Online booking was non-existent when The Royal Mail Group (RMG) started trading with hotel booking agency BSI in November 2010. Just five months later, the company was sufficiently impressed with the results achieved to mandate online adoption.

Vanessa Amissah, Procurement Manager, Marcomms Events and Travel at RMG, explains the benefits that RMG has reaped.

Prior to BSI’s appointment, hotel and meetings bookings were managed offline at RMG. Vanessa Amissah says, “I had not joined RMG at the time the contract was awarded but I understand the organisation’s focus was on other areas and at the time travel was not that high on the RMG agenda. Historically, there was little drive to embrace online technology but there’s been a huge culture change over the last six months.

“We wanted to appoint a provider with relevant specialist expertise, the leverage to negotiate good rates and the ability to support our sustainability strategy. However we also knew that the best way to take the organisation’s travel programme forward was to move our hotel bookings online. BSI came up with a great hotel programme and good rates.”

According to BSI, no online booking system will deliver the required savings unless the preferred hotel programme to which it provides access meets the organisation’s financial, quality and convenience thresholds. The RFP undertaken by BSI on its client’s behalf was highly successful in keeping costs down for RMG, and was based on a three-pronged strategy.

RMG is committed to driving volume into their preferred suppliers and where possible, BSI tried to keep those hotels already receiving substantial business from RMG on the programme. In some instances this meant accepting non-LRA (Last Room Availability) rates and securing allocation to ensure availability.

Where hotels were offering rates well above the then-average achieved rates in a location BSI replaced them with similar properties offering lower prices within a 1 – 1.5 mile radius of the existing hotel. Finally, BSI consolidated the number of preferred hotels in each location to drive more volume and thereby improve future RMG’s leverage and negotiation position.

RMG now had an improved hotel programme with a reduced number of preferred properties in key locations, wider geographical covering and reduced costs. With the new hotel programme in place, the focus could turn to implementing an online booking tool.

Vanessa continues, “At the start, we were planning to go online gradually (10% in year one, 20% in year two etc), but after going live in November the savings being generated from online bookings persuaded us to take the whole business online more quickly. We then made the decision to mandate online booking within just two months.”

Before approaching senior management, Vanessa and her team worked closely with BSI to analyse the management information to build the business case for online mandation. As well as the initial cost savings, the other benefits came from process change efficiencies (travel pre-authorisation was also online) and duty of care (knowing where RMG staff are when away on business).

The next stage in the process was to hold implementation discussions with suppliers and then to overcome what is, in many organisations, the toughest hurdle of all – stakeholder buy in. It is remarkable that, not only was this test successfully negotiated, but that approval from RMG’s senior management was forthcoming within such a short period.

“We were very successful in getting this live, mainly due to stakeholders’ buying in” says Vanessa.

“Thankfully, Royal Mail Group has a culture of embracing cost saving initiatives. There’s a good relationship between Procurement and HR, the owning stakeholder for travel, and our Senior Supplier Relations and Communications Manager (Liz Crawshaw), so this initiative was seen as bringing substantial savings. It was not all plain sailing though; we still had to put in a lot of hard work on the proposal, the figures and the way we presented them.”

For RMG, bringing about behavioural change on the part of bookers and travellers has been the biggest challenge of all, ultimately achieved by enforcing corporate discipline, supported by an effective communications campaign (led by Liz) to the RMG booker community.

“Our messaging was aimed initially at individual business unit directors who then cascaded the information down to their line managers” Vanessa explains. “Communications were issued in the name of the CFO and HR director responsible for travel policy, so they carried senior clout.”

Vanessa’s team had to overcome resistance to the changeover from a telephone-based to automated service. “Staff didn’t understand why we put an approvals process in place. Previously the only approvals process in place was for international travel, and was a manual one. The principal objection to doing things online has been that it’s easier to pick up the phone.”

“Staff have to feel comfortable using the system and the approval process which they think takes a lot of time. We have explained that we need to know why staff are travelling so we can make sure the travel is necessary, thus ensuring that people are thinking twice before travelling because they have to get approval to do so.”

Despite an 85% online adoption of transient accommodation bookings in itself being compelling proof of the success of the initiative, RMG regularly seeks feedback from travellers. Vanessa says, “At the moment we have a business travel inbox so any feedback comes to me via BSI. We then either respond directly or send out new messaging to everyone.”

Vanessa is surprised how quickly and effectively adoption has happened. She recognises the support provided by BSI’s account management team, led by Account Manager Nikki Hockey. Nikki points out that, although RMG have mandated online booking, the BSI call centre teams have also had a role to play in the migration by advising RMG bookers on how to use the BSIDirectTM tool and how to approach compliance issues.

“There haven’t been any major challenges from BSI’s point of view” says Nikki “and we’ve worked closely with Royal Mail Group’s appointed TMC, Capita Business Travel, to ensure that the process has been as smooth as possible for all involved”.

With relatively little headroom remaining for increasing online adoption for transient bookings and with online meetings requests already hitting 100%, Vanessa and the BSI team are now looking at further cost savings opportunities for Royal Mail Group. “We will continue to push transient closer to 100% by looking at increasing amendments and cancellations online. I’m not saying we will achieve 100%, but we’ll have a go. In addition to this we are working on further process efficiencies in order to support the business with its continuing cost reduction initiatives. ”

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