss Fashion 12,000

Unknown Financial Services

Dedagroup IT Services 1,600

IBM IT Services 380,000

Aptar Group Manufacturing 13,000 Table 3-1. Companies of travel managers interviewed

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Decathlon Italia Srl

Person interviewed: Nicola Parisi – Treasury Manager.

Decathlon is the largest sporting goods retailer in the world, with almost €10 billion and a number of employees that is around 78,000.

The company has a travel policy that is respected in the majority of the cases and, until 2012, it managed the business travel process only through the support of an internal travel agency. Then, a self-booking tool was introduced in order to give the possibility to each employee to autonomously organize the trip. The tool allows to book the accommodation and also all the kind of transportations, from airlines tickets to rental cars and trains; the majority of bookings are carried out through the self-booking tool, whit a higher adoption rate for flights compared to hotels. In case of emergency or complicated journeys the employee has the possibility to contact the agency that is going to take care of the booking.

The administration of T&E reports has been given in outsourcing for three years in order to optimize the process. A central corporate payment allows to pay all the bookings before the trip so the traveller does not have to pay anything. For all the expenses that occur during the trip, in 2016 the company adopted a tool that allows to capture and send the receipts through the smartphone in order to speed up the process.

The company does not use mobile application, but this is one of the solutions that is going to implement in the next future for real time activities and for improving travellers’ safety.

There is not a tool for automated data analytics; reports and analysis are realized through the information collected during the expense reporting phase.

The systems used in the process are partially integrated with the ERP; an interface allows to automatically align expense data between the digital tool and the company software.

Finally, Mr. Pascale stated that they are planning to monitor the travellers’ satisfaction about the entire process and the solutions adopted through internal surveys.

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Hugo Boss Ticino SA

Person interviewed: Pascale Galatolo – Team Leader Travel Office & Travel Security.

Hugo Boss is a German company that compete in the fashion market, producing and selling clothes, shoes and fragrances. The firm can be considered one of the most important players in the industry, it counts around 12,000 employees and in 2016 they reached a revenue of almost € 2,7 billions.

The company is currently facing a transformation process on business travel management. Until the end of 2017 all the bookings were managed by internal employees through the use of a global distribution system, and only two digital tools were adopted, one for the authorization of the trip and another one for the expense management. These have been developed internally and they were really basic in terms on functionalities.

The as-is situation leads Hugo Boss to launch a project to implement an end-to-end digital solution that is going to cover all the phases of the process. This will involve the implementation of a self-booking tool and the use of a new solutions for the expense management.

Speaking about motivations and expected benefits the firm has planned to obtain thanks to the new tool, the manager focused the attention on process efficiency and satisfaction of actors involved. Since the actual process has a lower level of digitalization, it involves several time-consuming activities that will be eliminated with the adoption of the new solution. This is referred in particular to the expense reporting and reimbursement phase. The other benefit that the company expects to get is a higher flexibility and satisfaction for employees. On the one hand, travellers will be able to book and manage the trip autonomously; on the other one, employees who deal with the business travel process will be able to perform more value-added activities.

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Dedagroup

Person interviewed: Renato Toscana – Director of Organization and General Affairs

Dedagroup is one of the most important Italian company operating in the information technology sector. The company reached an income of € 230 million, and it has more than 1,600 employees who operate at global level.

The travel process management inside the company is regulated by a travel policy that is respected most of the time. All the process is not really affected by digital instruments. When an employee needs to make a booking for trip, she makes a trip request to an internal travel assistant through a tool integrated with the ERP of the company. The assistant is going to take care of the booking process and then will send back the tickets and reservations. The reservation is made by online websites and, in case of complex journeys, by a collaboration with an external travel agency.

Expense reporting and reconciliation are carried out mainly manually, the traveller has to send the original receipts of the expenses she bore and then the administration will do a spot check to control the validity of reimbursements.

The company is not adopting mobile solution that can be used during the journey; the only practice adopted is to gather all the information about the trip and send it to the traveller, so she has an easy access to tickets and relevant information during the trip.

Unknown Company

The travel manager of this company asked to be cited in anonymous way.

During the pre-trip phase, the travellers need a formal authorization that is done through the ERP of the company. Once the trip has been approved, employees can manage the journey using a self-booking tool that allows to make reservation for ticket transportation and hotels. The tool is linked with the external travel agency, it integrates the travel policy and also allows to book both daily and agreed fares.

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The phase of expense reporting is partially automated, since all the payments done during the trip have to be justified with the paper receipts by travellers. Employees send all the documents to the administration that will provide to check and make the reimbursement. On the other hand, the self-booking tool is integrated with the ERP of the company, so what is booked before the trip, such as hotel and trasportation, does not need to a paper receipt.

During the trip, travellers are tracked by the agency. Company is not currently using other mobile solutions that, according to the manager, do not currently have the same importance of other instruments such as the self-booking tool.

Thanks to the integration with the ERP, the company is able to conduct statistical analysis in order to detect possible room improvements. The manager reported the example of the analysis about the advanced booking: the company modified its travel policy asking to employee to make the booking seven days before the departure in order to avoid expensive tickets. Of course, this is not a compulsory rule since there could be exceptions, but it is a good way to understand the possible saving minimizing the number of trips booked close to the departure day.

IBM

Person interviewed: Mirko Terragni – Global Airline Lead

IBM is one of the most important company in the information technology industry. The company is the world’s biggest corporate travel buyer since travelling is an essential part of its business and success. IBM’s employees take one million of flights every year and the total annual travel spend is around $2 billions.

IBM has an always respected travel policy and the process for travel management involves he utilization of different digital instruments. The pre-trip phase starts with an approval process, the employee needs the authorization that is made through a specific digital tool that is different for each country. Once the trip has been approved, traveller can use an online booking tool for all the

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reservations that is the same for the global company. An external travel agency supports travellers for those trips that have a high level of complexity. According to Mr. Terragni, online bookings account for 90% in countries such as Italy that have a more favourable digital adoption rate. He also stated that essential characteristics of the right self-booking tool are user-friendliness, possibility to integrate different offers from GDS to low-cost carriers and flexibility in terms of customization.

T&E management process is perfectly automated thanks to utilization of corporate credit card for payments done before and during the trip. Moreover, system used for the expense reporting phase is the same of the booking tool, so the two phases are fully integrated. This allow to avoid reconciliation phase and to have a more precise picture about the expenses.

The company has developed an internal tool for data analytics. The system allows to create dashboards and reports including data that comes from bookings and expense reports. Thanks to this instrument, Mr. Terragni is able to conduct what if scenarios, for example how much is the saving if the advanced booking is modified, and also monitoring the compliance of the travel policy. The tool is really useful also in the negotiation phase thanks to the detailed information about suppliers. All these functionalities allowed to obtain benefits in terms of cost saving thanks to changes in booking behaviour and to more targeted agreements.

One of the next step for IBM to improve the process is realize a mobile application for travellers that will cover the entire journey process. At the moment, IBM’s employees have different apps that they can use, particularly during the trip. The future application will integrate all the functions, from booking to sharing information, and it will improve day by day knowing the behaviour of the employee.

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Aptar Group

Person interviewed: Mauro Zollet – IS Global Travel Manager

Aptar is an international manufacturing company leader in the production of dispensing systems. The firm has around 13,000 employees and it is organized in three different business units.

The company has an always respected travel policy

The process starts with a travel request that has to be approved by the direct manager of the traveller. This activity is made through an internal tool of the company and once the trip has been approved the employee can move on the booking phase, even though the tool is not integrated with the boking one. Reservation can be made autonomously by employees using a self-booking tool, that was introduced in the company about two years ago, or with the support of the internal travel office. According by Mr. Zollet, the new booking solutions allows to have greater control over the total expense and also to benefit to lower fees than the ones of external agencies. Moreover, the travel manager stated that in this way there is a time saving of about 30% in the booking process, thanks to the fact that the employees do not loose time writing email to agencies or assistants but can easily booked by themselves flights and hotels.

During the trip, travellers can use two different mobile applications: the first is related to the booking tool and allows to have the information about the trip and also manage the expense report directly through the smartphone. The other app is related to a duty of care program: thanks to this solution, employees are geo-localized and have a 24/7 assistance in every journey.

The company adopted the same tool for the T&E management process; travellers can use a corporate card for the payments and since the booking and the T&E tools are integrated the expense report is automatically generated. Anyway, the employee has to manage in part the expense report since the company asks the images of the receipt and also a classification of the hotel expense such as rooms, bar, laundry and so on. This practice helps to increase the visibility about the costs, analysing the impact of ancillary services.

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The platform used in the booking and expense report phase allows also to realize some statistical analysis thanks to the data collection realized in the other activities. Data consolidation is, in accordance to Mr. Zollet, the main problem for business travel management and it can be overcome through a system that integrates different tools and activities. Thanks to detailed and integrated information, the travel manager is able to realize report much more quickly and easily manage the negotiation phase.

3.2.2 Main findings

Table 3-2. Table of call interviews' results

The table above shows the main results about the interviews with the travel managers. As it is possible to notice, the calls have outlined a scenario quite heterogeneous, from companies, such as Dedagroup and Hugo Boss, that have low digital adoption level, to others one, such as IBM and Aptar, that basically have adopted a technological tool for every activity of the process.

Most of the aspects stemming from the literature review were confirmed by what travel managers said. Basically, all the companies set an approval process to get

Decathlon Hugo Boss Dedagroup Unknown IBM AptarApproval - � � � � �

SBT � � � � � �

Payment Pre-Trip Centralized - Centralized - CorporateCredit Card

CorporateCredit Card

Payment On-Trip PersonalCredit Card - Personal

Credit CardPersonal

Credit CardCorporate

Credit CardCorporate

Credit Card

OCR � � � � �

Mobile/Duty of Care � � � � � �

T&E Management Automated PartiallyAutomated Manually Partially

Automated Automated Automated

Analytics � � � � � �

Integration Partialwith ERP � � Yes Yes Yes

Future Plans Mobile End-to-endSolution - - Unique

Mobile App -

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the authorization for the trip using a tool that in some cases is integrated with the ERP, in another it is part of the booking tool. Companies that use self-booking tool reduced their costs and speeded up the process. Generally, the payment in this phase is centralized so that the expense report phase is easier and invoices are directly sent to the administration office. On the other hand, payments during the trip are usually done with personal credit cards, so employees need to justify their expenses providing the receipts. In the case of Aptar, the use a corporate card that is linked to the traveller profile in the T&E tool allows to significantly simplify the process since the expense report is generated automatically. The use of OCR technology seems to be not really diffused, and in the half of the cases employees need to send the paper receipts. The importance of integration is strongly confirmed by what reported the travel managers of IBM and Aptar: both of them admitted having chosen the self-booking tool on the base of the provider of the T&E Management tool, obtaining in this way a greater advantage since the two instruments are able to communicate one each other. The role of analytics results fundamental in the negotiation phase both for IBM and Aptar that obtained cost savings bargaining with suppliers.

The benefits evaluation made by travel managers during the interviews was always qualitative and none of them indicated a precise amount of cost saving obtained or a given reduction of time to perform an activity. Only, Mr. Zollet indicated approximately that using the self-booking tool employees can save about 30% of the time compare to the previous alternative to book using email.

