Vanderbilt's Transition to Managed Travel
Vanderbilt University successfully transitioned to a managed travel program, overcoming initial challenges and implementing efficient travel and expense management processes. The program included partnerships with key service providers like Concur and International SOS, leading to improved organizational travel intelligence and program assessment.
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Vanderbilts Transition to Managed Travel It Can Be Done! September 30, 2014 10/2/2024
Full Disclosure of Program Partners Concur- Online Booking & Expense Reporting Corporate Travel Management (CTM)- Managed Travel Partner Comdata- T&E Card Provider International SOS- Global Travel Assistance 10/2/2024
Vanderbilt University Overview Located in Nashville, Private Institution, Not-for-Profit, Second Largest Employer in Tennessee FY14 Operating Budget: $4.0 Billion 330 Acres, 234 Buildings, 18.2 Million sq. ft. Total Enrollment: 12,795 Total Employment: 25,026 9 Schools, 1,019 Licensed Hospital Beds, 1.8 Million Ambulatory Visits, 119,000 Emergency Room Visits 10/2/2024
Our First Attempt At Managed Travel Met With Limited Success Travel was like wild west. Use of preferred travel agency & booking tool was only a suggestion Keys to Failure Lack of executive sponsorship Lack of institutional travel knowledge/vision Lack of institutional appreciation of program benefits Started to gain some travel intelligence Could locate a few travelers Started with a few basic metrics Determine per air mile/hotel night/rental day Resulted in institutional assessment of our travel program- Key Point 10/2/2024
Expense Reporting Process Was Less Than Best-In-Class Utilized latest technology- 100% carbon paper Required manual signatures for travel pre-approval More manual reviews & signatures mean higher quality expense reports! Lots of stupid mistakes Dates, Amounts, Receipts Disbursement Services 100% review, Sendbacks were common and delayed reimbursements All documents scanned on the back-end Paper checks issued all employees 10/2/2024
Implemented Managed Travel Program & Automated Expense Management Used clean slate approach New TMC, new expense tool, new policy Fewer rules, trust people to do the right thing, treat employees as adults Selected Corporate Travel Management as new TMC (Mandated) Implemented Concur Travel & Expense Modules 5 months from contract signing to implementation. (This is not normal and is not advised!) 2 month pilot program Launched institution-wide on July 30, 2013 Scope of project also included launching T&E card with new card provider and Air Ghost Card Program 10/2/2024
What Is The Value of a Managed Travel Program ? Increases visibility into travel spend Increases insight into buying practices and habits Understand your program in comparison to peers and industry benchmarks % of travel booked in program Average cost per airline mile Average room night for key cities Most frequent city pairs for airfare and lodging Duty of Care - Key Point 10/2/2024
Metrics and Data Begin to Tell the Story Vanderbilt travelers are doing a good job of planning their trips to take advantage best airfares. Nearly 63% of domestic and 77% of international* trips are booked 21+ days in advance. *We are researching the international 21+ days pricing anomaly. 10/2/2024
Metrics and Data Begin to Tell the Story How am I performing on a cost/mile basis? Cost Per Mile Comparison Domestic Booking Qtr. Apr Qtr 13 Jul Qtr 13 Oct Qtr 13 Jan Qtr 14 Apr Qtr 14 Jul Qtr 14 TOPAZ $0.23 $0.20 $0.20 $0.20 $0.22 $0.21 $0.26 International Booking Qtr. Apr Qtr 13 Jul Qtr 13 Oct Qtr 13 Jan Qtr 14 Apr Qtr 14 Jul Qtr 14 TOPAZ $0.10 $0.15 $0.15 $0.14 $0.13 $0.18 $0.17 10/2/2024
Metrics and Data Begin to Tell the Story Top Hotel Cities: Number of Room Nights and Avg. Rates 2,500 $350 $315 $275 $300 $293 2,000 $249 $266 $250 $216 $221 $216 $268 $256 $244 1,500 $164 $249 $200 $152 $229 $195 $150 1,000 $169 $161 $147 $146 $100 500 $50 0 $0 Nashville Washington New York City San Chicago San Diego Boston Baltimore Atlanta Abu Dhabi Francisco Number of Nights Your Avg Rate City Avg Rate Overall Avg Rates Vanderbilt University BTN CTM $162 $159 $160 13 13%ofhotel reservations are being booked with CTM 10/2/2024 * BTN CorporateTravel Index combined with CTM averages were used to estimate city averages *
