How Technology Can Help Reduce Corporate Travel Expenses
Publié le 11 August 2023
You can connect with clients in-person around the world and take your network global while growing your career by learning how technology can help you reduce corporate travel expenses.
Travel expenses make for one of the highest expenses in most companies today. If managed properly, however, corporate travel can cost much less. This process can be made more efficient thanks to modern technology. Nowadays, technology can be used for anything from monitoring your whereabouts while traveling to finding the best deals to make sure everyone sticks to the budget. All of this can significantly reduce corporate travel expenses.
In the US alone, 1.3 million business trips are taken every day. This equals billions in spending, and a lot of that money can be saved by learning how technology can help reduce corporate travel expenses. Corporate travel costs businesses 10% of their revenue on average.
If this percentage sounds small, think again. Not only does this account for thousands to millions spent for each business, but the numbers will probably grow in the years that follow. Compared to 2020 when the market value of the business travel industry was 695.9 billion, in 2028 it is expected to exceed 2000 billion!
Failing to invest in business travel is simply not an option today. Face-to-face interaction is crucial for business success, and while virtual meetings are a viable option, it’s not always the best option in all instances.
If your company needs to send many employees to meet international clients, visit networking events, conferences and trade shows, or commute between offices around the world, then you need technology to help you reduce your costs.
What are corporate travel expenses
Anything that your employee, partners, or yourself purchase for business purposes falls under corporate travel expenses. This includes the following – and more:
- Transportation to and from the destination: airline tickets, boat tickets, train tickets, fuel for the car.
- Local transportation: public transportation, taxis.
- Meals, snacks and refreshments.
- Accommodation: hotel rooms, apartments being rented.
- Business spaces: presentation rooms, meeting room costs.
- Business-related communication: phone bill, internet packages.
Now imagine having to juggle all this. Not only do you need to organize it all ahead, but you also need to promptly respond and fix any issues that might occur. When your team travels, not only do you need to manage your time, but you need to manage theirs as well. You need to book meetings, arrange transport, think of contingency plans, and so on.
Why do you need technology?
If you use a corporate travel solution helped by technology, all of this will be streamlined in one place. You can:
- Improve money management by tracking all expenses
- Expedite the reimbursement process
- Get detailed records in case you need to show them
- Save a lot of money on cheap deals and offers
- Fix issues in real-time (such as flight delays or accommodation problems)
How technology can reduce corporate travel expenses
These days, we use technology to streamline our day-to-day tasks. We use it to help us organize, communicate, keep track of tasks, and improve overall work efficiency. Businesses who deal with corporate travel also use it to improve and automate parts of this process – and save a fortune because of it.
Let’s take a look at some of the ways in which using technology can help reduce corporate travel expenses for your business.
1. Make group travel bookings with ease
Organizing travel for individuals is much simpler than managing an entire group. There’s a lot to plan when you send an entire team on a business trip. Instead of booking one person at a time, technology can be very useful in streamlining your group travels.
Whether you send your team for a retreat, training, or an important meeting, organizing everything can take forever – and cost a lot. Technology is perfect for improving this process. For example, TravelPerk’s list of corporate travel websites is a trending solution in the corporate world that offers assistance for group travel bookings, making it faster, more efficient, and much more affordable to send a team on a business trip.
From putting people on the same flight to booking conference rooms and arranging their airport transport, all of this can be done with ease. Technology allows you to book the entire trip in one place, find affordable accommodation easily, and enjoy a lot of travel flexibility.
Here are some of the perks that come from using technology to make group travel bookings:
- Travelers can save time and stay in control
- Travelers have access to their travel data at all times
- Your company can save money with negotiated rates and the best deals
- All the invoices and reports are kept in one place
- The tool will ensure that you stick to your travel budget
2. Track and manage requests/approvals
Corporate travel can be challenging if your business organizes frequent trips. People will send requests for travel and reimbursement. You need to help them organize their trip, check their expenses, cover them, or reimburse them afterward.
There are plenty of touch points that a business needs to cover, and delaying them often results in unnecessary expenses. This is where a travel management system can help. The request for approval will get to the right person in real-time, and you can even automate common responses to save time and boost efficiency.
If travelers book outside the company’s policies, they are spending more money than they’d like. By automating the policy, you can prevent this from happening.
In other words, you’ll be helping your managers and staff to stay within budget. The technology you use can provide them with expenses that are covered under the company’s budget. This will ensure that they don’t spend more than they should, saving your company money in the process.
In most cases, when travelers aren’t in compliance, they will be asked to cover the extra expenses. By automating the travel policy and the budget, you are ensuring that no side is unfairly harmed financially.
3. Get reports in a snap
The IRS or another government tax agency can request your corporate travel reports at any time. If you are disorganized and messy with your records, this can be a big problem.
And it’s not just about ensuring legal compliance. You need to keep corporate travel organized for financial purposes as well. At any given moment, technology can provide you with a detailed overview of what was spent on corporate travel – and what it was spent on.
Reports can help you with the following:
- Stay legally compliant
- Make better decisions on cost control
- Make necessary policy changes to save money on future travels
- Keep track of your company’s finances
- Know what each employee spends on their work trips
4. Get better deals
Travelers and managers save valuable time with centralized, automated travel tools that streamline the process. By using technology, a company can find options within the policy’s budget instantly. There’s no need to frantically search for accommodation or flight arrangements, or check if any of the options are within policy.
This is what costs the most in corporate travel – excessive spending on accommodation and transportation. With the help of technology, you can now find the best deals and make sure they fit the corporate policy at all times.
If a trip takes forever to organize and demands a lot of work, it’s counterproductive as well as unnecessarily expensive. Employees that have to do this manually are tired, lack motivation, and can’t focus on performing well on the trip.
Instead of spending endless hours comparing prices across platforms, employees can simply choose from the top choices technology offers them. They can find everything in one place and organize it all simply without headaches.
Corporate travel tools allow you to set daily spending budgets for items like food or transportation. You can also use their expense tracking tools to monitor what your team is spending on their trip. By making this technology available for your whole time, employees can also use this tool to ensure they stay on budget.
5. Claim your VAT refunds with ease
Did you know that you can claim a VAT refund on flights, hotels, but also train rides, cars, and other business travel expenses? This can take forever if you do it manually, but technology makes it much simpler.
With a technology-helped VAT recovery service, you can claim refunds on many of the business expenses, which helps you save up to 20%.
6. Keep your employees motivated
Travel is now part of doing business. Companies send their employees on corporate trips not only because face-to-face meetings can help you achieve your global business goals, but also because this is good for your employees.
Why is that?
Eighty-five percent of business people see corporate travel as a perk. Adding this to your perks list can boost people’s interest in working at the company. It can make people more motivated and happier to work there.
Happier employees equal lower employee turnover and higher productivity. Travel might not directly contribute to this, but it sure makes working for your company more beneficial for employees. And if it is managed properly and without issues through the use of technology, even better!
Ready to save on corporate travel?
If you have been wondering how technology can help reduce corporate travel expenses, now is the time to start learning. Not only does the right tech make the organization easier, but it can also save you and your team a fortune of unnecessarily spent money as you help your organization grow across the world!