Moreover, it is significant the difference between the two companies that are the less digitalized of the group, Hugo Boss and Dedagroup. On the one hand, the fashion company is embracing digital, starting a digital transformation process that will lead the company to have and end-to-end solution and focusing the attention a traveller’s satisfaction. On the other hand, Dedagroup does not have any plan for the future, so it is going to keep their activities manually, at least for the moment. This is an example of how companies that still does not have adopted digital solution can have different visions on the benefits of digitalization.

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3.2.3 Analysis of the Survey

The other important source used to carry out the analysis of the work is the survey developed by Osservatorio Innovazione Digitale nel Turismo and sent during 2017 to a large number of Italian companies, including private companies and public administrations. The survey is formed by 53 closed-ended questions and it has been sent with the purpose to investigate the characteristics of the business travel process in the Italian firms and in particular to deeper analyse the use and the diffusion of digital solutions.

The sample is made up by companies different in terms of industry and size; this adds value to the analysis since firms with different characteristic are considered. However, the group of companies examined in this analysis does not include public administrations. This is due to the fact that is turned out a great difference between private and public sectors in the adoption of digital tools for business travel. Public administrations are still missing the opportunity to introduce digital instruments, probably due to more complex bureaucratic aspects. So, a sample of 314 questionnaires of private companies was considered, of which 152 complete in every part.

Since the questionnaire covers different aspect of the BTM process, the analysis about the survey performed in this work was based mainly on those questions involving the impact and the benefits of digital solutions. Specifically, intersections between different questions were conducted in order to have an empirical evidence about the data and information gathered in scientific and professional papers. The results encountered will be useful to the realization and support of the model on the ROI evaluation.

The first block of questions considered is about the relation between digital instruments and travel policy. Several times in the work, it was mentioned the importance of a formal document that encompasses all the rules and procedures business travellers have to follow (Gustafson, 2013). There are two main aspects that relate digital tools with travel policy emerging from literature review (Douglas & Lubbe, 2008; Holma, 2009; Amadeus, 2017;):

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• Digitalization allows to boost travel policy compliance. This is due to the fact that different tools allow to enforce the policy and changing some incorrect behaviours that can occur in the process. A compliance rate higher than 80% ensures a saving of 23% in indirect cost per traveller

• Digital tool adoption rate depends on travel policy. The maximization of ROI for a digital instrument is related to the adoption rate of this instrument inside the company. The more the instrument will be used, the more the company will exploit the benefits stemming from the tool.

The travel policy compliance has been analysed considering the answers about the use of the different digital instruments in the different phase of the process.

Figure 3-1. Presence and Compliance of Travel Policy with SBT

2%

5%8%

49%

36%

No, no plan to introduce itNo, but plan to introduce itYes, but it is often not respectedYes, it is often respectedYes, it is always respected

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Figure 3-2. Presence and Compliance of Travel Policy without SBT

The first two images show the relation between the utilization of a self-booking tool and presence and compliance level of the travel policy in the companies. The first graph (Figure 3.2) indicates the compliance rate of those companies which decided to adopt a SBT for the reservations. The majority of these companies (85%) has a travel policy always or almost always respected. On the other graph (Figure 3.3), same data are shown for those companies which do not have a self-tool for reservations. Also in this case, the vast majority of companies have a travel policy always or almost always respected (74%), even though the percentage decreases of more than 10 percentage points. Moreover, there is an increase of those companies that do not have a travel policy, switching from 7% to 17%. The results reflect the characteristics of a self-booking tool that in most of the case embeds the travel policy, enforcing the travellers’ choices (Egencia, 2013), and also because, giving the possibility to travellers to autonomously manage the reservation, it is necessary establishing some rules for the activity.

10%

7%

9%

44%

30%

No, no plan to introduce itNo, but plan to introduce itYes, but it is often not respectedYes, it is often respectedYes, it is always respected

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Figure 3-3. Presence and Compliance of Travel Policy with Expense Management Tool

Figure 3-4. Presence and Compliance of Travel Policy without Expense Management Tool

The same relation has been considered by replacing the self-booking tool with the expense management tool. In this case, the difference in terms of travel policy between companies that adopt the instrument with those do not is even bigger. While in the first case the 86% the travel policy is respected, always or almost always, firms which are not adopting a digital instrument for the expense reporting have not realized a formal document for the business trips in 35% of

2% 1%

11%

51%

35%

No, no plan to introduce itNo, but plan to introduce itYes, but it is often not respectedYes, it is often respectedYes, it is always respected

19%

16%

6%39%

20%No, no plan to introduce itNo, but plan to introduce itYes, but it is often not respectedYes, it is often respectedYes, it is always respected

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cases. This result is explained observing the number of employees of these companies: more than half have a number of employees that does not exceed 50 units, so probably travellers can be informed easier through direct channels without an official document.

Figure 3-5. Presence and Compliance of Travel Policy with Monitoring Tool

Figure 3-6. Presence and Compliance of Travel Policy without Monitoring Tool

Considerations made for expense management tool are the same if a tool for monitoring and analytics is considered. This result derived from the fact that the majority of companies that have an expense management tool, using also a system for monitoring the process. As emerge from the platforms’

3% 3%

9%

52%

33%

No, no plan to introduce itNo, but plan to introduce itYes, but it is often not respectedYes, it is often respectedYes, it is always respected

18%

13%

9%37%

23%No, no plan to introduce itNo, but plan to introduce itYes, but it is often not respectedYes, it is often respectedYes, it is always respected

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functionalities, gathering and collecting data about payments allow to use this information to create reports and to carry out analysis, so the two instruments are often correlated (Marx & Collins, 2004).

Figure 3-7. Presence and Compliance of Travel Policy with all the three tools

Taking into account the utilization of more tools, the number of companies with a travel policy that is always or almost always respected increases. Firms that use all of the three instruments always have a travel policy, that only in 5% of the cases is often not respected, confirming that digitalization adoption in more stages of the process facilitate the respects of norms.

Another aspect analysed thanks to the information gathered with the survey was the correlation between digital instruments and agency fees paid by companies. Bookings made through digital channels allow to decrease transactional costs since there is no need to a direct contact between the company and the agency (Egencia, 2008).

0%0%

5%

47%

48%

No, no plan to introduce itNo, but plan to introduce itYes, but it is often not respectedYes, it is often respectedYes, it is always respected

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Figure 3-8. Agency fees using online booking tools

Figure 3-9. Agency fees using phone or email for bookings

Figure 3.9 shows the agency fee percentages for those companies which conduct the pre-trip reservations using a self-booking tool or an online tool provided by an external agency. The graph is compared with the following one (Figure 3.10), where the same information is reported for firms which contact their agency by using a telephone or sending emails. A first difference emerges in companies that pay less than 2% of fee or do not pay at all. While in the first case the two options amounts to 52%, percentage drops to 33% in the second graph. Furthermore, as it is possible to observe in figure 8, the maximum fee range for online bookings is between 6% and 10%, whereas phone calls and emails cost

15%

37%38%

10%

No feeLower than 2%Between 2%-5%Between 6%-10%

13%

20%

45%

13%

1%8%

No feeLower than 2%Between 2%-5%Between 6%-10%Between 11%-15%Higher than 20%

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more than 20% for some companies (8%). However, the two graphs above show some similarities, in particular for percentage of fee range between 2% and 5% that is the highest in both the cases, with a low difference. This result could be explained observing the following graph (Figure 3.11) that considers the percentage of online reservations made by companies adopting an online booking tool.

Figure 3-10. Online reservation rate for companies using online booking tools

As showed, only the 54% of these companies has an online reservation rate higher than 80%. This means that almost half of companies carried out reservations using other channels and that could lead to an increase of costs also in terms of transactions, as argued by managers interviewed in a study of Alexander Grous, of the London School of Economics (2017).

Another aspect discussed during the literature review and confirmed by the results of the survey is the importance of mobile applications in some on-trip activities. According by travel managers interviewed, mobile applications can be really useful mainly to provide assistance to the business travellers when they are far away from home, and also to improve their productivity during the trip, saving their working time (Euromonitor International, 2017).

6%

12%

14%

14%

54%

I don't KnowLower than 20%Between 20%-60%Between 61%-80%Higher than 80%

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Figure 3-11. Most important mobile app features for travel managers

Travel buyers were asked to indicate the most important characteristics a mobile application should possess to improve the traveller experience during the journey. The most indicated characteristic is providing information and documents about trip (73%). This is a simple way to boost productivity and decrease traveller’s stress. The second one refers to an important aspect of duty of care, assistance during the trip (41%), in order to solve any kind of problem could occur. Finally, most indicated features are the possibility of scanning receipts with a smartphone (38%) to improve the efficiency of the expense reporting process, and managing changes during the trip (34%) giving the possibility to eventually rebooking a ticket.

Looking more in detail about the use of mobile application for the duty of care program of companies, the relation between companies that have introduced an instrument for traveller’s safety and security during the business trip (such as geo-localization, alerts, 24/7 assistance) and the use of mobile application for employee’s assistance on trip has been analysed.

17% 73%

23% 38%

34% 13%

9% 1%

8% 41%

5%

Assurancedoucments Assistanceontrip

MobilePayment Managingpersonalservices

Booking/Purchasingotherservicesontrip MobilityService

Managingchangesontrip OCRTechnologyforreceipts

Internalregulationabouttrips Infoanddocumentsabouttrip

Infoaboutdestination

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Figure 3-12. Utilization of mobile app for traveller assistance by companies adopting an instrument for safety and security

The graph (Figure 3.13) shows that almost half of employees, who work in companies that have a solution for safety and assistance, do not use an application of this type during the trip, according to what stated by travel managers. This is a peculiar result since most of duty of care programs involve mobile applications by which it is really simple to be in contact with travellers and give them support during the journey. It looks like several Italian companies still are not making the most of mobile potentialities, as reported by the fact that almost half of travel managers do not know if their employees use mobile applications or not.

A section of the survey was dedicated to payment solutions companies use before and during the trip. As emerged by different researches, the methods of payment influence both the expense reporting process and data consolidation about the overall expenditure. A centralized payment solution, for example, allow to speed up the process since traveller will not use her own money and invoices are directly send to administration office.

44%

56%

YesNo

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Figure 3-13. Reimbursement process with Corporate Credit Card

Figure 3-14. Reimbursement process with Employees' Credit Card

The two graphs above (Figure 3.14 and Figure 3.15) compare the management of reimbursement process for companies that adopt different payment solutions during the pre-trip phase. The first case considers firms that use corporate credit cards to pay reservations made before the journey, while in the second graph personal employees’ credit card have been considered. The major difference between the two figures is about the management that does not include a high

3%10%

8%61%

37%

Invoices are sent to the internal office, no great employee involvementEmployee autonomously draft a request with all detailsTravel expenses are managed centrallyPayment card allow to avoid reimbursementOther

2%8%

3%82%

12%

Invoices are sent to the internal office, no great employee involvementEmployee autonomously draft a request with all detailsTravel expenses are managed centrallyPayment card allow to avoid reimbursementOther

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employee involvement. In fact, while in the first case corporate credit cards allow to simplify employee’s expense report activity in 37% of the cases, the percentage drops to 12% when a personal credit card is used.

