Once upon a time I wrote an article on this subject and the unabridged version, for those that really want to have a go at saving money on travel, is available on my website. This is the short version to get you thinking.
Fact: The quickest and esiest way to save money on travel, is by not travelling in the first place. Recently, many firms have found out that, since they cut back on travel, they have not gone bust, the company has continued to function and life, as such, carries on. Do you really need to be there, I ask. Let’s face it, the East India Company managed to trade from Calcutta back in about 1700 and frozen to death when a trip for a meeting would have taken the best part of a year. Yet they traded, and traded very well. We talk, now, about living in a “Global Economy” – yet we have always lived in a global economy, even the Romans spent a lot of time trouble and effort keeping their trade routes open and even fought a nifty little war with the Persians over a matter of rights of access. So, don’t pretend the “global economy” is something new.
How did they manage, we wonder, without travel? Simple. They delegated. They made sure that the people in far away lands were told precisely what to do and what was expected of them and if they did not perform then they got their head chopped off. The means of motivation has changed just a tad over the years, but the principle remains the same. So, do you really need to be there?
Fact: When you call the travel agent or go to book online 99.9% of all opportunites to save money have been lost. Let me make this clear, saving money has nothing at all to do with which company you use, if you use self booking tools, have a strict policy about only travelling in economy, drink three cups of coffee before breakfast or have a policy checker living in a little office on the thrid floor whose name is Frederick. It is to do with thinking about why you are travelling, could someone else who may be going a few days later or earlier, deal with it? Will the journey you are taking produce a measurable, tangible benefit for the company? Or are you just travelling because it seems like a good idea? Believe me, I know some very senior managers who have saved a lot of money by blocking people going to, say, conferences because the only reason that the intended travellers could come up with was “Well, we ought to be there”.
Here is another thing – “We” – not just “I”. There are still companies who have to travel in multiples of 3 – or even 2 – for no other reason than “two people always go”. At the end of the day, it is not the travel that one needs to look at, it is the why that travel was generated in the first place. In my article I suggest that what you should do, is to take at random, three or four travel “events” and get whoever went to write down the net tangible benefit the company received from those events. Let’s see it in hard cash.
There are, of course, things that you must travel for, system breakdowns, for example – but even here, if there are a lot of these, the answer lies not in trying to shave off £10 from a round trip to Delhi but in looking at your kit and finding out why it breaks down so often.
Many look closely at the expenses of a trip, at systems to closely monitor those expenses. Many look at their flight costs and use all sorts of techniques to analyse their travel costs and produce reports to discuss with airlines special deals. What I say is don’t bother. It’s pointless. UNLESS you first look at the reasons behind each travel event – because unless that travel event can produce a hard nosed benefit for the company, then even £1 for a flight is £1 wasted.
Just a thought!
