More efficiency, lower costs: the advantages of professional travel management

How one of Germany's leading commercial law firms is optimising its processes with DER BUSINESS Travel - Interview with management consultant André Borutta
Efficient business travel planning saves companies time and money, but is often complex. Travel management companies (TMC) offer decisive advantages: they optimise expenditure, increase security and ensure smooth processes. As a result, employees can use the time they would spend organising travel for other purposes. André Borutta, Managing Director of the management consultancy Content ONE, provides an insight into this process. Content ONE is helping one of Germany's leading commercial law firms to restructure its business travel processes, drawing on the professional support of business travel specialist DER BUSINESS Travel (DER BT). André Borutta explains the advantages of working with a TMC in an interview.

Mr Borutta, you and your company develop process optimisations for customers from different industries and with different
Requirements. The task now was to organise business trips for around 1,000
to optimise the work of employees in a large law firm at various locations. How did this come about?

The large law firm was looking for a business travel agency with an online booking system to optimise the processes for around 1,700 flights and 1,000 hotel bookings per year. Two travel managers at the law firm take care of travel planning for around 500-600 partners. They are not travel experts, but assistants who have a variety of tasks and want to make bookings as quickly as possible. They often have to organise complex trips with worldwide open-jaw flights that are difficult to map using traditional booking systems. So they need a tool that presents the best solution quickly and easily. And if there are problems - whether due to strikes, environmental influences or political unrest - it is essential to have a contact person who can be reached quickly and offers support. It was also important that these processes
run in compliance with data protection regulations. After a thorough needs analysis, we looked around for a partner who could provide both the right IT and the necessary offline service that is so important in everyday life.

And DER BUSINESS Travel won the race?

That's right. The team at DER BUSINESS Travel impressed us not only with their enormous technical expertise via the online booking platform Cytric, but also with their personal and professional advice. In future, our customers will have a team in Berlin that they can contact at any time if they have any questions. There will be no anonymous employees from a foreign call centre, but personal advisors who know the company's requirements inside out. Technical questions will be handled competently by an experienced implementation team at the Frankfurt head office. In addition, DER BT offers specialised support for the online booking engine. This team takes over ongoing customer support after implementation and is available at any time for technical enquiries about Cytric.

How has working with DER BT changed the day-to-day work of the assistants?

The introduction of the new travel management system has significantly changed the day-to-day work of the assistants, as it automates and simplifies the majority of administrative tasks. Instead of working their way through complex booking processes and manual reconciliations, they now have access to a user-friendly interface that quickly shows them the best options for flights, hotels and car hire. The display of cost centres and other accounting-related data on delivery notes and invoices has been customised by DER BT for the customer. This not only saves time, but also reduces the potential for errors.

The direct support provided by the DER BT team in the event of problems or special requirements is also a major advantage. The quick availability and direct support from the service team in Berlin is exceptional and a plus point that sets DER BT apart from its competitors. It relieves the assistants enormously and gives them the certainty that their journeys will run smoothly.

This saves time and therefore money. Can you quantify the economic benefits of working with a TMC?

In our analysis, we compared the opportunity costs with the previously used system. By using the new travel management system, our customer expects to make savings in the upper five-figure range per year. In addition, it is of course crucial that the system is compliant with data protection regulations. It must fit into the structure of the company, especially in a law firm where very sensitive data is processed.
data are processed.

Why is that so important?

Data protection is an essential part of travel planning, especially in highly regulated industries or for companies that work with confidential information. Business trips not only contain personal data such as passport information, travel dates, hotel stays and payment details, but also - as in the case of a law firm - sensitive information about appointments at the client's location. This data is subject to data protection laws such as the GDPR (General Data Protection Regulation).

Working with a specialised TMC such as DER BUSINESS Travel ensures that all relevant data protection regulations are adhered to. This includes encrypted data transmissions, security-checked booking systems and strict access controls to guarantee the confidentiality and integrity of the data.

In addition, DER BUSINESS Travel has extensive experience in implementing data protection policies relevant to international travel and various jurisdictions. Companies can rest assured that their travel data is processed according to the highest security standards.