Metrics and Data Begin to Tell the Story Client Department Service Provider City 120520 Nashville TN, US 120610 Nashville TN, US 104218 Nashville TN, US 127100 Nashville TN, US 120660 Nashville TN, US 122410 Nashville TN, US 104209 Nashville TN, US 124103 Nashville TN, US 120450 Nashville TN, US 120650 Nashville TN, US 126210 Abu Dhabi, UAE 153100 Nashville TN, US 126260 Fort Worth TX, US 122422 Washington DC, US 104300 San Francisco CA, US 126480 N W Arkansas Reg AR, US 150410 New York NY, US 104300 Nashville TN, US 104300 Montreal QC, Canada 150410 Chicago IL, US Night Count Avg Rate 130 124 107 97 85 84 79 73 68 54 46 41 40 34 32 30 29 23 18 17 152.22 124.76 153.65 187.73 147.95 179.10 93.32 181.29 149.62 156.22 201.05 184.56 128.25 210.50 283.18 84.00 293.83 191.61 255.50 163.97 Math Dept. Nashville Nightly Avg. $161 Nashville Nightly Avg. $161 School of Music Biology Dept. Nashville Nightly Avg. $161 Library Nashville Nightly Avg. $161 10/2/2024
How Do You Evaluate the Performance of Your TMC ? Independent airfare price comparisons Firms such as TOPAZ can conduct real time price comparisons Do it yourself - See Example Customer satisfaction survey- How satisfied are your travelers with your TMC? Ask Them! Free upgrades, tracking of unused tickets, fee waivers These can equate to hard-dollar savings for your institution Emergency & after-hours services Piece of mind for the traveler and institution 10/2/2024
Airfare Price Compare Travel and Payment Cards August 2014 - Airfare Price Testing Testing Session, August 21, 2014, 11:00am - 12:30pm Domestic Flights International Flights Los Angeles American Sept. 16-19 2485/2433 9:25am/12:05pm 2452/2373 1:55pm/8:20pm Economy Seattle Southwest Sept. 22-26 3410 11:10am 4196 11:15 Wanna Get Away Washington DC US Airways Sept. 9-11 3403 7:45am 4053 3:30pm Economy Beijing, China American Sept. 22 - Oct. 4 186/3520 10:10am/3:45pm 4337/187 8:50am/7:10pm Economy London (LHR) Delta Sept. 28 - Oct. 5 2300/18 10:00am/6:26pm nine/2421 3:05pm/8:25am Economy Rio De Janeiro (GIG) United Oct. 12 - 17 4565/129 12:35pm/9:10pm 128/4331 8:55pm/10:10am Business City Pair Airline Travel Dates Departing Flight(s) Time of Day Return Flight(s) Time of Day Class of Service Expedia $423.70 $424.00 $423.70 $423.70 $416.10 $416.10 A A A $280.70 $281.00 $280.70 $280.70 $280.70 $280.70 $1,228.35 $1,228.30 $1,228.30 $1,228.30 $1,223.30 $1,223.30 $1,209.00 $1,209.00 $1,209.00 $1,209.30 $1,209.30 $1,209.30 $9,740.93 $9,740.93 Kayak Orbitz Major Airline Concur CTM travel agent B C $416.70 $416.70 $416.70 $9,706.43 $9,706.43 Legend: A - Southwest flights do not reflect in Expedia, Kayak or Orbitz. B - Orbitz cannot price this as one single ticket. To get the best rate, a traveler would need to price this separately. C - Unable to book this flight on www.united.com or by calling United reservations agent. Green = In-program pricing met or beat external competition. Red = In-program pricing more expensive than external competition. Grey = could not obtain apples-to-apples comparison. 10/2/2024
File:Vanderbilt University wordmark.svg Corporate Travel Management (CTM) Survey Results Agent Assisted Calls from 6/1/14 6/30/14 Total surveyed: 132* # of responses: 42 Satisfied or Very Satisfied Not Satisfied Survey Comments When you contacted CTM, Vanderbilt University's travel agency partner, how satisfied were you that your calls / emails were answered promptly? 95% 5% How satisfied were you with the friendliness and professionalism of the CTM travel agents? 100% 0% 100% 0% How satisfied were you with the accuracy of your travel reservation? How satisfied were you that CTM offered you the lowest price available for airfare? How satisfied were you that CTM offered you the lowest price available for hotels? How satisfied were you that CTM offered you the lowest price available for ground transportation? How satisfied were you with CTM after hours/emergency service (6:30pm - 8:00am CST) ? 95% 5% 100% 0% 100% 0% 100% 0% 100% 0% How would you rate your overall experience with a CTM travel agent? 14 * Sent via Survey Monkey only to individuals contacting CTM directly (travelers, travel assistants, and guest travel coordinators).
