What are the steps to be taken in a travel account globalization process?

CLARA SÁNCHEZ PICOUT, Travel Manager of GRUPO EULEN

We will start from the premise that a globalization process consists in general terms of extrapolating the experience of a specific country to the rest of the countries of the organization.Globalization should not be done only from the point of view of a "single supplier" but from the point of view of "single criteria". We must be aware that what is good in one country does not necessarily have to be good in the rest.

Thus being so, the unification of criteria in business travel must start from 3 very important premises:

1-      Having a reference of success: Our message should be: “We have done well and we want to share the experience”. A conciliatory message of this type proves in the long run to be more effective than the imposition of criteria or taxation.

2-      A high degree of knowledge of each country's culture and business vision.

3-     Full support from the General Management of the Company.

With these premises we will be able to elaborate the  Global Travel Program, that we will be able to develop in 5 phases:

1-     Communication: It is important to communicate what we are going to do, what objectives we want to achieve and what results we can achieve. Be careful, let's not forget that we have already achieved success, so they are the ones who have to see success at the end of the process.

2-       Field study: Perform a SWOT analysis of each of the countries we want to unify in order to identify support points and imbalances. This field work will help us to know where we are: Number of operations, volume of expenditure, average prices, procedures, travel policy, suppliers…and to know identify needs

3-        Concentrate information: Concentrating volume and operations will help us to obtain greater benefits with suppliers

4-          Develop the documents to be included within the Travel Program: Procedures, Travel Policy, approved suppliers, etc.

5-       Establish an analysis and follow-up calendar

The real economic and strategic success of this Globalization process will be seen in the long term, when all members of the organization have achieved their objective: To speak the same language.