Automation’s Effect on the Corporate Travel Industry
The way we work and go about our daily lives has been fundamentally changed with automation. How people communicate, learn, work, and make daily choices has been revolutionized. Adding efficiency and fluidity, automation has changed the landscape of modern corporate travel. In this article, we will take a closer look at the effect of automation on the travel industry and the benefits of incorporating the latest travel software into your travel program.
Today’s traveler expects a smooth streamlined experience that is intuitive and personalized. Automation helps companies understand what their customers value, while still supporting the efficiency of their daily operations. It is changing the way businesses interact with their customers. Here are 5 benefits of an automated travel platform.
- Clear corporate travel policy – With tech-savvy millennials in the workplace, it is more important than ever to create a trustworthy culture in which employees feel empowered to take control of their bookings. When the company travel policy is integrated into the automation, there is guaranteed compliance. Parameters can be set that save everyone both time and money. Leadership can set itineraries that fall within company guidelines and trips that fall outside of the company policy can be flagged.
- Increased focus on sustainable corporate travel – Automated travel systems can ensure compliance with sustainability policies. Carbon emissions must be considered when justifying a business trip. More eco-friendly options must be used when selecting flights and other transportation methods. Organizations must establish the extent of their carbon footprint as a part of their corporate travel policy. Streamlining equipment and processes reduces scraps and uses less space, which means automation uses less energy.
- Minimized errors and inaccuracies – Automation allows for faster quoting with tailored itineraries. High volume and repetitive tasks are carried out quicker and more accurately. Machine searching, data collation, and analysis save employees time and eliminate human errors. The error rate is close to nothing and problems such as overbooking are eliminated.
- More efficient and productive work – An effective automated travel system can facilitate the ordering, inventory, communication, and accounting processes. Data mining algorithms, automated statistical analysis, and high-volume processing power can quickly and accurately go through daily repetitive tasks and provide useful and ready-to-use information. Managers are able to look at the overall performance of a business and find improvement opportunities. With relevant client information tracked, companies are empowered to create in-depth customer profiles.
- Greater visibility into spending patterns – It is critical for businesses to be able to track spending in real-time and access travel spending in one location. An automated system keeps financial processes easily accessible and trackable. This allows businesses to pinpoint exactly how and where money is spent. The business traveler is free to book and control their trip while companies maintain the visibility and control they need over travel spending.
Automation has had a profound effect on the corporate travel industry, saving costs and stimulating growth potential. In this age of computers, big data, artificial intelligence, and comprehensive automation systems greatly relieve human workers from mundane and repetitive tasks, and better results are achieved! Adopting a customized, automated platform for your travel needs equips you with a reliable tool, provides greater control over your sales and operations, and unlocks insights through data collection.
The Cornerstone Ecosystem
Cornerstone is a technology and service provider of mid and back-office automation for the travel industry. We work with travel management companies, online travel agencies, corporate travel departments, and suppliers to help them automate travel operations and programs. Our mission is to provide the platform and tools that automate what results in accurately completed and transacted travel reservations for travelers, their buyers, and travel service providers.
Cornerstone works with many different stakeholders in order to bring in data and integrate your trips into an efficient and easy-to-manage workflow. We work with our GDS partners, suppliers, corporate travel departments, OBTs, sellers, and other tech partners, to funnel data into the Cornerstone Ecosystem. This way we can neatly organize and process all of your trip and traveler information in one place which can then be affected by business rules and automation programs. We strive to be your trusted partner to help represent your brand and help fulfill your promise to your travelers. We make the operations of travel happen as seamlessly as possible.
We have designed the Cornerstone HUB to be used in modules and components, starting from the standard libraries we’ve developed to much more highly customized use cases. Customers using our standard libraries still have full access to our ecosystem and programming environments and can take full ownership of the development and maintenance of their own automation ecosystem. This means that you would be able to write your own rules and implement your own workflow through Cornerstone’s programs.
Thanks to our enhanced modules and value-added modular functions, the following steps are easier and more efficient than ever:
• Fare Reshopping and Auditing
• Waitlist Checking and Management
• Seat Checking
• Unused Ticket Tracking
• Payments and Auto-Ticketing
• Policy Compliance
… And so much more!
We’ve focused considerably on technology that lets us stitch together the various components of a trip, which allows us to work effectively and efficiently with the reservation. Via the business rules, we can automate quality control and documentation of reservations including document delivery, ticketing, change management, and reporting. And since we work from a scalable platform and hybrid cloud infrastructure, our ecosystem is able to scale to meet all of your needs.
Well-automated travel operations provide better data, thus allowing for better reporting and analytics. Travel transactions go through a lot of touch points, many of which are handled by disparate agents, systems, and processes. It can be difficult to get an idea regarding what happens to each transaction unless you have a robust data harvesting system in place to provide travel operations and management with the most up-to-date state view of any trip at any given time.
Provided as a SaaS platform, the Cornerstone HUB brings together critical components around standardized and customizable functions that help automate travel fulfillment and the required data information services for today’s modern travel operations and programs.
Download this ebook to learn more about The Cornerstone HUB, and start improving efficiency in your travel program today.