What Is The Value of a Managed Travel Program ? Duty of Care in action The following is the actual email sent by the Vanderbilt Travel Office at the start of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict in July The following article was written and published in the weekly Vanderbilt newsletter in response above situation http://news.vanderbilt.edu/2014/07/vanderbilt-travel-international-help/ 10/2/2024
Automated Expense Reporting Increases Visibility Into Reimbursements Addresses key questions such as Where is my expense report? and When will I get paid? Integration with T&E card improves efficiency, accuracy and controls Mandated direct deposit of reimbursements from Concur Eliminates many of the sendbacks from paper world Staff can focus on higher-value work Audit rules and workflow become critically important 10/2/2024
Only 27% of Reports Stop In Back Office Approximately 4,000 employee reimbursements/month Audit rules and dynamic messaging at the time of report creation work to create higher-quality expense reports Our workflow approval is based on organizational home departments, not cost centers- Key Point 1 Expense Report Approver (ERA) is established for each home department- Key Point Systematically, an expense report only requires the approval of 1 ERA Approximately 73% of expense reports receive no additional approvals beyond ERA approval 10/2/2024
Automated Expense Reporting Increases Visibility Into Processing Workflow Cycle Times - Processor 1/1/14-8/28/14 Compiled: 8/29/14 Processor Adams, Jamie L Battles, Denise M Gregory, Tiffany N Smith, Angela L Stillions, Katelynn C System, Concur Report Count Approved Amount $2,030,373.37 $105,056.88 $630,523.44 $4,414,385.24 $3,383,254.15 $11,891,122.99 $22,454,716.07 Entries Exceptions Average Days 2,371 15,365 967 3,628 30,068 24,553 135,244 209,825 11,419 813 2,198 17,084 17,781 27,203 76,498 1.06 0.98 2.77 1.77 0.91 0.00 1.25 96 414 2,674 2,572 21,995 30,122 73.02% 26.98% Totals % Auto Final Approved % Back-Office Final Approved 10/2/2024
What Mistakes Did We Make & What s Not Working for Vanderbilt Did not seek outside assistance for implementation-Key Point We didn t know what we were doing Went too fast! Pilot programs were too short! Air Ghost Card did not work for us Inconsistency in data feeds made expense reporting a challenge Even after 1 year, travelers didn t realize they needed to expense airfare After 1 year, $3.3m in unexpensed airfare in clearing account Did not implement electronic travel authorization module Travel authorization went underground Based expensed workflow on organizational structure- Key Point 10/2/2024
A Few Points to Consider When Implementing Managed Travel Program Conduct your own travel assessment Provides data for which you can measure progress Helps you to understand your travelers Identify and educate your executive support or sponsors Help them to understand the value of the program Have in-house travel expertise Helps to have someone that speaks the language Select travel partner with experience in higher education 10/2/2024
A Few Points to Consider When Implementing Managed Travel Program What do you expect to gain from your program and be realistic? Travel Savings You will have a deeper understanding of your travel spend, but you re not going save 25% Duty of Care Knowing where you travelers are and if they are safe should be your primary goal Data Analytics What do you want to measure and report Be prepared for the following and have a strategy to address I can find it cheaper at 2:00 in the morning You don t understand who I am and why this doesn t apply to me 10/2/2024
A Few Thoughts for Implementing Automated Expense Reporting Get implementation advice Key Point Don t try to go it alone! Find someone knowledgeable with implementing travel & expense management systems Define workflow and roles well in advance - Key Point This is the framework for everything Difficult to change afterward Resist temptation to electrify the cow path Carefully evaluate and select your software There are many to chose from Vary widely in complexity, cost and functionality 10/2/2024
Payment Cards & Payment Card Strategy 10/2/2024
Simplify The Process & Eliminate Paper Checks Currently utilize two physical pieces of plastic T&E Card with Comdata, reconciled in Concur Pcard with US Bank, reconciled in their online application Considering moving towards One Card model Reduce MCC confusion and unexpected declines Augment with heavy back-office automated analytical review Payment cards replacing thousands of paper checks FY14 goal to eliminate 60,000 checks from 240,000 to 180,000 Strategy includes cards for student-athletes, patient refunds and subject participants Many are low-dollar, one-time payments 10/2/2024
Thank you! Tony.Grayson@Vanderbilt.edu 10/2/2024
