Business Focus: UK Market Leader in technology with over 50m in annual revenue.

Based out of Cambridge, serving UK wide.

Number of employees: 10,000+.

Annual travel spend: £6 million

Despite not having a dedicated Travel Manager, ITC’s head of procurement was tasked with reducing travel spend by 20% in 18months. 

In the first six months, ITC negotiated deals with suppliers, updated their travel policy yet the number of bookings via their TMC was less than 30% of the value shown in their expenses. And of those bookings through the TMC, 40% were non compliant.

“The biggest challenge was changing the attitude of people,” said ITC’s Procurement Manager. “I had senior management support in terms of policy enforcement but that didn’t always work. We needed a travel programme that allowed the employee to take ownership of doing the right thing.”

At the end of an internal review, the company had resolved to identify which traveller behaviours needed to change the most. They wanted employees to:

• Book through the travel management company
• Proactively engage in continuous improvement of behaviours
• Comply fully to the travel policy
• Adopt spend company like it’s your own mindset

When ITC’s Procurement Manager was made aware of Gray Dawes Consulting department, he set up a meeting. Gray Dawes Consulting offered a travel optimisation service which designs and delivers bespoke strategies to meet organisation’s objectives within the timeframe set.

Gray Dawes first task was assessment. Their experts worked with ITC’s procurement manager to collate, clean and assess data; speak to key stakeholders (top travellers, bookers and senior management in procurement, finance and of course travel) to identify realistic saving opportunities in a menu of nearly 28 potential key performance indicators. 

After agreeing on which offered the straightest line to meet ITC’s 20% savings target, next they mapped out baselines and reporting to allow for accurate and on going tracking. Realising that previous attempts of change had failed to achieve compliance, Gray Dawes Consulting developed an integrated communications plan designed to engage travellers and influence their purchasing behaviours using all available channels. The plan had three main components:

• Identity – Gray Dawes Consulting created a travel programme steering committee consisting of key bookers and travellers that would create a sense of identity and allow for proactive evolution of the programme. All the reports produced to track progress were shared in this open forum and created a sense of competition within departments.
• Wider communication – Gray Dawes Consulting opted for measures which required interaction. Employees were given logins to the online platform and were involved in competitions based on finding the lowest fares. Changes in the policy were also communicated throughout hotspots in office (using used clear, succinct wording and colourful graphics) and all employees were quizzed online.
• Technology – lastly, Aman tailored Gray Dawes booking platforms (on and offline) which allowed for seamless integration to the policy and push notifications were regularly delivered to travellers and bookers.

Average purchase price on travel spend was reduced by 27%, as spend through the TMC finally aligned with expense reports and compliance to the travel policy achieved a healthy 96%.

“We knew what we needed to do but this time we developed a plan to get there which engaged stakeholders across the business. We achieved it together. It won’t stop there as the travel committee is already working on improvements for 2020 and beyond with the help of further KPIs set by Gray Dawes Consulting”.