A similar result has been obtained considering the same payment solutions during the trip phase, even though in this case there is a different percentage in terms of adoption rate. Indeed, for pre-trip payments they have the same the percentage in terms of adoption, while moving to expenses occurred during the trip employees’ credit cards are the most used method (44%), and corporate credit card is adopted only by 19% of companies. This is due to the fact that it is more difficult control expenses occurred during the trip, so companies are more reluctant in adopting corporate card also in the on-trip phase.

One of the activities performed by travel managers is negotiation with service providers. Agreements with airlines companies or hotels are essential to best manage dynamic pricing and also to avoid high ticket price due to last-minute bookings (Gustafson, 2012). Information about contracts stipulated by companies has been analysed considering the use of the monitoring tool, that is 2012; GBTA, 2015;).

Figure 3-15. Agreements with Suppliers with Monitoring Tool

79%

21%

YesNo

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Figure 3-16. Agreements with Suppliers without Monitoring Tool

The graphs above (Figure 3.16 and Figure 3.17) do not show great differences. Companies that are currently using an instrument to monitor and analyse the travel expense have been concluding an agreement in 79% of the cases. The percentage is lower considering firms that do not use this kind of tool, even though almost 70% negotiate with one or more service supplier. This means that a considerable number of travel managers performed the negotiation phase without the aid of an analytics tool. Moreover, looking at the benefits got by companies using the tool, only the 23% of travel mangers indicated “identify key suppliers” as one of the advantages obtained employing the instrument. The fact that, a significant part of buyers interviewed looks like do not use this tool to negotiate with suppliers, could be explained by mentioning a speech by Antonio Guizzardi, professor of Economic Statistics at University of Bologna, during the ACTE Global Forum in Milan, in November 2017. During his intervention, the professor focused the attention on the importance of data not just in terms of quantity, but also of quality: data shall allow to measure the most important aspects of the process through key performance indicators that give the right interpretation about information and also allow to take actions in certain activities, such as the negotiation. This consideration points out the importance about the definition of precise and synthetic indicator that can support the travel managers’ decision-making process.

68%

32%

YesNo

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Figure 3-17. Types of Service/Products Negotiated

About the typologies of service and product providers with which companies have negotiated agreements, at first place there are hotel companies (92%). Accommodation service is followed by the main means of transport, in order car rentals (74%), airlines (70%) and trains (66%). This is due to the fact that 76% of a cost of the trip refers to principal transport, such airplane or train, and to the hotel (Carlson Wagonlit Travel. 2015), so it is important for companies establishing agreements to contain expenditure.

Hotels92%

Rentalcars74%

Airlines70%

Trains66%

Taxi20%

Apartments10%

Apartments Taxi Trains Airlines Rentalcars Hotels

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Part Three

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4 A Model for Evaluating the Return on Investment of a Digital Solution in BTM

The researches and analysis presented in the second part of the work, jointly with the literature review, led to the development and realization of the main objective of the research, a model for evaluating the return on investment of a digital solution that is presented in the following section.

This last section of the work provides a detailed explanation of the model realized in each part. Firstly, it is illustrated the way the business travel management process was divided, providing the information about the phases identified. Then, all the indicators defined for the evaluation of the benefits of digital technology are deeply described and analysed, linking them to the methodology used in the study. Finally, a section on the main differences between the model and the existing literature is provided in order to explain the main advantages of the framework presented.

4.1 BTM Process Definition

The first step executed to develop the framework for the return on investment evaluation was the definition and division of the whole business travel management process in different phases. The main objective of this definition is to provide a clear and complete overview about the process and all the activities performed by travel managers and business travellers, including the interaction between them and other stakeholders such as service providers and travel management companies. This is fundamental in order to realize a model that takes into account all the possible solutions that a company could adopt to improve the process management and the activities, and aspects of the process involved in switching to digital technologies. The literature review, jointly with the interviews conducted and the participation to the events, provides a

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complete view of all the activities performed both by travel managers and business travellers.

The BTM process has been divided into four macro phases: Pre-Trip Phase, On-Trip Phase, Post-Trip Phase, Sourcing & Control. While the first three phases reflect the classical journey cycle, as reported several times in literature, the fourth phase refers to those activities that are horizontally carried out by travel manager and that are the backbone of the entire process. Such division was realized through a deep analysis of the literature that, as explained, considers the process as a whole of different phases. Holma (2012), in her process classification, considers two kinds of activities performed by travel managers and business travellers, strategic activities and operational ones. Then, these activities are assigned to one of the three phases of the cycle journey, before, during and after trip. A similar division is proposed by Lenz (2015) who talks about an end-to-end process where the phases are preparation of travel, execution of travel and post processing. However, this study is more traveller-oriented and it considers only the activity accomplished by the employees during their travel experience, focusing only partially on travel manager’s tasks. On the other hand, in the study provided by Amadeus (2017), the process classification is based on the T&E expense management. The authors suggest a cycle on the continuous optimization of the T&E that starts with an activity of strategic sourcing, that aims to define the policy and the suppliers, and ends with the analytics and feedback activity.

The three different process classifications reported above allows to understand how the division may vary according to the actor and the activities considered. Whereas the model proposed by Lenz is more focused on traveller’s activities, the one of the Amadeus’s study suggests a set of activities that refer more to the role of the travel manager in the process. On the other hand, Holma identifies activities performed by both the actors, even though the allocation of some of these activities, such as the negotiation and analysis, does not result perfectly aligned with the life cycle of the journey considered.

Therefore, thanks to the literature analysed and to the research conducted, it was possible to propose a process classification that identify all the activities

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performed by business travellers and travel managers and assign each one of these activities to a specific macro-phase. The base of the classification is the cycle journey, that is formed by pre, on and post trip phases. Moreover, the set of activities performed by travel managers, in order to define the travel program and continuously improving the process, has not been assigned to one of these phases, but it forms a fourth phase called Sourcing and Control. This phase cannot be part of the cycle of the trip since includes activities that are performed horizontally by travel managers in order to ensure a correct development and execution of the travel program of the company. Such classification considers the dual point of view of the actors involved in the process and it assigns each activity univocally to a specific phase, an important base for the definition and classification of the indicators that allow the benefits evaluation.

In the next paragraphs the four phases will be described in order to give a higher detail on the single activities performed and on the possible digital solution that can improve those processes.

4.1.1 Pre-Trip Phase

The pre-trip phase involves all the activities performed before the departure. Generally, this phase starts with the approval travel request that can be more or less formalized according to the company’s rules (Gustafson, 2013). In case travellers need to a formal authorization, the request has to be sent and approved by travel manager or by a designated approver. This activity can be digitally managed with a consequent difference in time to conclude the task.

The second, and more important, activity of the phase is the booking of the main services for the trip. Reservation could be made by different actors, through different channels and digital instruments can significantly change the process in terms of offers and fares provided, way to perform the activity and involvement of different players (Lenz et al., 2015). As previously explained, the payments during this phase could be made through different solutions that make the activity more or less centralized according to the one adopted.

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The phase ends up with sending and receiving of all documents and information needed for the departure.

4.1.2 On-Trip Phase

The second phase defined is the one in which business travellers are away from home and staying at destination. This phase can be furtherly divided into two main parts, the first considering the transport to and from the destination with the main mean of transport, and the second that is the journey at destination.

This part of the process mostly affects business travellers since they are the players who undertake the journey. Employees, in particular, deal with transportation activities to reach the destination and then come back home, and also with payments for auxiliary services not included in the pre-trip reservations (Holma, 2009). On the other hand, travel managers shall ensure support in case of difficulties and problem could emerge, monitoring the journey of their employees. Payments done during the trip are usually made using credit cards, personal or corporate, and then all the receipts are collected to carry out the reporting activity of the next phase.

Digital technologies in this case are relevant to perform communication activities, boost productivity through mobile devices and providing payment solutions for the expenses occurred during the trip. The loss of productivity is a direct cost for the company, so it is important to provide solutions that can improve the efficiency during the journey and can assist the travellers in case of cancellations or delays.

4.1.3 Post-Trip Phase

This phase includes all the activities performed by business travellers and travel managers when employees come back home. The main activities conducted by travellers in this phase is the expense reporting one, through which they

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reported and justify all the costs occurred during the trip. This is considered one of the most stressful activities by employees since a manual reporting needs to long unproductive time. The activity could have started during the trip in case employees have the possibility to scan the receipts through their mobile phone to reduce the process time. For what concern travel managers, they usually perform two different activities, reconciliation, that is the control and check of the reports sent by travellers, and reimbursement (PayStream, 2017).

The activities of this phase can be performed differently by companies according to the level of digitalization of the process, as emerged also from the call interviews. Two digital instruments assume a considerable relevance in this phase, a solution for the T&E Management through which expense reports are drafted and presented, and payment solutions through which all the services used during the trip have been paid. The mobile OCR technology is a plus that can furtherly boost the activity.

4.1.4 Sourcing & Control

The last phase, called Sourcing and Control, identifies all those activities conducted by travel managers that does not belong to the journey cycle, but are periodically executed to realize a correct and well-structured travel program. The first activity considered is the negotiation with service suppliers through which contracts and agreements between the company and its providers are settled. As emerged by the survey, most of the companies establishes some agreements with service providers in order to have at its disposal negotiated fares and to avoid the problem of dynamic pricing. Then, the other activity performed is a “continuous improvement” of the process, thanks to the analysis about trends and behaviors that occurred and that could be changed to achieve a cost reduction or an higher quality. Literature and interviews have shown that statistical analysis are particularly relevant for monitoring the level of compliance, that needs to be periodically evaluated. Moreover, data trends allows to perform what-if analysis, understanding which factors had an higher

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impact on the overall expense. IBM’s travel manager, during the interview, reported the use of the data analysis to monitor the impact of advanced booking. This allowed to understand that, in some countries, performing reservation few days in advanced the current level would have brought a significant reduction in the expense. Of course, the travel policy needs to be monitored and eventually updated, if necessary. It is important that an eventual change of policy is promptly and clearly communicate to all employees in order to avoid out of policy activities.

4.2 Indicators Definition

In order to numerically evaluate the return on investment of a new digital solution, a number of key performance indicators have been defined for each macro-phase of the business travel management process.

Firstly, indicators have been classified in three different categories, according to the type of benefits evaluated:

• Cost Indicators: these indicators allow to directly evaluate a benefit in terms of money. They can refer both to savings derived from the different purchases and to cost reductions in the company process

• Time Indicators: they measure the amount of time managers and travellers can save in performing one of the activity of the process.

• Other Indicators: the last group refers to benefits that can be neither considered as cost savings nor a reduction of time. An example is given by the traveller satisfaction.

Once defined the phases of the process and the categories, it was possible to realize the indicator that allow the quantification of a given advantage, providing the following information:

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• Definition: it explains the type of benefit that is evaluated and the way by which it is calculated. Moreover, some information about the use of the indicator and necessary data are provided.

