In-house management of non-routine activities and tasks makes it challenging for you to focus on core business activities. Also, your company or startup can increase operational efficiency and reduce operating costs by outsourcing certain time-consuming business activities.
In addition to being different from common business activities, business travel management is a time-intensive and cost-intensive process. You can increase the ROI of business travel in several ways by outsourcing the complex process to a reputable travel management company.
The business traveler services provided by the company will help your employees engage in business travel confidently and safely. At the same time, the tech solutions provided by the company will streamline the travel management process without escalating human resource costs.
If your organization is still managing the complex process internally, you should consider some of the major benefits of outsourcing business travel management.
Table of Contents
9 Major Benefits of Outsourcing Business Travel Management
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Provide Pre-Trip Assistance
While engaging in international business travel, employees have to procure and update important travel documents like passports, visas, work permits, national IDs, and international driving licenses.
Likewise, they need up-to-date destination information to create business travel itineraries and make business travel arrangements. The travel consultants deployed by the company will provide pre-trip assistance to employees.
They will assist employees in updating travel documents, creating travel itineraries, and learning travel etiquette. Hence, your employees can travel for business purposes without neglecting their professional responsibilities.
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Ensure Policy Compilation
Your company cannot streamline business travel management without implementing, communicating, and enforcing policies. The travel management company will help you formulate comprehensive travel and expense (T&E) policies by sharing templates and industry best practices.
In addition, he will communicate the policies to employees by providing training and clearing doubts. Also, the company will ensure police compliance by making employees book the appropriate travel products.
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Centralize Business Travel Bookings
Your business can control costs and prevent policy violations by centralizing the business travel booking. The travel management company helps you centralize the crucial activities by booking business trips for employees.
The company will boost employees’ experiences by choosing and booking travel products based on their choices and preferences. However, he will ensure that the travel products are chosen according to organizational policies.
Furthermore, the company will control costs by booking business trips early, prioritizing fully refundable tickets, and choosing hotels offering complimentary services.
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Mitigate Business Travel Risks
Employees these days travel to new business travel destinations to explore market opportunities. Travel challenges and risks vary across destinations. Your business must mitigate business travel risks by providing relevant information and required assistance to each work traveler.
Leading travel management companies provide round-the-clock travel support across multiple communication channels. Hence, work travelers can get information and assistance by connecting with a support executive by making phone calls, sending emails, or using instant messaging apps.
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Meet Duty of Care Obligation
Your organization cannot streamline business travel management without meeting duty of care obligations. The important moral and legal responsibility requires your business to ensure the safety and security of each employee engaging in business travel.
Leading travel management companies help your company meet its duty of care obligations by providing emergency assistance to work travelers across destinations. They further strengthen the safety and security of employees using global health and security risk management firms.
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Streamline Travel Expense Management
Expense management is one of the most important steps in the business travel management process. Your finance team must speed up travel expense reimbursements to ensure that work travelers do not experience stress and feel unmotivated after business trips.
At the same time, they have to focus extensively on ensuring policy compliance and preventing expenses fraud. The travel management company will submit consolidated expense reports.
Hence, your team need not review and process travel expense claims individually. Also, they provide expense management tools that help your team automate travel expense tracking, processing, reimbursement, and auditing.
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Automate Business Travel Activities
Your company can streamline business travel management by automating important steps in the process. Travel management companies facilitate business travel management automation by providing useful tech tools.
For instance, they provide corporate booking tools that enable employees to book their choice of travel products without violating organizational T&E policies. Likewise, the company enhances business travelers’ safety using tools that track their real-time locations.
Also, leading travel management companies provide integrated travel and expense management software. Your company can use the software to automate business travel tasks like travel booking, expense management, and travel data management.
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Make Data-Driven Decisions
Travel data management has become a crucial aspect of modern business travel management. The travel management company will safeguard employees’ personal and financial data using advanced encryption technology and following security best practices.
In addition, it will help you make sense of the T&E data by generating custom reports using various metrics and parameters. Many companies these days share actionable insights with customers by analyzing the T&E data using advanced data analytics tools.
The real-time data insights will help you increase the ROI of business travel by making informed decisions. You can further leverage the insights to find opportunities to enhance policy compliance, boost employee experience, and control business trip costs.
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Control Business Travel Costs
When you outsource business travel management, your company has to pay for business traveler services and travel management tools. However, the provider will help you increase the ROI of business travel in multiple ways.
Firstly, it will save money by booking flights, hotels, and other travel products at negotiated and discounted rates. Secondly, it will control costs by choosing fully refundable booking options, booking business trips early, and preventing policy violations.
Thirdly, the company will create cost-saving opportunities for your business by streamlining travel expense management and sharing data-driven insights. Hence, your company can leverage many financial benefits using a travel management company.
Conclusion
In addition to focusing on core business activities, business travel management outsourcing helps your company streamline a complex process while controlling costs. But you must focus on outsourcing the crucial process to the right travel management company.
It is always important to use a company that boosts business travel experience and safety by providing essential business traveler services. At the same time, you should prioritize companies that automate the process by providing integrated travel and expense management software.
