Travel services and meeting management are key components of day-to-day business. They make it possible to maintain business relationships, open up new markets and promote collaboration within teams. At the same time, they present companies with organizational and financial challenges. The costs of travel and meetings are rising and often account for a large proportion of indirect expenditure, while at the same time they are frequently not adequately managed. Consistent management of these commodity groups is crucial to ensure efficiency, employee satisfaction and sustainability in equal measures.  

The organization of business travel is often complex and associated with numerous challenges. Not every company has the respective sub-areas firmly anchored in its organization and managing them professionally. This results in typical challenges: 

• Lack of strategy: Unclear scope of services from internal and external providers (in addition to self-service offerings) and fragmented processing with multiple systems lead to inefficiencies. 
• Compliance with travel policies: High flexibility in booking leads to a mismatch between company requirements and employee preferences and rising costs. 
• Difficult negotiations: The increasing dominance of large airlines and hotel chains limits negotiating power in procurement. Added to this are low cost transparency and high price volatility. 

In order to overcome these challenges, it is necessary to optimize not only the process, but also the entire operating model: Organization, tasks, roles and responsibilities. For example, many companies rely on central booking platforms that bundle all travel options in one place and provide a transparent cost overview. Automated approval processes reduce administrative work and ensure that guidelines are adhered to. Partnerships with travel providers offer companies the opportunity to benefit from special conditions and discounts. In addition, the collection and analysis of KPIs can be used to identify potential savings and optimize future planning. These measures help to increase efficiency, reduce costs and minimize organizational effort. Depending on the maturity of the status quo, significant savings are possible in the area of travel services. On average, we see a potential of 3 to 7 percent. 

Meetings, whether physical or virtual, are an essential part of collaboration within a company. But there are challenges here too: 

• Lack of strategy: Organization of meetings & events is often decentralized by different departments with limited control. 
• Low cost transparency: Spending spread across multiple cost centers and payment methods, hindering sufficient tracking and consolidation of overall spending. 
• Manual and resource-intensive processes: Organizational and financial processes (booking, approvals, invoicing) are often inefficient. 

Effective meeting management requires clear strategies and guidelines. To ensure that these can be implemented, it is advisable to centralize meeting management and assign it to the right place within the company. At the same time, clear guidelines and processes should be established for events (whether digital or physical) in order to align the organizers with clear corporate guidelines. The use of tools or MSPs (Managed Service Providers), meaning outsourcing important process steps to experts, is a good way to do this. The advantage of such a step is higher transparency, as an MSP or tool usually allows better controlling of meetings & events and therefore also of costs. Savings of 4 to 9 percent can be realized through targeted meeting management. 

The future of travel services and meeting management will be characterized by innovation. Artificial intelligence and machine learning will play a central role by enabling personalized recommendations and automated processes. Virtual and hybrid meetings will continue to grow in importance as they combine flexibility and sustainability. At the same time, the integration of sustainability goals into corporate strategy will become increasingly important. Companies that respond to these trends at an early stage can not only increase their efficiency but also enhance their attractiveness as an employer. 

Di Stefano, F. /  Schlünsen, H.