• Category: it defines if the indicator belongs to a category of cost, time or other one.

• Formula: the mathematical formula used to numerically calculate the indicator. It could be both an absolute value or a percentage according to the typology of the indicator.

• Why: an explanation about the reasons why the indicator should be used for a ROI evaluation on the implementation of a digital instrument in the business travel management process of the company. This section contains data and information gathered with the literature review, the different workshops and the survey and interviews realized.

• Affected Role: the benefit calculated by the indicator could be referred to the travel manager or to the business traveller, or both. This information is given in the last part of the indicator’s explanation.

In the next paragraphs, each indicator will be described in detail, providing the abovementioned information.

Above the tables on the indicators of the four main phases are presented (Table 4.1, 4.2, 4.3, 4.4)

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Table 4-1. Indicators of the Pre-Trip Phase

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Table 4-2. Indicators of the On-Trip Phase

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Table 4-3. Indicators of the Post-Trip Phase

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Table 4-4. Indicators of the Sourcing & Control Phase

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4.2.1 Pre-Trip Indicators

ACCOMODATION FARES

Definition: it measures the cost saving on the accommodation spending the company faced during the year. It can refer to all the typologies of accommodation selected by the company such as hotels, B&Bs or apartments. The saving is measured as difference of annual average unit cost per night, that can be calculated as the ratio between the sum of all the cost per night of every single invoice divided by the number of invoices considered.

Category: Cost

Formula:

𝑐𝑜𝑠𝑡𝑝𝑒𝑟𝑛𝑖𝑔ℎ𝑡-./0 1

𝑛𝑢𝑚𝑏𝑒𝑟𝑜𝑓𝑖𝑛𝑣𝑜𝑖𝑐𝑒𝑠1−

𝑐𝑜𝑠𝑡𝑝𝑒𝑟𝑛𝑖𝑔ℎ𝑡8./0 190

𝑛𝑢𝑚𝑏𝑒𝑟𝑜𝑓𝑖𝑛𝑣𝑜𝑖𝑐𝑒𝑠190

where 𝑡 is the previous year to the implementation, 𝑛 is the number of invoices

of year 𝑡 and 𝑚 is the number of invoices of the year 𝑡 + 1.

Why: accommodation costs are the second item of expenditure of a business trip. They represent the 31% of cost of services booked before the trip by travellers (Carlson Wagonlit Travel, 2015). A reduction of this expenditure can be manly originated by the implementation of two digital instruments: a self-booking tool or an instrument for data analysis. With a SBT, the company has major visibility about the offer of accommodation service providers and also decreases transaction-related costs, taking the advantage of cheaper fares; reservation can be lower than 40% compared to an agency assisted reservation (Concur, 2009; Amadeus, 2007). A tool for data analytics, instead, allows to act proactively to the dynamic demand management of service providers (Amadeus, 2017). These considerations led to the definition of an indicator by which it is possible to measure the accommodation cost saving obtained after the implementation of one of these instruments.

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Affected Role: Travel Manager.

TRANSPORTATION FARES

Definition: it measures the cost saving on transportation fares (airplane/train/ship) obtained by the company after the implementation of the digital solution. The saving is calculated as difference of the annual average unit cost per invoice. The invoices could be referred to a single or multiple transport categories.

Category: Cost

Formula:

𝑖𝑛𝑣𝑜𝑖𝑐𝑒𝑐𝑜𝑠𝑡-./0 1

𝑛𝑢𝑚𝑏𝑒𝑟𝑜𝑓𝑖𝑛𝑣𝑜𝑖𝑐𝑒𝑠1−

𝑖𝑛𝑣𝑜𝑖𝑐𝑒𝑐𝑜𝑠𝑡8./0 190

𝑛𝑢𝑚𝑏𝑒𝑟𝑜𝑓𝑖𝑛𝑣𝑜𝑖𝑐𝑒𝑠190

where 𝑡 is the previous year to the implementation, 𝑛 is the number of invoices

of year 𝑡 and 𝑚 is the number of invoices of the year 𝑡 + 1.

Why: this indicator refers to main mean of transport used by travellers in the trips, so airplanes, trains and ships. It can be used considering a single typology of transport or in an aggregated way. Usually, flights are the ones with the higher impact in terms of costs. According to a research conducted by CWT (2015), the cost of the flight is almost half of the entire trip expense. For this indicator, the considerations made for the previous one about the accommodation are valid. The use of a self-booking tool could bring a cost saving of 9% on average for airline tickets (ACTE Global, 2017; Amadeus, 2007). Moreover, as stated by the IBM’s Global Arline Lead, data analytics allows to monitor price developments and this ca be useful to decrease the price of tickets purchased.

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Affected Role: Travel Manager.

AGENCY FEE

Definition: it measures the cost saving on the fee applied by the travel management company on bookings as the difference between the unitary booking cost per reservation.

Category: Cost

Formula:

𝑓𝑒𝑒𝑝𝑒𝑟𝑏𝑜𝑜𝑘𝑖𝑛𝑔1 − 𝑓𝑒𝑒𝑝𝑒𝑟𝑏𝑜𝑜𝑘𝑖𝑛𝑔190

where 𝑡 is the previous year to the implementation.

Why: a transaction fee is a commission paid by the company to the TMC for each booking realized. It may vary according to the type of reservation, for example transportation or accommodation, and also between different companies that for instance have different amounts of reservations. As well as the previous indicator, companies could be able to get a reduction of their TMC fees thanks to the implementation of a self-booking tool. Booking instruments allow to decrease transaction fees of approximately 30-40% (CIPS, 2009; Amadeus, 2007), so for a ROI evaluation this saving has to be considered. Considering the analysis of the survey, this aspect was not fully confirmed, probably due to the fact that many companies, that have adopted an online solution for the reservation process, continue to use other offline channels that undermine the possible saving.

Affected Role: Travel Manager.

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APPROVAL PROCESS

Definition: it measures the time saving in the process of trip authorization. It is calculated as the difference between the average approval time per trip. The approval time of every single trip can be evaluated as the time interval included between the moment the travel request is sent and the moment it is approved by the manager.

Category: Time

Formula:

∆𝑎𝑝𝑝𝑟𝑜𝑣𝑎𝑙𝑡𝑖𝑚𝑒-./0 1𝑛𝑢𝑚𝑏𝑒𝑟𝑜𝑓𝑡𝑟𝑖𝑝𝑠1

−∆𝑎𝑝𝑝𝑟𝑜𝑣𝑎𝑙𝑡𝑖𝑚𝑒8

./0 190𝑛𝑢𝑚𝑏𝑒𝑟𝑜𝑓𝑡𝑟𝑖𝑝𝑠190

where 𝑡 is the previous year to the implementation, 𝑛 is the number of trips

approved of year 𝑡 and 𝑚 is the number of trips approved of the year 𝑡 + 1.

Why: as previously mentioned in the text, the majority of business traveller need a formal authorization by a supervisor. This process can be speed up by using a digital automated solution that removes time-consuming activities and manual authorization (Forest Travel, 2018) and this indicator allows to understand the time advantage obtained with a digital tool. The call interviews showed the almost all the companies set an approval process, that in most of the cases in performed automatically. The possibility to automate this activity is relevant also because travel managers can track the information about the motivation and the number of trips made by employees having a clearer picture.

Affected Role: Travel Manager & Business Traveller.

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BOOKING PROCESS

Definition: it measures the time saving for the booking activity as the difference between the average booking time per trip. The booking time is a data hardly measurable using information system, so it could be evaluated asking a feedback to travellers who carry out the activity. This time does not include activities related to any changes that could occur after a certain service was been booked.

Category: Time

Formula:

∆𝑏𝑜𝑜𝑘𝑖𝑛𝑔𝑡𝑖𝑚𝑒-./0 1𝑛𝑢𝑚𝑏𝑒𝑟𝑜𝑓𝑡𝑟𝑖𝑝𝑠1

−∆𝑏𝑜𝑜𝑘𝑖𝑛𝑔𝑡𝑖𝑚𝑒8

./0 190𝑛𝑢𝑚𝑏𝑒𝑟𝑜𝑓𝑡𝑟𝑖𝑝𝑠190

where 𝑡 is the previous year to the implementation, 𝑛 is the number of trips of

year 𝑡 and 𝑚 is the number of trips of the year 𝑡 + 1.

Why: the booking process is carried out in the booking channels the company has selected and established in its travel policy. The introduction of a booking solution allows to speed up the process since travellers can make the reservation in complete independence. Mauro Zollet, Global Travel Manager in Aptar, stated during his interview that travellers in his company save about 30% of the time using the self-booking tool since “usually 3/4 email are needed to make a booking trip, while with our SBT employees make the reservation all at once”.

Affected Role: Business Traveller

SELF-BOOKING TOOL ADOPTION RATE

Definition: it measures the percentage of bookings conducted by using the self-booking tool in the year. The percentage can be measured dividing the number

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of bookings made with the tool with the total amount of bookings made in the year.

Category: Other

Formula:

𝑆𝐵𝑇𝑟𝑒𝑠𝑒𝑟𝑣𝑎𝑡𝑖𝑜𝑛𝑠𝑡𝑜𝑡𝑎𝑙𝑟𝑒𝑠𝑒𝑟𝑣𝑎𝑡𝑖𝑜𝑛%

Why: when the company adopts a digital tool for travellers, it is important to evaluate how many employees are actually using the instrument. Ensuring that an implemented solution is properly used is one of the most relevant way to avoid a decreasing in the return on investment (PayStream, 2017). This is particular relevant in the reservation phase, since booking outside defined channels will bring economic losses on volume discounts and information about bookings (Amadeus, 2017). The meaning behind a low adoption rate is that companies continue to use other reservation channels, undermining the advantages of the online tool. The growth of the adoption level of the tool will impact on all the benefits the tool should imply (Egencia, 2008). From the analysis of the survey emerged that almost half of companies adopting an online booking solution have a rate of reservations carried out online lower than 80%. This could mean that the implementation phase companies should support is not correctly performed; when a new tool is introduced in the company, it should be previously tested by a small group, and then, once problems arisen have been fixed, involving the entire company (Carlson Wagonlit Travel, 2016).

This indicator allows to travel managers to understand if her employees are using or not the instrument adopted, understanding if advantages are exploited at maximum level. Although the indicator in the model refers to a booking solution, it could be also used to evaluate the adoption level of other digital instrument, for example by replacing the reservation with the number of

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invoices sent through mobile scanning, in order to evaluate the adoption rate of a mobile application for the expense reporting phase.

Affected Role: Travel Manager

TRAVEL POLICY COMPLIANCE

Definition: it measures the difference of the travel policy compliance rate as the percent difference between the compliance level after and before the solution adoption. The travel policy compliance percentage can be measured dividing the number of payment transactions performed resulting compliant and the total amount of payment transactions.

Category: Other

Formula:

%𝑐𝑜𝑚𝑝𝑙𝑖𝑎𝑛𝑐𝑒𝑟𝑎𝑡𝑒190 − %𝑐𝑜𝑚𝑝𝑙𝑖𝑎𝑛𝑐𝑒𝑟𝑎𝑡𝑒1

where 𝑡 is the previous year to the implementation.

