Three Ways Invisible Spend Hurts Your Business – and How to Avoid It
Travel management is changing. Dramatic shifts in business needs, employee expectations, and the technological landscape have only accelerated the changes in the last few years.
Travel managers can find it challenging to keep up with apps and devices that offer hundreds of new ways to book travel and spend company money. These new methods contribute to what is often called invisible spend, or “corporate travel data not captured by traditional means such as TMC reporting.”
In a recent report, the research firm Phocuswright, which studies how business travellers, suppliers and intermediaries connect, put some concrete data behind what has been happening in the travel industry.
For example, a few of the hurdles that invisible spend creates include:
1. It can result in compliance issues: Travel managers oversee a subtle balancing act of meeting business needs while keeping business traveller satisfaction high. Employees will be less likely to stray from company travel tools if they can book with the suppliers they know and love. Keeping bookings within your company tools reduces the risks of non-compliance and over spending.
2. It can hurt your supplier negotiations: Having employees that are compliant with policy is paramount to strong supplier negotiations. When business travellers ensure that all of their travel data is captured, companies can use this data during negotiations. Securing the best possible corporate rates is crucial to keeping company costs controlled, and invisible spend can pose a big obstacle here.
3. It can pose risks to business traveller safety: More important than cost savings or policy compliance is the physical safety of employees – but invisible spend may also put that in jeopardy. The ability to capture invisible travel spending doesn’t only give travel managers and finance teams all the information they need, but it also allows them to locate employees more easily if necessary.
To learn more about how your business can avoid these pitfalls, read the full Phocuswright study.