Raise Your Game: Travel Management In A High Growth Business
Success! Your company’s just raised a fresh round of funding. Things are about to get very busy, right… about…now! When there’s money in the bank, growth can happen very quickly. It goes with the territory. Startups are under an obligation to demonstrate tangible growth to their investors, which almost always means a fresh string of new hires — and even setting up new offices overseas: usually where the tech talent’s cheap and plentiful.
For argument’s sake, let’s presume your management team are now going to be traveling back and forth between Toronto and Bengaluru with alarming regularity — and that you, as travel manager, are tasked with making sure things run smooth as possible for all travelers concerned.
Don’t let this sudden surge in activity overwhelm you! Here are a few things to keep in mind when your company experiences a growth spurt:
Planes, Trains, and Automobiles
Booking flights is simple enough (mostly…) but if you’re tasked with literally getting someone from door-to-door, you need to consider complete transport solutions. It’s not just a case of flying from city to city; think about travel to and from train stations, and weigh up whether it’s to easier to take a taxi or hire a car. It’s also easy to spend hours comparing fares — often just to save a short amount of change. Keep in mind that both speed and efficiency are equally as important as cost.
Scout Ahead
Probably won’t happen, but it’d be nice to think you could take a little research trip out to your new offices, right? Just to see what’s going on in the local area? Maybe another time. Your next best bet is to hit Google and figure out what amenities are nearby. Think about the kind of things people use regularly — gyms, restaurants, bars, coffee shops — as well as more practical ‘business’ stuff (printing shops, IT support, meeting spaces). Try not to get too jealous; printing shops are pretty much alike the world over…
Home From Home
You’ll also need to find somewhere for your employees to stay when they come to town. Location is everything. If the office is in the city center, then you’ll need to accept that you’ll end up paying more for hotels than if it were out of town. That’s just how it is. But when perusing what’s available, consider the things business travelers actually need. Forget fancy hotel restaurants and 24/7 concierge services; think WiFi, breakfast, desk space in their room. Don’t assume every hotel will offer these things as part of the deal. And while we’re talking about pricing, be sure to ask your preferred hotels if they’re open to negotiating a discounted company rate.
Streamline Everything
When attending to the small task of organizing everyone’s travel (!), make life easier for yourself by managing all of your hotel bookings in one place. Use too many self-booking engines and things can get quickly complicated. There are plenty of free tools out there — take our own smart travel platform for example: you can monitor all of your upcoming trips from one easy-to-use dashboard; as well as manage hotel reservations, generate reports, and get immediate activity insights — when you need them.
Ultimately, productivity’s a nice problem to have. By making sure you have all the information your travelers need at your fingertips, you’ll quickly raise your game and keep on top of the challenges rapid growth has on your part of the business.