Why: several times during the work it has been highlighted the importance of travel policy in the management of business travel, also because “measuring the impact of technology in driving greater compliance is a common way to calculate the return on investment” (Phocuswright, 2008). As reported in the analysis of the survey, digitalization allows to boost policy compliance since solutions such as booking tools embed rules and norms fixed by the company and they have features adapted to the travel policy, so it is easier enforcing them (Douglas et al., 2015; Gustafson, 2013). This aspect emerges not only from the literature but also from the survey analysis, where companies adopting technological solution in most of the cases have a travel policy always or almost always respected, particularly when they use more than one digital instrument.

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Different studies reported the correlation between higher compliance and lower travel costs: Douglas & Lubbe (2008) stated that an increase of 5% of compliance correspond a 10% reduction in costs, while for LSE, companies with compliance rate higher than 80% can obtain a reduction in indirect cost per traveller until 20%.

As well as for the adoption rate, compliance could be referred to different phases, depending on the moment the payment is done. Since reservations made before the departure represent the highest percentage of travel cost, this indicator refers to all bookings carried out in the pre-trip phase, but it can be used also to monitor the overall compliance, considering also the payments made at destination. The growth in compliance rate, in fact, can be obtained also through electronic payments and T&E automated solutions (PayStream, 2017; Aberdeen Group, 2012).

Affected Role: Travel Manager

4.2.2 On-Trip Indicators

AUXILIARY SERVICES

Definition: it measures the cost saving on the auxiliary services exploited during the trip as difference between the average cost of auxiliary services per trip. The average cost can be calculated as the sum of all auxiliary services during the year divided by the number of trips in the year. It could be referred to all the services or to a particular category.

Category: Cost

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Formula:

𝑎𝑢𝑥𝑖𝑙𝑖𝑎𝑟𝑦𝑐𝑜𝑠𝑡𝑠1𝑛𝑢𝑚𝑏𝑒𝑟𝑜𝑓𝑡𝑟𝑖𝑝𝑠1

−𝑎𝑢𝑥𝑖𝑙𝑖𝑎𝑟𝑦𝑐𝑜𝑠𝑡𝑠190

𝑛𝑢𝑚𝑏𝑒𝑟𝑜𝑓𝑡𝑟𝑖𝑝𝑠190

where 𝑡 is the previous year to the implementation, 𝑛 is the number of trips of

year 𝑡 and 𝑚 is the number of trips of the year 𝑡 + 1.

Why: auxiliary services represent about the 24% of the total direct cost of a trip. They refer to all costs occurred when travellers stay at destination, and they can be divided in three main categories (Carlson Wagonlit Travel, 2015):

• Ground transportation. This group of service includes all the transportation expenses bear by travellers at destination, so taxis, public transport car sharing solutions and eventually car fuel.

• Meals. This category refers to bars and restaurants invoices, and all the expenses for the meals.

• Ancillary services. They are extra-services that usually refer to hotel facilities such as laundry, Wi-Fi, room upgrade and so on.

A reduction of this cost category could stem from the adoption of two different tools, a mobile application or a tool for analytics. The first could allow to travellers to get access to more convenient fares, particularly for ground trasportation where several mobile applications are available (Concur, 2016). The analytics tool, on the other hand, could allow to deeper analyse expenses related to these service in order to better understand which are the most utilized service categories and trying to negotiate with supplier or change the travellers’ behaviour to get a saving. This indicator was defined thanks to the contribution of two different calls interview. The first refers to IBM’s travel manager, Mirko Terragni, who described a new mobile application that his company is developing in order assist travellers in the entire journey, offering different features. The second interview was the one with Mauro Zollet, travel buyer in Aptar. During the call, Mr Zollet stated that, during the expense reporting phase, every traveller has to specify all the voices of cost that are different from the room fare. The detail will allow to better analyse the impact of ancillary services

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and travellers’ behaviour, and also it will be possible analyse the pure room fare for other analysis.

Affected Role: Travel Manager

TRAVEL MODIFICATIONS

Definition: it measures the time saving to make a booking change during the trip. It can be calculated as the difference between the average time to make the modification. It could be referred to all the changes occurred or to a specific category of service.

Category: Time

Formula:

𝑎𝑣𝑒𝑟𝑎𝑔𝑒𝑡𝑖𝑚𝑒𝑝𝑒𝑟𝑐ℎ𝑎𝑛𝑔𝑒1 − 𝑎𝑣𝑒𝑟𝑎𝑔𝑒𝑡𝑖𝑚𝑒𝑝𝑒𝑟𝑐ℎ𝑎𝑛𝑔𝑒190

where 𝑡 is the previous year to the implementation.

Why: one of the most important features requested by travellers for mobile applications, after the ones about information trip, is the possibility to carry out modifications or rebooking while they are on their own way for the destination (Phocuswright, 2016; Sabre, 2016). Mobile smartphones allow to simplify the rebooking process make it easier and faster and this is considered relevant by travellers who prefer managing changes autonomously by using technologies (Missionline, 2017). Thanks to the introduction of a mobile application that can accomplish this task, travellers should be able to save time and avoid stressful situations, and the following indicator should provide an estimation about the annual saving time obtained after the tool introduction. Obtaining data to calculate this indicator could not be an easy task, particularly for modifications occurred before the implementation that could have been carried out by calls or

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in person at the front office. To avoid this problem, the assessment could be done simply asking to business travellers average times to perform the activity before and after the new technological tool and then estimate an average value.

Affected Role: Business Traveller

SAFETY AND SECURITY

Definition: it measures the safety and security level offered by the company to its employees considering the duty of care program of the company. The safety and security level is identified through a scale of values from 1 to 3 defined according the technological characteristics adopted by the company. The characteristics considered to define the level of the indicator are:

• Assistance service 24/7

• Alert notifications about destination

• Traveller tracking

The level of the indicator will be defined according to the number of three features offered by the digital solution.

Category: Other

Formula:

𝑠𝑐𝑎𝑙𝑒𝑓𝑟𝑜𝑚1𝑡𝑜3

Why: travellers’ safety and security became one of the most important priorities for travel managers, due to the several risks can occur during a trip (ACTE Global, 2017; WTTC, 2017). Technology plays an important role in increasing the level of security offered by the company, particularly through the use of mobile devices. Several service providers offer duty of program based on mobile

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applications that enable to be in contact with travellers all the time and also to know where exactly they are through geo-localization technology (GBTA, 2015). This aspect is important not only for travel managers, but also for travellers who may feel more comfortable when they travel. According to Sabre (2016), 87% of Italian employees would let company track their location for duty of care program.

Affected Role: Travel Manager & Business Traveller

4.2.3 Post-Trip Indicators

EXPENSE REPORT COST

Definition: it measures the cost saving obtained in the execution of the expense reporting activity. It can be measured as difference between the annual cost incurred by the company in carrying out the activity, after and before the implementation.

Category: Cost

Formula:

𝑒𝑥𝑝𝑒𝑛𝑠𝑒𝑟𝑒𝑝𝑜𝑟𝑡𝑖𝑛𝑔𝑐𝑜𝑠𝑡𝑠1 −𝑒𝑥𝑝𝑒𝑛𝑠𝑒𝑟𝑒𝑝𝑜𝑟𝑡𝑖𝑛𝑔𝑐𝑜𝑠𝑡𝑠190

where 𝑡 is the previous year to the implementation.

Why: expense reporting is one of the main post-trip activities, in which travellers have to justify all the expenses of the trip. This process can be significantly different according to the automation level and to the different tools adopted to perform the activity. The starting point to digitalize the process is given by a T&E management solution and then, companies could boost the cost saving

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integrating other features. The first is the possibility to capture receipts through the smartphone using OCR technology. Another is the integration between the T&E Management tool and a card for payments such as a virtual credit card.

According to different studies, the digitalization of the process adopting different tools could allow to save 50% of expense reporting costs (Amadeus, 2017; HRS, 2016; Aberdeen Group, 2012). This indicator allows travel managers to estimate the cost saving of the automation of this important part of the business travel management process. Since companies could perform the activity differently the indicator considers the annual total cost assigned to the process.

Affected Role: Travel Manager

EXPENSE REPORT TIME

Definition: it measures the time saving by travellers in realizing the report with all the expenses of the trip. It can be measured as difference between the average time used by employees to perform the activity before and after the implementation.

Category: time

Formula:

𝑒𝑥𝑝𝑒𝑛𝑠𝑒𝑟𝑒𝑝𝑜𝑟𝑡𝑖𝑛𝑔𝑡𝑖𝑚𝑒1 − 𝑒𝑥𝑝𝑒𝑛𝑠𝑒𝑟𝑒𝑝𝑜𝑟𝑡𝑖𝑛𝑔𝑡𝑖𝑚𝑒190

where 𝑡 is the previous year to the implementation.

Why: the expense reporting activity is always seen as one of the most frustrating activities by employees (Amadeus, 2017). In Europe, still in the great majority of companies, invoices are collected and sent in paper form, and this requires a great amount of time for employees who spend about 20 minutes in drawing a

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single report (Certify, 2017; HRS, 2016). Instruments that can speed up the process jointly to the tool for the expense management are mobile scan technology and adoption of virtual card. According to the Aberdeen Group (2012), a business traveller could save 3 hours per month using a mobile application for the management of expenses. This was also confirmed by Decathlon’s travel manager who stated that the possibility to take a picture of the receipts speed up the activity, reducing the manual data entry.

The considered indicator allows to estimate the amount of time saved by business traveller who can be used these hours for other more productive activities. Considering the average cost per hour per employee, companies could have an estimation about the impact of this technology in terms of return on investment

Affected Role: Business Traveller

RECONCILIATION

Definition: it measures the time saving in the reconciliation phase performed by the travel manager and/or her assistants as percent difference between the number of hours employed for the reconciliation phase divided by the total hours of work of travel manager and assistants.

Category: Time

Formula:

𝑟𝑒𝑐𝑜𝑛𝑐𝑖𝑙𝑖𝑎𝑡𝑖𝑜𝑛ℎ𝑜𝑢𝑟𝑠1𝑡𝑜𝑡𝑎𝑙ℎ𝑜𝑢𝑟𝑠1

−𝑟𝑒𝑐𝑜𝑛𝑐𝑖𝑙𝑖𝑎𝑡𝑖𝑜𝑛ℎ𝑜𝑢𝑟𝑠190

𝑡𝑜𝑡𝑎𝑙ℎ𝑜𝑢𝑟𝑠190∙ 100

where 𝑡 is the previous year to the implementation.

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Why: reconciliation phase is the activity perform by travel managers and her collaborators to control the expense reports sent by business travellers. This activity could be really time consuming, without adding value to the travel process management. HRS (2016) estimated that the time needed to check a single report is more or less 18 minutes. Digitalization allows not only to decrease this time, but also to reduce the number of people who dealing with the execution of this activity, leading to an increase in economic return (Certify, 2017; Concur, 2009).

