Business Travel Management 2012: What I will do differently in 2013 ...

What I will do differently in 2013

For the past eight years, I have spent on average over 150 nights per year travelling for business. 2012 was no different but at the end of the year I like to reflect upon what could be done better, different or how to better manage the travel process that is a vital competitive advantage over others. You can see from the below graphic that I track all my trips, days, durations and overall journeys. I am constantly surprised at how few business executives do this or how little evidence based decision making is done using such metrics to improve the process. Many still see it as bragging rights, frequent flyers time lost with family or just another number. I continue to learn from each trip and experience.

Thank you to TripIt for tracking my travel for the past few years

Key improvements for 2013 and my travel management are speed, weight, communications, budgets and utility. All of these considerations remain consistent with our travel risk management?strategies and principles.

Speed

The time from decision to travel for me is greatly reduced. With the explosion of travel curation sites, applications and services, I can make quick (almost last minute) decisions to travel without the need to forecast months or weeks in advance. There is distinct advantages to forecasting but the speed in which I can respond to and opportunity or demand, is only decreasing with each passing year.

Weight

My travel burden and overall weight is also shrinking. I can get more done with less items, gadgets and systems now than I ever could. Six months of the year has been spent out of the office for nearly a decade now, and I can run all our businesses and services from a single, lighter briefcase. If hotels where actually more innovative, I could leave even more behind and just borrow the occasional hotel computer if required.

Communications

My ability to communicate to multiple parties, across multiple channels will increase even more. With staff, vendors, clients, investors, and business partners the number of communications has increased but effective systems and resources have reduced the overall demands on my time. Social media and emerging technologies will continue to play a big part in our approach but 2013 will be a new level in volume, frequency and quality without increased burden. This also goes for in-bound information. Ten times the volume without the burden.

Budgets

Sure, I could shave a few cents or a handful of dollars off here and there but thanks to the continued price wars between airlines and accommodation providers, our costs have actually gone down in many sectors. The ?cost of travel? for us has always been secondary to the ?opportunity cost? of business travel. Dollar-for-dollar we will see this metric increase again this year. This means that each journey is far more valuable than the expense of the trip, which is often the only thing the accounts team focus on and seem to want to reduce the number to zero each year. Zero travel dollars for us means zero revenue dollars.

?Utility

The true value of any asset is the utility derived from its use. Our utility, that is the net result of travel undertaken, will increase again this year. Attendance, relationships, new discoveries, competitive insights, multi tasking and content creation are all spinoffs of our travel. Each year this has grown but we see it growing yet again. Every journey produces mountains of content and benefits for clients, which in turn make a lot of money from our advice and solutions. Why would we stop?

Thanks

I can?t conclude the 2012 business travel management review without a big thank you to those that make it happen and improve the process for us each time. In no particular order, they are:

• Hotels that actually provide ?business? orientated products and services
• Airlines that reduce the time standing in line and leave/arrive on time
• Cloud based systems
• All things Apple computing!
• Competitors that are slow to adapt and improve, resulting in unjustifiable cost and delay to their clients. Keep up the good work!
• Mobile optimised websites and applications
• WiFi
• Clients and prospects who appreciate superior results as soon as possible, not day rates. Day rates are for plumbers!
• Local telcos the provide cost effective internet access and callback functions
• Those that we have met along the way and learnt all sorts of valuable lessons from. Even if you didn?t realise you had an important lesson for us!
• Humble, hungry and capable business partners, colleagues and associates.

?

Source: http://tony-ridley.com/risk-management/business-travel-managemen-2012-what-i-will-do-differently-in-2013

baltimore county current tv megamillions ncaa basketball tournament 2012 megamillions winning numbers lotto winner michael oher