Automated travel process
by Hakan Rosin, HRG Business Manager
In 2009, HRG was appointed in a competitive tender process by a public sector department based in Sweden. The organisation has more than 1800 employees in 20 locations around Sweden and an overall expenditure of 80 million Swedish kroner.
The proposal was not only for regular travel agency services, it was also a request for administrative support where the Travel Management Company was to take a larger responsibility for the complete travel process.
The objective was to implement an end-to-end travel solution including functionality for travel order, pre-approval, reservation, profile administration, invoicing and travel expense reporting with the intention to reduce costs and time for administration.
HRG committed to implement a complete and new travel solution, minimising the number of staff and time spent on travel administration within the client. This of course included an element of resistance to change and one challenge was to handle the change sensitively to avoid any spread of negativity among staff.
The proposed solution was established together with a third party with HRG as the contracting partner and main point of contact. The work was highly dependent on the management of the project and on the liaison and cooperation between all three parties.
An implementation plan was established, managed and coordinated by a dedicated HRG Integration Manager. A time plan was agreed upon and dedicated resources within all three parties was appointed with access to key functions necessary for fast decision-making and a smooth roll-out of the new service platform.
The new end-to-end solution cut the costs for travel administration and replaced the work of 11 employees from day one within the client which equals a yearly saving of six million Swedish kroner (more than half a million GBP).
The implementation was achieved on time and up and running in its full framework after three months. With HRG as the contracting partner the client did not have to liaise with two parties which made the communication much more efficient.
Consecutively the additional modules and improvements were rolled out reducing further costs for administration and contributed to the overall success.
HRG is continuously working closely with this client to identify further opportunities with a performance based contract with built in incentives/penalties for over and underachievement. The client is extremely satisfied with the solutions and processes and is looking forward to working with HRG for the foreseeable future.