From interviews, it is possible to analyse to different ways to manage the process, with different levels of automation. On the hand, Dedagroup requires to its employees to send the expense report presenting all the paper receipts collected during the trip to the administration. Then, office assistants will execute the control manually wasting a significant amount of time. On the other hand, the integration between T&E Management tool and corporate credit card allows to Aptar to considerably speed up the card is directly associated with the employee’s profile in the system and the control will much more automatic and simple.

The following indicator allows travel managers to understand the time percentage of their work that it could be saved adopting digitalization, and that could be used to perform more value-adding activities. The percentage valuation gives the possibility to understand how much this activity impacts on the overall role of travel managers

Affected Role: Travel Manager

FRAUDS & MISTAKES

Definition: it defines the reduction of frauds and/or mistakes occurred in drafting the expense report from business travellers. The number of frauds/mistakes can be considered as percentage or absolute value, counting the

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number of expense reports where travel managers and assistants have recognized a fraud or a mistake.

Category: Other

Formula:

∆1,190𝑛𝑢𝑚𝑏𝑒𝑟𝑜𝑓𝑓𝑟𝑎𝑢𝑑𝑠/𝑚𝑖𝑠𝑡𝑎𝑘𝑒𝑠

where 𝑡 is the previous year to the implementation.

Why: when the activity of drafting an expense report is carried out manually, it is likely that employees could make a mistake transcribing the details, or missing a paper receipt (PayStream, 2017; Concur, 2016). Moreover, a data entry completely manual could allow the possibility to incur in opportunistic behaviours by some employees who could take advantage falsifying some expense reports. Considering an expense report process performed manually, about 20% of reports contain a mistake and this implies an additional cost of 48€ per report to the company (HRS, 2016). Also in this case, digital instruments that could lead to reduce the number of mistakes and frauds are the ones that facilitate the report realization, mobile application and centralized payment solutions. Digital instruments not only allow to reduce the number of mistakes since the manual data entry is eliminated, but also discourage employees’ fraudulent behaviour due to the fact that the possibility to get caught considerably increase.

Assessing the reduction of reports with frauds and mistake, travel managers can evaluate the economic benefits of digitalization considering an average cost saved for each report.

Affected Role: Travel Manager

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4.2.4 Sourcing & Control Indicators

NEGOTIATION

Definition: it measures the cost saving obtained in the negotiated phase as the difference between the average negotiate fare before and after the implementation. The average negotiated fare can be calculated as the ratio between the sum of the fare divided the number of fares, considering the same number of fares for the two different years to avoid discrepancy. The indicator could be referred to a particular service category or to the whole group of negotiated agreements.

Category: Cost

Formula:

𝑛𝑒𝑔𝑜𝑡𝑖𝑎𝑡𝑒𝑑𝑓𝑎𝑟𝑒1-./0

𝑛 −𝑛𝑒𝑔𝑜𝑡𝑖𝑎𝑡𝑒𝑑𝑓𝑎𝑟𝑒190-

./0

𝑛

where 𝑡 is the previous year to the implementation and 𝑛 is the number of negotiated fare considered.

Why: as indicated during the research, negotiation is one of the main activities a travel manager should perform. Having the possibility to choose an agreed fare, for services needed during the trip, is really important in business travel since often employees do not have the possibility to reserve transport or accommodation any days in advance (Gustafson, 2012). Moreover, the volatility that characterized tourism market prices force companies to have an alternative for certain service categories. The activity is performed almost by all travel managers, and the amount of available data processed by an analytical tool could strongly support the bargaining phase (GBTA, 2015).

This aspect strongly emerges from interviews with travel managers where one of the interviewed stated: “negotiation is significantly relevant in cost saving; if we are able to correctly manage this phase and stipulate favourable

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agreement, service providers will not offer a daily fare that is lower than the one we obtained”. In this aspect tools for analytics play an important role as highlighted by Mr. Terragni who use dashboards and table provided by the instrument IBM has implemented to use all the data collected in the process.

The defined indicator provides an idea on the cost saving that could be obtained in terms of negotiated fares using an instrument for data analytics. The indicator could be used to evaluate also a precise category of service, that for example are the more contracted in the company. As emerged from the survey conducted by Osservatorio Innovazione Digitale nel Turismo for example, hotel companies are the ones travel managers negotiate more with.

Affected Role: Travel Manager

DRAFTING REPORT

Definition: it measures the time saving in the activity performed by travel manager or assistants in drafting a report with a given information about the business travel process. It is measured as difference of the average time to accomplish the task, referring to a generic type of report or document.

Category: Time

Formula:

∆1,190𝑎𝑣𝑒𝑟𝑎𝑔𝑒𝑡𝑖𝑚𝑒𝑖𝑛𝑑𝑟𝑎𝑓𝑡𝑖𝑛𝑔𝑎𝑟𝑒𝑝𝑜𝑟𝑡

Why: the definition of this indicator originated by the call interview with Mauro Zollet, travel manager in Aptar. During the call Mr. Zollet admitted that the utilizations of instrument that can manage data collection and realize reports and documents with this information can save a considerable amount of time for travel managers’ job. Approximately, he stated that thanks to the analytical

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tool the average time to realize a report can switch from three days to only half. As well as for the reconciliation phase, time saved can be used to accomplish other value-adding activities simplifying the business travel management (ACTE Global, 2017).

Reports and documents are important for travel buyers to carry out the monitoring activities and to present trends and results to top management, so a digital instrument that allows to easily realize graphs and table with relevant information is particularly important (Carlson Wagonlit Travel, 2016) and it can represent a source of return on investment.

Affected Role: Travel Manager

KEY SUPPLIERS

Definition: it provides the group of suppliers to whose correspond the highest percentage in terms of expense volume borne by the company. The group of supplier can be identified performing an ABC Pareto analysis in terms of spending, considering all the suppliers or dividing them for product/service categories.

Category: Other

Formula:

𝐴𝐵𝐶𝑃𝑎𝑟𝑒𝑡𝑜𝐴𝑛𝑎𝑙𝑦𝑠𝑖𝑠(80%𝑜𝑓𝑐𝑢𝑚𝑢𝑙𝑎𝑡𝑒𝑑𝑒𝑥𝑝𝑒𝑛𝑠𝑒𝑠)

Why: one of the benefits provided by an instrument for analytics is the possibility to have a clear vision on the overall expenses of the business travel. Of course, as in the Aptar case where travellers were asked to provide each single voice of cost in the invoices, the higher the detail expense level provided by travellers in the expense report, the deeper the analysis than can be performed.

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A detailed classification on the type of expenses allows to understand which are services and suppliers where the company spends the greatest part of the entire expense and focus more attention on that category or supplier (Aberdeen Group, 2012). On this aspect, end-to-end solution can have significant advantages since allow to easily collect data expense information on all the phases of journey, from reservation to cost occurred at destination (SAP, 2018).

This indicator proposes the identification of a class A of suppliers using one of the most well-known framework to identify groups with higher impact in the overall costs, but companies could adapt the evaluation method according to their needs and requirements.

Affecter Role: Travel Manager

DATA QUALITY

Definition: it defines the quality of data available that travel manager can use in the sourcing and control phase as the ratio between the number of data records that can are considered useful for the analysis divided per the total number of data records available.

Category: Other

Formula:

𝑛𝑢𝑚𝑏𝑒𝑟𝑜𝑓𝑑𝑎𝑡𝑎𝑟𝑒𝑐𝑜𝑟𝑑𝑠𝑢𝑠𝑒𝑓𝑢𝑙𝑡𝑜𝑡𝑎𝑙𝑑𝑎𝑡𝑎𝑟𝑒𝑐𝑜𝑟𝑑𝑠

∙ 100

Why: in order to carry out statistical analysis travel managers need to data that contains the right and useful information. The terms useful in the formula could have different meaning according to the situation: a data could not be useful if it is not received in a timely manner, or if it not conforms to the expected format,

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or if it is not completed in its all fields. This becomes more complicate when data comes from different sources and there is the risk to replicate some information or missed other ones (AirPlus, 2012; GBTA, 2012).

The following indicator wants to provide a quality level of the data available travel managers can use in their statistical analytics and negotiations. A lower rate of data quality implies that the sourcing and control phase is not well supported from digital instruments since the quality of the analysis will be lower, and this will lead to reduce the return on investment of the instrument adopted.

Affected Role: Travel Manager

4.2.5 Multi-Phase Indicators

The last two indicators presented do not refer to a particular phase of the process. In particular Traveller Satisfaction refers to the first three phases of the process, while Integration concerns the entire process.

TRAVELLER SATISFACTION

Definition: it measures the satisfaction level of business travellers about the travel management inside the company. It can be evaluated surveying employees and asking them to indicate a score to the overall process or to a specific phase of the process.

Category: Other

Formula:

𝑠𝑐𝑜𝑟𝑒.-./0

𝑛𝑢𝑚𝑏𝑒𝑟𝑜𝑓𝑣𝑜𝑡𝑒𝑟𝑠

where 𝑛 is the number of employees interviewed and 𝑠𝑐𝑜𝑟𝑒 is the grade assigned

by the employee 𝑖.

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Why: traveller satisfaction is essential so that employees are productive in doing their job when they are away from home. A recent study (Oswald et al., 2015) has empirically demonstrated that there is a relation between happiness and productivity, so it is fundamental for companies monitoring the travellers’ requirements fulfilment. Digitalization can considerably increase traveller’s satisfaction since it is the best way to simplify many activities and processes. In particular, from literature and interviews emerged that some characteristics and features of digital instruments are considered very important by employees. Travellers ask more autonomy and flexibility in the choose of services, so self-booking tool are considered fundamental in travel centric approach. Moreover, employees want to use their smartphones while they are on the trip, receiving information and simplifying activities they need to accomplish while are at destination (Egencia, 2017).

Even though traveller’s satisfaction is recognized as a priority by travel managers, many companies do not have a formal document to evaluate this aspect (ACTE Global, 2016). This indicator suggests evaluating this aspect of the process conducting internal surveys where employees are asked to indicate a score to the level of satisfaction on the overall process and digital instruments adopted by the company. This evaluation could be referred to a specific phase of the process or to a digital instrument in particular, since it can be a way also to collect feedback from the users of the tool in order to improve some aspects of the process.

Affected Role:

INTEGRATION

Definition: it measures the level of integration of the digital instrument adopted by the company. It is evaluated through a scale from 0 to 5 where each level indicates a given integration considering the main digital tools of the BTM

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process (self-booking tool, payment solution, T&E management solution and analytics tool), the information systems of the companies and the integration with the TMC:

• Level 0: no integration at all.

• Level 1: integration with 1 digital tool of the BTM process or information system of the company or TMC system.

• Level 2: integration with 2 instruments between BTM digital tools, information system and or TMC system.

• Level 3: integration with 3 instruments between BTM digital tools, information system and or TMC system.

• Level 4: integration with 5 instruments between BTM digital tools, information system and or TMC system.

• Level 5: complete integration.

Category: Other

Formula:

𝑠𝑐𝑎𝑙𝑒𝑓𝑟𝑜𝑚0𝑡𝑜5

Why: system integration is considered one of the most challenging aspects in business travel management (ACTE Global, 2012). The adoption of different instruments to perform the activities of the process that are integrated one each other lead to a loss of process efficiency and then to return on investment. Moreover, integration is the key of data consolidation and the only way to obtain timely and correct information to perform the monitoring and control activities and to support the negotiation phase (Concur, 2014).

