Traditionally, travel and expense (T&E) processes have been overlooked in many companies as it is not the easiest process to navigate amongst other office processes.
Over the past few years as the world moved to a hybrid work model, it is evident that improvements need to be made to T&E processes to ensure smoother operations in this different workplace dynamic, according to a study by Forrester Consulting which was commissioned by the Cytric Solutions team in Amadeus. This is especially prominent as businesses still rely on archaic T&E processes and a multitude of different methods, such as physical receipts or multiple expense programs, that aren’t completely appropriate for hybrid work.
Many of these challenges stem from a traditional routine of pay, expense, and reclaim process and these challenges can create insufficiencies for businesses as verifying and analysing T&E can be a timewaster.
This means that there’s a need for a shift to T&E automation and global leaders have become aware of this. For businesses to succeed, they must cater to the new hybrid model of work.
The lengthy routine of booking an entire work trip from the beginning has plenty of room for automation. For example, those surveyed in the Forrester Report said a main challenge was managing compliance for travel, like visas and work permits (34%), as well as privacy and security concerns (31%), while almost a third argued that manual T&E processes put a strain on employees’ productivity.
In the report, it was revealed that 72 per cent of participants found improving the integration of T&E technology with other enterprises was the top priority, but only 37 per cent of systems integrate with an organisation’s T&E solutions, causing poor employee experience and hindering workplaces from achieving peak performance. There was also a strong desire to improve the end-to-end experience of T&E and progress how teams collaborate when they travel.
Ingrid Picard, Head of Commercial Development Resellers and Corporations, Asia Pacific, Amadeus, echoed this sentiment when reflecting on the results of the report.
“As the world of work recalibrates for a hybrid future, processes, technologies and cultures need to be updated to drive increased engagement and facilitate better collaboration among employees when planning travel,” Picard said.
And it’s not as though workers haven’t become much more accustomed to using digital tools during the pandemic. Workplace finance systems, video calling, collaboration docs and much more became digitised and normalised amongst workers, so it’s logical that T&E processes would too.
So how can businesses shift T&E processes to the world of hybrid work?
First, in the Forrester Report it was found that one of the main gripes employees have with T&E is having to pay out of pocket, to then be reimbursed later. This, and the problem of T&E inefficiencies, can be overcome with the use of virtual payments.
“Fully automated systems, including digital payments, can be an efficient answer,” Picard said.
Virtual payments provide better visibility and control over travel spend. They benefit from enriched data on travel patterns in place to reduce the risk of fraud.
Over three-quarters of global leaders from the Forrester Report cited virtual payments as the most valued functionality in an end-to-end travel and expense management platform.
Technology will be the silver bullet that helps the travel industry to recover, grow and renew in 2023 and beyond and Amadeus is there to help its customers put the right technology in place so they can maximise productivity.
To find out more about how you can streamline T&E processes, visit Amadeus’ website.
