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With the world transitioning to a post-pandemic era, businesses are kicking much-delayed travel and expansion plans into action. Our latest webinar brought together a panel of experts from Traveloka, TruTrip, and Aspire to discuss the resurgence of business travel this summer, and share advice for SMEs and startups looking to navigate their corporate travel management policies in this new era of the pandemic.
In case you missed it, here’s a roundup of three key takeaways from the roundtable discussion.
Scroll to the bottom to find a recording of the webinar.
If you’re planning corporate travel this summer, plan for the unexpected.
Despite restrictions easing, corporate travel still faces many barriers in the region. According to TruTrip’s Head of Commercial and Operations Sus Banerjee, the most important thing is to be flexible when preparing your business’ travel arrangements in order to smoothly ride out any uncertainties.
According to Traveloka’s CEO of Transport Iko Putera, disciplined planning in advance can help to counteract the constantly changing dynamics of the current climate. By providing a clear snapshot of each country or region’s fluctuating COVID-19 requirements, platforms like Traveloka and TruTrip help managers design more comprehensive travel policies.
In today’s macroeconomic inflationary environment, budget managers must redefine the value of business travel.
A crucial task for managers includes measuring the value of travel, demonstrating the quality of its outcome, and proving to internal stakeholders that it’s worthwhile. With travel being one of the most highly ranked expenditures, it can be hard to justify in a post-Covid world where hybrid working has proven to be effective. However, Sus urges founders not to underestimate the value of in-person relationship building, which can quickly help your company differentiate itself from competitors who have not yet re-embraced travel.
For those who are looking to travel while mindful of budget constraints, Iko recommends eliminating ad-hoc travel and focusing more on longer, more meaningful trips with bookings made far in advance. Consider alternative travel methods (like trains) to cut costs and plan your travel insurance plans far in advance.
Gain real-time visibility and control over travel spend through digital solutions
When it comes to controlling unwanted spend, companies equipped with the right tech tools have the biggest competitive advantage. Aspire’s Regional Head of Sales Yan Kessler shares that having a digital solution like Aspire that gives you a birds-eye view of your team’s spending alleviates many pain-points finance managers typically face in allocating budgets, chasing receipts, curtailing out-of-policy spend and more.
For example, it typically takes 61 days for an employee to get their travel claims reimbursed when their teams are not using expense management software. Removing the headache of claims, receipt retrieval, OTPs and complicated approval flows can help teams streamline and optimize their business travel processes.
More Resources:
The Complete Guide to Business Travel Policy
Best Practices to Manage and Control Business Travel Expenses
5 Ways Businesses Can Benefit from the Ease of COVID-19 Measures in Southeast Asia
The state of business travel: Expansion in the new norm (Downloadable)
Frequently Asked Questions
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