Considering these aspects, the indicator defined in the model looks at integration level from two different aspects. The first is to analyse the integration between digital tool adopted in the business travel management process that have complementary characteristics, since through the jointly utilization of the

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tools is possible obtaining higher advantages. As highlighted in the research, end-to-end solution for example allows to considerably decrease costs in the post-trip phase since everything moves in a unique data flow. This also avoid maintaining manual activities that could nullify automation’s benefits (Carlson Wagonlit Travel, 2016).

The second aspect consider integration between all the information system involved in the process, considering also the ERP of the company and the integration with the TMC system. Having integration between all the systems allows to get access to all the information and data about the process and this is essential during the analytics phase to maximize the economic return (Amadeus, 2017).

The indicator wants to provide an idea about the level of integration the company would reach with the implementation of the solution, since each company needs to identify the solution that best fit to its culture, structure and priorities.

Affected Role: Travel Manager & Business Traveller

Figure 4-1. Scheme of all the Indicators per category and phase

Pre-Trip Sourcing & ControlPost-TripOn-Trip

Accommodations Fares

Travel Modifications

SBT Adoption Rate

Booking Process

Approval Process

Agency Fee Transportation

Fares

Safety & Security

Traveller Satisfaction

Expense Report Cost

Auxiliary Services

Expense Report Time

Integration

Reconciliation

Frauds & Mistakes

Key Suppliers

Drafting Report

Negotiation

Data QualityTravel Policy Compliance

CostTimeOther

Classification of Indicators

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4.3 Differences with Existing Literature

The topic about the ROI maximization in business travel management, related to the adoption of technological solutions, was not deeply analysed by the existing literature. Here three different studies are reported in order to clarify which are the main advantages of the model presented in this work and how it is different from the existing ones.

The research conducted by the London School of Economics and Political Science (2017), on behalf of Amadeus, provides a framework to maximize the economic return through a holistic and strategic approach, considering the whole process of the BTM, from the definition of the strategic objectives to the T&E management. The study focuses the attention on a set of “best practices” identified for the different activities of the process that, jointly with the adoption of an automated solution, allows to obtain higher cost savings compared to those companies which carry out the activities differently. For each of the different phases of the process, percentages of cost savings, related to the implementation of correct practices and digital, are provided to give to the reader a numerical quantification about the missed economic advantage. Taking as example the expense reporting management, the author states that practices such as a more granular detail on travel expenses, the receipt mobile scan, and a more precise report on the cost centre, can halve the reimbursement direct cost related to the T&E management, if the company moves from a manual to an automated solution.

Another important study that analyse the relation between digital technologies and economic advantages in business travel management is the one realized by the Aberdeen Group (2012). This research, in particular, focus the attention on the T&E Expense Management and defines a framework to effectively manage this activity. The model combines strategic actions, organizational capabilities and enabling technologies that jointly lead to an economic return. Companies identifies as Best-in-Class obtained a 60% lower expense-processing costs and achieved a 30% higher rate of policy compliance thanks to three major enablers: integration, analytics and mobile.

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The relation between digital innovation and business travel was recently analysed by Osservatorio Innovazione Digitale nel Turismo in a study presented at ACTE Milano Forum in October 2017. The research proposed is based on the fact that travel manager’s and business traveller’s objectives do not coincide; whereas managers are more oriented to cost-reduction, travellers wish to increase their satisfaction along the whole cycle trip.

Figure 4-2. Trade-off benefits framework (Osservatorio Innovazione Digitale nel Turismo, 2017)

The curve in the graph shows all the different configurations of benefits achievable by the two players, where the company is located according to its process characteristics and the rules and norms adopted and defined in the travel policy. The digital innovation represents the way to overcome the trade-off between the objectives of the two actors since it allows to move up the curve, simultaneously increasing the benefits of business travellers and travel buyers. This model is strictly related to the following study since it considers the dual vision of the company process, considering both the traveller point of view and travel managers one. Moreover, the fundamental role of the travel policy is highlighted to the fact that it is seen as an instrument for guiding the level of the overall benefit that the company want to obtain.

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The studies presented above provide three different frameworks for the economical evaluation of business travel process digitalization, highlighting, as reported in the literature review, that digital needs to supporting activities to effectively influence the process. However, the model presented and developed in this study provides substantial differences and improvements to fill the gaps of the literature.

The first main difference is that, benefits and best practices referring to a digital solution implementation can be numerically evaluated by travel managers through the use of the indicators defined in the model, that provide a quantitative evaluation about the economical return that the company would obtain. This aspect is fundamental since travel managers are involved in the selection and implementation of technological solutions in the company, and their choice needs to be supported by an economical assessment to obtain a consensus of the top management. Moreover, since indicators have been defined taking into account the several benefits of all the digital solutions, the use of the framework allow to identify specific activities that are not correctly carry out and modify them in order to maximize the economic return.

Another important element, that add value to the model, is the possibility to quantitatively evaluate not only benefits refer to cost savings, but also indirect benefits, such as time savings or travellers satisfaction, that are usually more complicated to quantify. Thanks to the definition of an indicator also for this kind of benefits and to the support of data and information gathered through the literature analysis, it was possible to associate an economical advantage even to indirect benefits. These aspects are treated only partially by the abovementioned studies, that are more focused on cost savings and provide just qualitative considerations for those benefits that are not directly linked to a cost reduction.

Finally, the exhaustiveness of the model in terms of phases of the process that have been considered, each one of them correlated to a set of indicators, allow to evaluate all the possible solutions that a company could adopt. This could be useful to travel managers to evaluate different solutions and to understand which is the one that best fit with the priorities and the characteristics of the

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company. In fact, considering all the different activities that can be performed by travel managers and business travellers, it was possible to develop a model that evaluate all the features and characteristics of the digital solution, providing a clear picture of the advantages. As well as companies have different structures and processes from each other, it is important to understand and consider in the phase of selection of the tool the structural factors of the company

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5 Conclusions

Digitalization has been disrupting the way companies manage their processes and activities, and this is particularly affecting one of the process that in last years acquired more and more relevance, business travel management. Corporations are seeking for practices and instruments that allow them to reduce the overall cost they bear for travelling, and at the same time keeping unchanged, or increasing, the level and the quality of the trips. The best way to reach this goal seems to be a digital transformation for the company’s business travel management process. Literature review showed that the offer of technological providers is wide and differentiated, it includes instruments for all the activities with different characteristics that can be adapted according to the firm’s structure. Digital solutions involve a broad set of advantages for all the activities and actors involved in the process. The first main category of benefits refers to cost saving since, thanks to digitalization, companies will be able to get access to more favourable fares in the purchasing services, to increase their bargaining power with suppliers, and to have a more efficient process decreasing the cost refers to the realization of the activities. The second group of benefits refers to time reduction to perform the activities of business travellers and travel managers, the two main company’s actors involved in the process. Thanks to the easiness and simplicity to carry out standard tasks using automated solutions, a significant reduction of unproductive time can be achieved, giving the possibility to use it in other activities that are value-adding for the organization. Finally, as mentioned, digitalization does not allow only to decrease cost, but also to improve the quality of the traveller’s experience and of the travel manager’s job. On the one hand, travellers will be able to autonomously manage their trip, choosing the services they prefer and decreasing the stressful occasion occurred during the journey. On the other hand, the travel manager will be able to effectively accomplish their task providing value outputs to the organization and demonstrating that her role is fundamental to reach the strategic objectives set by the corporate management. All these benefits are even greater when the digital implementation is supported from an internal BTM program well-

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structured and define, including the adoption of clear travel policy, taking in consideration the integration between the different systems and guiding employees in the adoption of the tools.

Despite the several advantages described above, the literature review showed that, in most of the cases, companies do not have the awareness of the economic return they could obtain with the implementation. Evaluations are defined qualitatively and there is no way to know if the benefits provided by the tool have been maximized or not. Moreover, it seems that some companies do not recognize the value of digitalization as positive enabler of economic advantages. These considerations have been also confirmed by the analysis conducted during the work which included interviews and a survey to travel managers and companies. The researches highlighted that the process of digital transformation is ongoing, but that managers do not numerically quantify the benefits obtained, missing the opportunity to understand the actual value of the investment and possible margins for improvements.

This led the following research to the realization of a framework that allows travel manager to perform the evaluation of an investment of a digital solution in business travel management. Firstly, the business travel process within the company has been divided in four main phases, three that represent the life cycle journey, and a fourth that involves the horizontal activities performed by the travel manager. This classification aimed to develop a framework able to evaluate any kind of digital solutions, considering all the activities conducted by business travellers and the travel manager and her assistants. Once defined the process, the way to evaluate the benefits was outlined. The model is based on the definition of a set of indicators that allow to quantify all the possible benefits obtained, providing the numerical formula for the calculation and the relevant information that can link the benefit to an economic return. The framework, in fact, gives the possibility to quantify also indirect benefits, such as traveller satisfaction and the data quality that, as shown in literature, have also an important impact on the payback. It is important to notice that these indicators should not be seen only as merely numerical formulas, but as a guide and a support for travel managers, in order to demonstrate their value and to improve

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the task of selection and implementation of digital tools in the company. Moreover, using the model, it will be also possible have a support during the selection of the tool that best fit with the company’s requirements. Tools of the same categories, in fact, can have different characteristics and it is fundamental evaluate which is the one that can be adapted to the structures of the company thanks to an exhaustive comparison. All these considerations lead to identify the value and the differences that the model proposed have compared to the ones existing in actual literature. In fact, current papers showed a lack in providing quantitative evaluation, focusing more the attention on the best practices a company should adopt and on only on specific examples of economic evidences. Through the use of the model presented in this work, companies will be able to say if the adoption of digital instruments in business travel management process has exceed expectations or not, and, eventually, to make sure that the right corrections are taken.

The research proposed contains certainly some limitations and constraints that need to be considered and eventually analysed for future possible developments. The first main barrier is due to the necessity of timely and available data for the evaluation and calculation of the indicators. As highlighted several times during the work, data consolidation is an issue in the managerial control of business travel, so the calculation of some indicators could result complex. The problem could be overcome through the collaboration of the business travel company’s department with the IT company’s division and external stakeholders, such as the TMC. The function of the IT division is essential in making available data of information systems adopted in the company, while TMCs and external providers should make themselves available to collaborate with travel managers in order to provide relevant data about the activities performed using their services. Finally, if it proves impossible to gather some specific data, in particular the one referring to time activities that are more complicated to track in case of absence of automation, travel managers could use their experience to evaluate the indicator on the base of empirical observations, as reported by Mr. Zollet in the case of the time saving obtained in the reservation phase as consequence of the introduction of a self-booking tool.

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The second main limitation of the study concerns the lack of empirical tests of the framework through the realization of business case studies, in order to further validate the usefulness and completeness of the model. The use of companies’ data would have allowed to refine the method of calculation and to identify eventual practical problems deriving from the structural complexity of the organizations. Therefore, future researches could apply the model to practical real cases in order to test the approach and improving it through a direct collaboration with company’s travel manager, keeping always the attention on the digital offer that is in constant evolution and could involves new and future consideration.

