The ESB have completed over 80 projects in 120 countries around the world, meaning travel is one of our largest expense items. We estimate we are achieving significant savings this year with the commencement of our new and innovative travel programme provided by Atlas Travel Services.
We have seen instant results since the April 2017 launch of this programme that incorporates an “Online booking Tool” (OBT) solution. This solution is in conjunction with a dedicated Travel Consultant for ‘Offline Servicing’ provided under the umbrella of the Atlas Travel’s unique ‘Adoption Academy’ initiative.
We realized in 2016 that our travel booking behaviour was disjointed, and there was considerable room for improvement. The primary objective for changing travel provider was to introduce a service to enhance employees’ travel planning, increase policy compliance while bringing cost savings to the company by lowering transaction fees, reducing the total cost of travel and to drive efficiencies.
Achieving an online adoption rate of 72% within four weeks of launching the initiative, results have been swift and impressive. There are additional savings expected on ‘air fares’, with total travel procurement costs down 30%.
When selecting a suitable travel provider, we needed to be confident they could provide the hybrid solution that encompassed;
By employing Atlas Travel Service with their Adoption academy, ESB are now able to make travel reservations from their office PCs, as well as check and keep up to date with itinerary changes on their mobiles using the Atlas App. Our employees have the full support of their offline service and Out-of-Hours service, hotels and car rentals 24 hours a day, from anywhere in the world.
The OBT and Atlas Travel offline services provide our travellers with sources of travel inventory, including direct to airline and hotel websites, scheduled airline inventory, air and hotel aggregators and their own specially-negotiated discounted fares and hotel rates.
The solution implemented by Atlas offers the ESB an end-to-end solution for business travel bookings that spans travel authorisation, enforcement of corporate policies, efficient self-booking and comprehensive management information. By embedding this solution within the ESB, we achieved seamless integration with our wider travel and expense systems, and delivered enhanced travel policy compliance.
The implementation of the Adoption Academy solution was fully managed and overseen by Atlas Travel. This included understanding our challenges from an administrative, HR and travel logistics perspective.
The tool was configured to reflect our travel policy requirements; setting up the traveller profiles, the approvals system, ESB staff training and the ‘lunch and learn’ sessions with our key travellers, deployment and management of a pilot programme prior to the official launch of the full service. During this time, we were kept fully abreast of progress at weekly meetings. The whole process was overseen and managed by the Atlas Travel Project Adoption Academy Manager – Sarah Duncan.
“We are very happy with the innovative approach that Atlas Travel and their Adoption Academy have provided us with, in terms of our new online booking tool and their smart solutions travel technology approach and implementation methodology and we look forward to continue working with them into the future”.
Are you considering restarting your business travel programme? What changes will you likely encounter at the airport, hotel or train station? How has Covid-19 impacted on the way we travel and what can you do to prepare for the new requirements?
All organisations have a responsibility to keep their employees safe when travelling on business and a requirement to provide assistance when they encounter an issue on the road. This is more important today than it has ever been and all companies must revaluate their travel programme and safety measures against the reality of travelling in the current environment.
Atlas Travel are delighted to announce they have been awarded a Deloitte Best Managed award for the 4th time, following a lengthy re-qualification and judging process in which the complete performance of a business is assessed, moving beyond finances to such areas as operational excellence, strategy, and human resource processes.