I offer no prescient predictions about business travel in the downturn. Or in the upturn as travel rebounds, as it always does. Like economic forecasters, I can only react to events with sapient hindsight and reflect on the past mistakes of others.
But it’s an ill wind as they say… And indeed, the economic downturn has been good for business, according to an American Express survey of senior UK finance executives over half (58 percent) of whom reveal that decisions made during the downturn have actually improved their firms’ long term prospects.
‘Business travel spending increases are planned in those areas of travel that are linked to revenue growth,’ the survey quotes. And I am betting that these increases are focused on such areas as winning new business; protecting and developing client/customer or partner relationships; and networking at industry conferences and events. At the expense (no pun intended) of corporate get-togethers; internal wheel-spinning (‘I must visit Jean-Pierre in Paris to discuss his marketing plan’): And forgoing (just this year anyway) on lubricating that ‘essential’ economic forum in Monte Carlo. (Let the pundits wallow in the trough of their own confusion.)
Even during these months of tough trading, owners of growing businesses understand the need to travel, not only within their own region, but farther afield. When the going gets tough (especially for small entrepreneurial businesses), the tough get going! Let the bad times roll. My credo has always been … ‘what is bad for the travel trade is good for the traveler; and vice versa: Although I’m happy to discuss caveats and corollaries.
‘Zero-base’ planning (aka ‘navel-gazing’ or sitting on a sharp stone) is a salutary exercise in these lean times.
Road warriors have made travel decisions on a shifting equation of cost, convenience and comfort, depending on where they are headed, and purpose of the trip. But tighter budgets and the sheer hassle of travel today have thrown into sharper focus the need to assess the ‘productivity’ of a business trip, taking into account the cost of management time rather than cost of travel alone.
So whenever a business interaction is needed, instead of automatically thinking of a trip, even inveterate road warriors now think of other alternatives first, such as videoconferencing in every form – from state-of-the-art virtual reality with eye contact and wrap-around sound to desk-top teleconferencing; and an old-fashioned telephone call (a ‘hot’ medium as Canadian media guru Marshall McLuhan once famously said, making one focus entirely on the voice, the spoken word, which makes the phone as confessional as the psychoanalyst’s couch; making it easier to deal with intimate or difficult subjects.)
Travel is no longer the first resort to the need for a business meeting. Videoconferencing can be an essential complement to travel. Fly to New York and hold a videoconference with the troops in various cities instead of traipsing around the country to visit them.
‘Travel management’ has evolved from being essentially a bookkeeping function – travel policy, traveling in the most efficient way, getting the best deals – to ‘management’ in the management sense. ‘Why are we making this trip? What are we going to achieve? Can we do business some other way?
How can we achieve better productivity by cutting out unnecessary travel and achieve better productivity for trips that we do make? Companies are reshaping the pattern of their travel. Management productivity has become the new byword for business travel.
Consider a spectrum from what you might call ‘hard-core’ business travel (a sales trip, or clinching a deal) and internal meetings with associates and partners to ‘soft-core’ travel (association conferences, exhibitions, seminars and incentive trips).
Videoconferencing has substituted some internal company travel, such as visiting other plants and offices, especially global companies with people having regional responsibilities and large time differences. Not all the troops need to travel to the same place for a monthly update. There is a need to build relationships, but not to meet every time.
Videoconferencing is best used for getting things done rather than building relationships. It can help to accelerate decision-making by letting people interact more often and move things along. It allows for informal and impromptu meetings that would not happen otherwise.
There is also the ‘opportunity cost’ of traveling somewhere when it might be more productive, going somewhere else, or having somebody fly in to meet you in the office, where you can call other people in when you need them. Or else do you fly to New York and convene a video-conference instead of making a whistle-stop tour around the country. Or do you send Joe? There is always an opportunity to do something else. One has to ask, what’s the trade off? It is fairly easy to quantify travel productivity for sales people and line managers; harder for staff people. But that’s another challenge.
The ‘bottom-line’ in travel management is getting other people to visit you.