Is your travel policy too lax? Too restrictive? Too nonexistent?  As channels evolve and traveler options grow, it’s difficult to pin down the right set of rules for your organization. Even seasoned travel managers struggle to balance traveler safety, comfort, and productivity against everyone’s top priority: cost reduction.

What exactly is demand management?  In the context of managed travel, it can represent many different efforts—each with its own potential for savings. Overall, it’s about studying your travel patterns, vendors, costs, and pain points. With that information in hand, you can begin to implement the following steps:

Hotel and airfare costs get all the attention, but if your company is anything less than vigilant about T&E reporting analytics, you may be overlooking a large category of unnamed expenses. Worse, you may be encouraging rogue behavior—or even expense account fraud. Here's how to find your missing nickels and dimes (which add up pretty quickly), and keep your travelers in check:

Your employees are smart. They’re proactive and self-sufficient. Many of them are competitive. And in fact, these are the reasons you hired them. These are also they reasons why so many companies are now being pressured into “travel 2.0” business travel policies. If you’re on the fence, with your travelers claiming they know better, here are some facts worth sharing:

Recently, independent resources sited that airline negotiations and obtaining significant discounts has become increasingly complicated over the past few years.  To reflect these changes in the industry, Travel Managers are raising low cost carrier usage and requiring premium economy instead of first and business class on international travel.

An increasing trend among some companies has been the adoption of gamification.  The industry definition of “gamification” is the process of using game thinking and mechanics to solve problems and engage audiences.  Some corporations view gamification as a creative way to drive travel policy compliance, supplier compliance, and cost savings while simultaneously educating travelers.

The forecast continues to predict that everything is going up in 2013; airfare, taxes, hotel rates, and ancillary fees. I think you get the picture. Consequently, strategic negotiating is more important than ever. Let's focus on an area that holds a bit of mystique, but can reap substantial savings; the corporate car rental agreement.

The last I heard, a reported 80% of companies are negotiating nationwide agreements with car rental vendors. Whether you're seeking a flat rate for car rentals or a combination of flat rates and floating discounts, there are a few things you should keep in mind; one size doesn't fit all and there are no real set of rules.

However, the number one area that corporations gain negotiating power with vendors is through accurate cost benchmarking information. Travizon provides a proliferation of data to arm our client partners with the intelligence to achieve an agreement with savings results ranging from 13-30% annually vs. standard car rental rates. Don't be afraid to ask for concessions such as unlimited mileage, insurance, premium club memberships, and upgrades. It's also ok to ask for multiyear contracts to lock-in rates for two or three years. Keep in mind that off airport locations are frequently less expensive and should be considered when applicable.  And yes, back-end rebates are still out there.

Here are five tips to avoid excessive fees:

• Insist on blackout periods being defined within your agreement
• Reject any fees for Energy Recoupment and Hotel Concession
• Request CDW and liability coverage at all locations and on all rates
• Require suppliers to block optional sales on products included in your agreement; e.g. insurance, optional equipment, and authorized driver
• Stipulate that refuel is capped at 50% above local prices

In summary, request agreements from your top two vendors, seek guidance from your travel management company when comparing agreements, read the fine print, and don't hesitate to red line the contract. The bottom line is car rental suppliers make concessions to win the business.

We understand that you don't do this every day, but we do. Contact accountmanagement@travizon.com and we'll get the wheels rolling! For more information, click the link below to download our White Paper on Best Practices for Negotiating Corporate Car Rental Agreements.

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Today’s business savvy professionals are researching products, services and solutions that will set them apart from the competition, creating more efficient workflow and tracking the return on investment. 

With all that is happening in the world today, is your company prepared to handle high-risk situations or emergency medical needs for your travelers?  Have you created a duty of care program? Part of creating a best-in-class travel program is to have a risk management supplier work hand-in-hand with your key internal stakeholders and your travel management company.