With individuals returning to the skies for work journey, it’s time for companies to make sure they’re ready for company journey, 2022 type.
As restrictions throughout the globe calm down, travelling for work is again on the rise. The numbers don’t lie: knowledge from the Australian Competitors and Client Fee (ACCC) reveals that passenger numbers in December 2021 had reached 47 per cent of pre-COVID-19 ranges, a major improve from October 2021 (17 per cent), with numbers persevering with the upward trajectory to 50 per cent in January 2022.
Whereas the return to journey is welcome, there are a selection of modifications enterprise leaders in control of journey and expense administration ought to know earlier than taking off once more, in response to Fabian Calle, managing director for small and medium companies (Australia and New Zealand), SAP® Concur®.
SAP Concur, which manages enterprise, journey and bill automation, just lately surveyed company travellers who work at corporations with fewer than 1000 workers and found the next developments:
1. Demand, demand, demand
SAP Concur’s analysis reveals 95 per cent of travellers are prepared to journey for enterprise over the subsequent 12 months, with 63 per cent saying they’re very prepared. Of those, 66 per cent say they’re those actively eager to journey versus their firm insisting they achieve this.
With restricted flight numbers and elevated public well being protocols impacting travellers eager to make a easy journey, the airport expertise itself says all of it.
“On a current return journey I took from Melbourne to Sydney, the road for safety verify— at each airports — was the longest I’ve ever witnessed,” Calle tells Startup Each day.
Whereas we look ahead to a return to full flying schedules, Calle says corporations can present their workers with instruments to make this era of heightened demand a bit of smoother.
“A journey device corresponding to TripIt, which is free for private travellers, is a method to do that,” he suggests. “Firms can then use the identical instruments for his or her workers, who anticipate related experiences technology-wise, each personally and professionally.”
The inflow of demand will even require environment friendly administration to make sure the enterprise’s backside line shouldn’t be stunned by the inevitable spike in journey prices.
“SAP Concur captures journey and reserving knowledge irrespective of the place it’s booked. This not solely offers flexibility for workers reserving or altering journey, it additionally lets the corporate leverage subtle reporting instruments round journey and different bills, and use the captured knowledge to supply insights that may drive higher enterprise choices,” Calle explains.
International large Serco is one instance of a enterprise that used SAP Concur to handle its journey spend and improve compliance with reserving insurance policies. Doing so saved the corporate $2.2 million (AUD) in effectivity financial savings within the first 12 months.
2. Flexibility is how we roll… or fly
Travellers’ demand for flexibility outweighed vaccination-related calls for at 70 per cent versus 55 per cent in SAP Concur’s analysis. Calle says over two-thirds of respondents need their firm to loosen restrictions to accommodate higher, flexibility-oriented insurance policies, if not a return to pre-COVID-19 journey insurance policies.
In an more and more cellular world, utilizing software program that lets workers make modifications on their gadgets from wherever, which might nonetheless be captured and retained for planning functions no matter location, is important.
“Journey is a really private factor and all of us have our particular person preferences, from aisle seat or window to exit row or again of the aircraft. Letting individuals select their most well-liked method of flying and controlling policy-based choices via know-how goes an extended solution to not solely create loyalty amongst workers by exhibiting belief and responsibility of care, but in addition give companies visibility into spend,” Calle advises.
Know-how corresponding to SAP Concur’s, lets workers simply entry and use subtle instruments and sources to do the whole lot they may want, from altering reservations on the go and sharing consolidated itineraries, to discovering up-to-date details about delays and journey disruptions.
Since this could all be accomplished in your cellular, it helps with different enterprise bills too – travellers can submit expense reviews on the go, and automatic approvals assist managers reply faster to overview requests the place they’re.
3. Well being and security should be top notch
Analysis reveals enterprise travellers see well being and security as paramount. Picture: AdobeStock
Over half (53 per cent) of travellers surveyed mentioned they’d make modifications if their firm doesn’t present measures to guard their well being and security.
This could vary from holding workers updated with ideas and insights round what to anticipate on the airport, via to info round COVID-19 protocols within the cities and nations groups are visiting.
“Every enterprise is popping out of the COVID-19 period with very totally different choices on what workers ought to or shouldn’t do. We’ve got some prospects who require workers to be absolutely vaccinated to enter their very own workplaces, whereas others present extra flexibility round proof of damaging assessments,” Calle says.
“Our journey instruments present up-to-date info on sure situations that should be met at their vacation spot. In some instances, via responsibility of care purposes, journey scores are additionally supplied.”
Making this additional effort goes an extended solution to holding workers wanting to journey for your small business – particularly on this present local weather of expertise scarcity points.
4. Save time – and the planet
The pandemic has highlighted the impression that journey has on the surroundings, and this has contributed to elevated societal demand to take steps to cut back our international impression. Unsurprisingly, 60 per cent of the surveyed travellers anticipate to make modifications that enhance journey sustainability.
So, when reserving and managing journey for work, companies can enhance their footprint by trying into the carbon value of assorted journey decisions, and even expense carbon offsets. These efforts can then be simply translated into marketable metrics to speak an organization’s inexperienced achievements.
On a day-to-day stage, going paperless is a superb begin. For instance, SAP Concur lets customers lodge digital receipts immediately into expense reviews, saving travellers time and eliminating errors from guide processes.
“COVID taught – or compelled – us to work remotely and highlighted to many companies that that they had not stored updated with the accessible know-how which might really join their workers and enterprise processes,” Calle concludes.
Get on high of your small business journey and bills now at concur.com.au.
This text is dropped at you by Startup Each day and sponsored by SAP Concur.
Characteristic picture: AdobeStock
