To her industry peers, A.T. Kearney global procurement
corporate travel director Margaret Hansen is the "data queen," often
a step ahead of others in data capture and diligence. To Hansen, data provides
the insight needed to do her job: serve as the consultant to the consultants
and support business units in achieving their objectives around the globe.
"One of the things I've found through my career and
specifically working at the consulting firm is the ability to use data in a
meaningful way to help influence behavior and decision-making," Hansen
said. "Within our firm we have policies, of course. But we don't get
compliance through strong-arming people or heavy mandates; it's really through
good information. My boss and I like to say, 'Facts are our friends,' and
factual information that's analytical gives [business unit managers] enough
information to determine what they want to do with their business."
A.T. Kearney runs a consolidated global travel program
covering 55 offices in 38 countries that relies on one travel management
company, one corporate card provider, one expense reporting system and internal
data aggregation to service travelers and management. The firm's hierarchy
flows through all vendor systems and reporting, "so it's very easy to have
data sources from which to extract and pull information," Hansen said.
A partnership organization with 16 business units,
well-traveled consultants and strong opinions forces global travel to "really
be on your game, ready to provide concrete information and facts. We've been
able to do this in so many different ways, from the sustainability perspective
to decision-making processes" to supplier selection, Hansen said.
By coordinating many such efforts, Hansen earned recognition
as a 2011 Business Travel News Best
Practitioner.
Opportunity Decks
Hansen and her team provide A.T. Kearney business units with
seven standard card and agency reports, a presentation that analyzes their
patterns and behaviors and shows how the team helps them manage costs, and an "opportunity
deck" that highlights what each business unit could achieve with behavior
changes. The reports show "where there are opportunities to save money"
by reducing or controlling costs or enhancing services, she said.
Because each business unit and region often have their own
priorities and pressures to grow the business, Hansen said it's not up to her
team to dictate how consultants should travel. "We educate the consultants
with different statistical information, trends and analytics about what's happening
within their units," she said. "Obviously we're a global company, but
the units have different drivers.
"We talk it through," Hansen said of travel
opportunity consultations with management in the three regions and the business
units within each. "They decide if they want to execute or prioritize what
they want to launch." For example, business units overloaded with
revenue-generating projects might opt not to burden consultants with travel
changes; those focused on cost controls might want to emphasize more advance
purchasing practices.
At the firm level, data also helped to quickly justify to
decision-makers a recommended switch to Carlson Wagonlit Travel. A.T. Kearney
in 2009 began a 12-month rebid of its travel management company contract,
required every five years by internal policy. Hansen said she recommended in a
presentation circulated to 16 business unit heads an switch to CWT from
American Express, which had won the business when A.T. Kearney was part of EDS
(1995 until 2006). Within 24 hours, 14 of the 16 agreed. (One was on vacation,
Hansen noted.) "Usually, there's a debate. They question or challenge the
information," she said. "But after 12 years, you learn how to send
them information in a concise, meaningful way that tells them what they want to
know."
What they want to know, Hansen continued, is "always in
the numbers. I don't care if it's a good number or a bad number. It always
drives the agenda. The door will open and they'll listen to you."
Achieving Carbon
Neutrality
Consultants not only listened to top management's requests
to reduce travel as a means to help achieve aggressive sustainability goals,
but also embraced an internally developed CO2 sustainability travel planner and
urged the travel team to enhance it.
Developed as an Excel spreadsheet, the tool allows project
teams, meeting organizers or individuals to calculate average costs and carbon
output for travel or meetings. The firm's historical data is used to generate
the averages and inform users of the impact of travel or meeting reductions,
including at the project level where multiple trips or meetings typically are
required. For example, a consultant in charge of a six-month project could use
the tool to identify the potential savings of a few less trips. "Consultants
wanted this advanced further to include savings against revenue, unit goals and
then the global goal," Hansen said.
After three years of reductions and offsetting, A.T. Kearney
in 2010 achieved carbon neutrality. The company measures carbon output of not
only air travel, hotel stays and car rentals, but also journeys by rail, taxi
and public transportation and output by unit, country and employee. Finding no
industry-standard data to calculate hotel carbon output, Hansen worked with
internal sustainability experts and calculations from a scientific partner to
devise formulas that don't rely exclusively on self-reported hotel information.
Hansen said they use criteria from the annual hotel RFP to evaluate
environmental efficiencies. Employees can reduce carbon-emission costs when
booking at preferred green hotels.
Whether in regard to the sustainability tool or business
unit practices, Hansen said she asks her team to emphasize the overall impact
that a shift in behavior could have across a unit, region or companywide. "If
you swing [behavior] by 20 percent, 30 percent or 50 percent, here's what you're
going to achieve. It's up to the business leaders to determine how far they
want to go, how hard they want to push."
The average A.T. Kearney employee makes 35 trips a year,
Hansen said. "We've reduced that 20 percent with sustainability-reduction
goals, but there's a very high degree of travel per employee.
"What my team and I have done very well is read data,"
she explained. "I read data like some read a good book; it talks to me and
I can see where things connect. It really tells a story. Information gives
knowledge and power and allows them to make decisions appropriate for their
business. You don't always know what their pressures are."
Hansen's department within global procurement creates the
global travel strategy and contracts, and works with local representatives "to
understand the local needs for each unit, but also execute the strategy."
Given A.T. Kearney's global footprint, Hansen years ago asked each business
unit to assign a travel resource. "They have five other jobs. They're not
dedicated, but they're on our global travel council," she said. "It
has been so rewarding working with these people in every country, having a
collaborative approach and everybody's buy-in."
[PULL_1]Hansen said her previous TMCs probably would agree that
data-quality discussions were "the painful part of the relationships."
As part of its global settlement summary process, the firm requires "with
every financial statement a report that backs it up with the ticket number,
after-hours services and hierarchy fields." Sometimes there are
differences between agency finance and desktop reporting systems and the
nuances of back-office systems. "I can tell agencies in which countries
they have problems. You just have to work on cleaning it up, understanding it
and knowing where such gaps exist. It's still good enough to do what you need
to do.?
"On agency reports, I can source with it, tell the
analytical story and look at the opportunity analysis," Hansen said.
Agency data isn't good enough for expense reporting, but she is excited by
electronic receipt and other advancements that "over time will be very
important."
What chapters of Hansen's travel data book need more work? "The
story never ends," she said. "You have to keep reading because you
never know what's coming next."
The report originally
appeared in the November 2011 issue of Travel
Procurement.