Case Study: University of Salford

Transcription

1 Case Study: University of Salford Creating efficiencies in travel booking, procurement and payment

2 Background With three colleges, 12 schools and over 2,500 staff within its academic profile and a turnover of over 180million, the University of Salford has a truly global impact. International students come from over 100 countries to study at the University. Diversity Travel work with many academic institutions across the UK and further afield. We started working with the University of Salford in February Client Obstacles 1. Out of policy booking & disparate invoicing Staff were affected by a decentralised booking system and lack of consistency with the pricing they were receiving. Trips were sourced by various means, leading to multiple out of policy bookings, with bookers resorting to a mixture of travel management companies and online consumer sites. In addition, a considerable amount of money was being spent on a long-winded individual invoice Duty of care is an important ongoing project for the University. Whether it s a problem with a hotel or a missed train, these issues could cause major disruption for our traveller, so we re pleased to have that on-call support from the team at Diversity. Lorna Brooke, Travel Manager reconciliation process, taking up the travel team s valuable time. 2. Lack of MI and TMC support There was no single source for management information and no proactive account management to help Salford understand their travel programme. This made it difficult and time-consuming to keep track of all data and spend; the lack of a single reporting system meant there was no clear way of viewing and comparing relevant information. All of these issues resulted in fragmented spending, rapidly decreasing budgets, disorganisation and out of policy bookings. 3. Unnecessary expense Without a travel process, some travel bookings were made very close to the travel date, which incurred considerable extra unnecessary expense. Equally, the team only had access to standard, published fares, as would be accessible by the general public, missing out on academic sectorspecific rates.

3 Diversity Travel s Solution Following a period of consultation, discussing strategic objectives and plans with the main contacts at the University, Diversity Travel allocated an implementation team to shape the bespoke offering which would then deliver maximum impact against the University s strategic plan. The implementation team was formed by utilising expertise from several key areas of the business. This, in turn, delivered a fully bespoke, swift, effective and well-advised implementation including: management information reporting, consultant training on the University requirements, online set up, local hotel programme and a complete consolidated invoice integration solution. 1. New booking system Working with Diversity, Salford introduced a new centralised booking system, meaning all travel bookings had to go through their in-house travel team. This process cut leakage to a minimum and meant the University was better able to track spend and traveller locations, which is crucial for duty of care provision. The new policy has seen travel compliance levels jump to an outstanding 99%. In addition, Diversity Travel s IT experts worked with the University of Salford s team to design consolidated invoices that would feed directly into their back-office systems, thus saving a considerable amount of manual processing time each month and decreasing the possibility of human error. The University of Salford s new invoicing solution is estimated to have saved the University in the region of 5.5% of their overall annual spend with Diversity Travel alone. 2. Dedicated account management & MI tools The University of Salford now benefit from a dedicated operational support team, Willow, who assist with more complex booking requirements and visas. The Willow team are trusted advisors to the University of Salford booking team, having, on average, 12 years experience in travel each. Salford have 24 hour access to in-house staff at Diversity, knowing that whatever the issue, they have a team ready and able to help. Diversity Travel s higher-education specific fares help tremendously with cost reduction, policy compliance and are accessible 24/7, providing peace of mind and developing our duty of care capabilities. Rachel Howarth, Travel Assistant

4 Through Diversity Travel, Salford also have access to comprehensive management information, allowing the team to understand their spend and travel trends. Their dedicated senior account manager, who provides strategic advice, then helps turn this data into cost-saving action points. The Willow team, the account manager and the central booking team at Salford have since gone on to build a strong and enjoyable working relationship. Communication is constant between the three parties, with full account review meetings taking place at least every quarter. 3. Reduced spend Through Diversity Travel, the University of Salford now have access to thousands of academic fares and negotiated rates. These academic fares have provided both cost savings to the University as a whole and unparalleled flexibility for the travel team, bringing benefits such as extra baggage allowances and reduced costs for alteration and cancellation. The Diversity team have also arranged negotiated rates for the University at some of their most frequently-used hotels, providing a welcome cost saving at high volume accommodation favourites. 99% policy compliance reached Since working with Diversity Travel, the number of out of policy bookings has decreased significantly. This has been achieved by targeting key issues through the implementation of a bespoke business plan. 50% of bookings are made through Diversity Travel s specialist academic fares Access to reduced academic fares has led to substantial savings for the University. 5.5% estimated annual savings The implementation of the new invoicing system, built by Diversity Travel s specialist IT team, has reduced manual processing time, limited the possibility of human error and has resulted in considerable savings.

5 Conclusion The airtight travel strategy at the University of Salford has increased policy compliance to over 99%. Over 50% of applicable bookings are now on Diversity Travel s specially negotiated academic fares, which mean greatly reduced change and cancellation fees, enable effective budget planning and ensure absolute value for money long term. It s a pleasure to work with Diversity; they understand us and what we re trying to achieve, and they go out of their way at a strategic and day to day level to help us get there. We regard the Willow team almost as an extension of our own Travel Team. Lorna Brooke, Travel Manager

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