LAWYERS STATE THE CASE FOR ONLINE TRAVEL PROCUREMENT
Online ticketing technology delivers £1m in travel savings
One of the world’s largest full service corporate law firms has achieved year-on-year travel savings of more than £1million, thanks to online ticketing technology and day-to-day support provided by Reed and Mackay, the firm’s recently appointed travel management company. Eversheds, with offices across the world, has transformed the effectiveness of its corporate rail and air booking and ticketing functionality after implementing a Reed & Mackay strategy that brought together leading travel technology providers Evolvi and KDS. Eversheds’ Head of Strategy, Property and Facilities, Elaine Winterbottom, was charged with conducting a group-wide review of travel procurement policy and systems soon after arriving at the firm. The priority was for an online self-booking system that would be easy to use, offered the best available fares, provided cost centre capture and validation and, critically, had the ability to apportion journey costs to 140,000 matter numbers - criteria that the Evolvi system met on all counts. A similar resource was needed for air travel but with the added expert support for more complex travel planning. “We spoke to other law firms and interviewed many travel management companies. It was obvious from the outset that Reed and Mackay really understood our business culture – and were able to prove they had the technical capability to apportion costs correctly to many thousands of distinct case numbers,” says Elaine. “We were particularly focused on achieving a more efficient online booking system.” Reed and Mackay’s solution for Eversheds integrates Evolvi’s self booking technology for rail and the KDS Portal platform for air and hotel through a single user interface. In addition, the TMC provides high-touch support for complex travel plans. “From the outset, our goal was to help Elaine demonstrate the value of implementing a TMC-based travel system for Eversheds’ personnel,” says Tina Wilkinson, Reed and Mackay’s Manager of Strategic Online Consultancy “Our understanding of the unique compliance issues faced by legal firms meant we were quickly able to demonstrate not just the cost effective nature of our online system, but its robustness in handling transaction complexity and our ability to provide in depth management information.” Six months on and Elaine’s team is measuring almost 100 percent uptake among staff of the new system – and at the same time is able to point to anticipated year-on-year savings of around £1million (on a £3million annual spend), achieved as a result of improved procurement compliance, easy access to more flexible ticketing and best value fares. The average cost of rail journeys for Eversheds has fallen from £100 in May last year to around £55 today – and the number of transactions has increased. Says Elaine: “The system we now have in place is not only improving our operational efficiency, it is bringing down cost for Eversheds and for our clients, which is crucial in the current challenging financial climate.” Melanie Taylor, Evolvi’s Trade Relations Manager, said that cost centre capture and validation, procurement rule setting and data integration with Reed and Mackay’s client systems had been critical in the successful implementation of the Eversheds project. She says: “This project proves the value that online technology can deliver to business in driving more efficient travel arrangements and in providing management information that can be used as a strategic planning tool.” Yves Weisselberger, chief executive officer of KDS, says: “In these difficult times, perhaps more so than ever before, companies are seeking to control and ideally reduce their travel and expense costs. This implementation proves that major firms such as Eversheds can cut travel costs without cutting travel. When client, travel management company and technology providers work closely together, huge bottom-line savings are possible.” Eversheds photo caption (l-r): Melanie Taylor (Evolvi) pictured with Tina Wilkinson (Reed & Mackay), Elaine Winterbottom (Eversheds) and Samantha Murray and James Bassett (Reed & Mackay). Ends Media enquiries to: Philip Colley, Harvest Tel: 023 9244 9655/ 07785 306378/ philip.colley@harvestpr.co.uk or Barry Dunstall or Marc Cornelius, 80:20 Communications Tel: 020 7664 6310/ 07876 500 260/ mcornelius@8020comms.com Notes to Editors: About Evolvi Evolvi’s online system focuses exclusively on business rail travel and is used by Travel Management Companies (TMC), including eight of the top 10 in the UK, to meet the needs of their corporate customers. Evolvi has been designed by business travel specialists to provide travel managers and procurement professionals with an online rail booking and ticket fulfilment service. It is able to deliver significant advantages in cost centre and project code transaction cost attribution, travel policy compliance and on-line management information capability. The system can also provide a complete on-line C02 emissions report using multi-modal comparative data. The system also integrates with other Self-Booking Tools (SBTs), Global Distribution Systems (GDSs) and expense management tools. About KDS: KDS (www.kds.com) is a leading international provider of Travel & Expense (T&E) management systems for private and public sector organisations. KDS’s unified Software-as-a-Service (SaaS)-based technology addresses the full range of T&E requirements, from travel policy definition and enforcement, and the online self-booking of travel, through to automated travel expense processing and invoice reconciliation. With each stage handled seamlessly by KDS’s fully-integrated technology, clients achieve significant efficiencies and cost-savings. KDS offers the industry’s most extensive back-end connectivity to financial service and travel providers (airline, car, rail and hotel), ensuring optimised pricing and up-to-the-minute inventory control.
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