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APPENDIX

Traccia per interviste telefoniche:

1. Qual è il volume di viaggi d’affari medio annuale in termini di #viaggi/anno (e in termini di euro/anno)?

2. Descrivere il processo di Business Travel Management aziendale (attori,

chi fa cosa, descrivere le varie fasi come vengono gestite: prenotazione, in viaggi, rendicontazione, monitoraggio)

3. In che anno avete iniziato il processo di digitalizzazione del Business Travel Management e perché avete sentito il bisogno di tale cambiamento?

4. A chi vi siete rivolti e quali strumenti digitali avete introdotto?

(prenotazione, rendicontazione, monitoraggio…) Checklist: � Self-booking tool � App per effettuare prenotazioni � Strumento per la gestione di attività MICE � Soluzione di pagamento elettronico � App per pagamento di servizi � App per il trasporto (Car2Go, MyTaxi…) � App per la scansione delle ricevute � App per l’assistenza in viaggio � Strumento informatico per la rendicontazione delle spese di viaggio � Strumento per la gestione del rimborso dell’IVA per le trasferte

all’estero � Strumento informatico per monitorare e analizzare le spese di

viaggio � Strumenti informatici per la gestione del rischio e della sicurezza del

viaggiatore (tracking, assistenza 24/24…)

Entriamo ora nel dettaglio degli strumenti digitali in uso. 5. Quali benefici qualitativi avete riscontrato (soddisfazione dei

dipendenti, riduzione dello stress …)?

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6. Quali sono i principali vantaggi quantitativi ottenuti a seguito dell’introduzione di uno strumento di prenotazione come un Self Booking Tool, ad esempio in termini di risparmio nella spesa totale di viaggio (o anticipo prenotazioni, risparmio di tempi di processo)? hanno i dati? Sono disponibili a condividerli con noi

7. Avete riscontrato anche aspetti negativi?

8. Avete strumenti digitali che permettono di aggiornare/modificare la

travel policy?

9. Quali sono i principali benefici quantitativi (in termini economici e di tempistiche) e qualitativi (riduzione dello stress, soddisfazione dei viaggiatori…) che sono stati ottenuti a seguito dell’introduzione di soluzioni digitali per la rendicontazione e il monitoraggio dei viaggi/missioni?

10. Rispetto alle nostre ricerche il tema dell’integrazione tra piattaforme sembra essere molto importante. Le soluzioni digitali di cui abbiamo discusso si integrano bene con altre soluzioni interne all’azienda, come ad esempio il sistema ERP o il sistema per la gestione dell’HR, se ne possedete uno?

11. Avete già in mente progetti futuri rispetto alla digitalizzazione dei

processi?

12. Per concludere, quali sono i temi principali a cui siete interessati attualmente (trend come sharing economy, utilizzo del mobile…)?

Survey of Osservatorio Innovazione Digitale nel Turismo

Q1: Per poterle inviare la Ricerca dell'Osservatorio ed escludere da eventuali solleciti a compilare la Survey, le chiediamo di completare la seguente tabella con i suoi dati.

Q2: A quale settore appartiene la vostra azienda? Q3: In quale Regione si trova la sede in cui operate? Q4: Quanti dipendenti ha l’azienda?

Q5: Considerando il fatturato* espresso in euro per il 2016, a quale fascia appartiene l’azienda? *NOTA IMPORTANTE SULLA PRIVACY: questo dato, così come l’intero questionario, rimarrà completamente anonimo e verrà utilizzato esclusivamente ai fini di ricerca. In ogni caso, la risposta a questa domanda è facoltativa.

Q6: Qual è stata la spesa totale sostenuta nel 2016 per

iii

trasferte/missioni/viaggi aziendali (comprensiva anche di eventuale rimborso carburante)?

Q7: Nella vostra azienda, a quale funzione fa capo la gestione operativa delle missioni/viaggi aziendali? (Possibili più risposte)

Q8: Esiste nella vostra azienda una travel policy?

Q9: All'interno della vostra azienda sono stati introdotti strumenti al fine di tutelare la sicurezza e l'assistenza del dipendente in viaggio per lavoro (geolocalizzazione, alerts, ...)?

Q10: All’interno della vostra azienda, il personale si occupa direttamente di avviare il processo di prenotazione dei propri viaggi/missioni o si rivolge a un ufficio interno dedicato?

Q11: All’interno della vostra azienda, attraverso quali attori/strumenti avviene il processo di prenotazione? (Possibili più risposte)

Q12: Sapete indicare approssimativamente la percentuale di commissione applicata dall’agenzia?

Q13: Sapete indicare approssimativamente la percentuale di prenotazioni effettuate tramite canali online (siti internet consumer, self booking tool aziendali, ecc.)?

Q14: L’introduzione di un self booking tool aziendale ha favorito l’anticipo delle prenotazioni rispetto a prima?

Q15: L’introduzione di un self booking tool aziendale ha portato una diminuzione della spesa complessiva in viaggi/missioni?

Q16: L’introduzione di un self booking tool ha ridotto il tempo dedicato alla gestione delle trasferte da parte delle varie persone coinvolte?

Q17: Quali sono i principali benefici che la vostra azienda ha conseguito in seguito all'introduzione e utilizzo di un self booking tool aziendale? (Massimo 2 risposte)

Q18: Avete ricevuto richieste da parte dei dipendenti per poter utilizzare strumenti online che già utilizzano quando fanno prenotazioni a livello personale (orientati al mondo consumer)?

Q19: Per quanto riguarda le prenotazioni tramite siti internet consumer, nel caso si verifichi un

risparmio rispetto all’utilizzo di strumenti aziendali:

iv

Q20: Per i viaggi aziendali, sono utilizzati anche servizi legati alla sharing economy basati sullo scambio e/o condivisione di beni o servizi (Airbnb, Uber, ...)? (Possibili più risposte)

Q21: Per i pernottamenti, quali dei seguenti servizi legati alla sharing economy sono utilizzati? (Possibili più risposte)

Q22: Per i trasporti, quali dei seguenti servizi legati alla sharing economy sono utilizzati? (Possibili più risposte)

Q23: In merito ai servizi legati alla sharing economy basati sullo scambio e/o condivisione di beni o servizi (Airbnb, Uber, ...), in che misura vi ritenete soddisfatti?

Q24: La travel policy incentiva il ricorso alle soluzioni low cost per la prenotazione dei viaggi aziendali?

Q25: All’interno della vostra azienda, sono presenti canali/strumenti per la gestione del processo di prenotazione/organizzazione di attività di MICE* (Meetings, Incentives, Conferences and Exhibitions)?

Q26: L’azienda incentiva il ricorso alle recensioni per la scelta e la prenotazione dei viaggi aziendali? (Possibili più risposte)

Q27: La vostra azienda nel processo di prenotazione gestisce anche attività di svago o giorni extra-lavorativi aggiunti ad un viaggio/missione di lavoro?

Q28: Generalmente, durante i giorni extra-lavorativi il dipendente viene raggiunto da familiari o amici?

Q29: Generalmente, per i giorni extra-lavorativi vengono utilizzati gli stessi servizi (strutture ricettive, auto a noleggio, ...) utilizzati per il viaggio d'affari?

Q30: Come viene gestito il processo in caso di attività di svago o giorni extra-lavorativi (leisure) aggiunti ad un viaggio/missione di lavoro?

Q31: La vostra azienda ha adottato soluzioni di pagamento elettronico da utilizzare prima e durante i viaggi/missioni? (Possibili più risposte)

Q32: Quali sono le carte di pagamento da voi utilizzate? (Possibili più risposte) Q33: Quali sono i circuiti di pagamento da voi utilizzati? (Possibili più risposte)

Q34: Quali sono i principali benefici che la vostra azienda ha conseguito in seguito all’introduzione dei sistemi di pagamento elettronici? (Massimo 3 risposte)

Q35: I vostri dipendenti utilizzano qualcuna di queste applicazioni durante il

v

viaggio? (Possibili più risposte)

Q36: Nella vostra azienda è presente uno strumento informatico per la rendicontazione delle spese dei viaggi/missioni?

Q37: Nella vostra azienda è presente uno strumento informatico per la gestione del rimborso dell'IVA per le trasferte all'estero?

Q38: Nella vostra azienda è presente uno strumento informatico in grado di monitorare e analizzare le spese dei viaggi/missioni?

Q39: L’utilizzo di uno strumento informatico per monitorare e analizzare le spese dei

viaggi/missioni, ha permesso in particolare di: (Massimo 2 risposte)

Q40: All’interno della vostra azienda, come viene gestito il processo di rimborso dei viaggi/missioni? (Possibili più risposte)

Q41: Quali informazioni/servizi reputate maggiormente interessanti da inserire in una app che possa accompagnare il dipendente nel viaggio/missione di lavoro? (Massimo 3 risposte)

Q42: Quali dei seguenti benefici reputate più importanti da raggiungere, anche grazie al supporto degli strumenti digitali, nella gestione complessiva delle spese di viaggio? (Massimo 2 risposte)

Q43: Quanti viaggi/missioni non duraturi* sono stati effettuati nel 2016 da parte di tutti i dipendenti dell’azienda? *Consideriamo qui e in tutto il questionario i viaggi/missioni non duraturi; sono quindi da escludere i periodi di trasferimento di personale in altre sedi o in altre località per un periodo prolungato, indicativamente oltre 90 giorni consecutivi.

Q44: Qual è la ripartizione di viaggi/missioni effettuati nel 2016 per località di destinazione? NOTA: la somma dei valori indicati deve essere pari a 100%

Q45: Qual è la durata media approssimativa (in giorni) dei viaggi/missioni per località di destinazione?

Q46: Qual è approssimativamente la ripartizione della spesa per i viaggi/missioni sostenuta nel 2016 tra le seguenti voci di costo? NOTA: la somma dei valori indicati deve essere pari a 100%

Q47: La vostra azienda ha stipulato delle convenzioni particolari con alcuni fornitori di servizi (compagnie aeree, hotel/ristorazione, auto noleggio, ...)?

Q48: Per quali prodotti/servizi la vostra azienda ha stipulato delle

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convenzioni? (Possibili più risposte)

Q49: Con quale/i azienda/e avete stipulato convenzioni per il servizio di noleggio auto? (Possibili più risposte)

Q50: Le stesse convenzioni stipulate per i viaggi/missioni sono applicabili per i giorni extra- lavorativi?

Q51: La vostra azienda stipula assicurazioni di viaggio per i suoi dipendenti? Q52: Come viene stipulata l’assicurazione di viaggio? (Possibili piùrisposte)

Q53: Con quale azienda di assicurazioni la vostra azienda stipula assicurazioni viaggi per i suoi dipendenti? (Possibili più risposte)

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http://www.thebeat.travel

http://www.businesstravelnews.com

http://www.lagenziadiviaggi.it/

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https://www.tnooz.com

http://www.travelnostop.com

http://www.missionline.it

https://skift.com

https://www.ttgitalia.com/

https://paper.li/e-1452382604#/