Microsoft’s manifesto on corporate travel – a not so fast revolution

In 1848, German philosophers Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels wrote The Communist Manifesto to recognize the struggles of class in societies as they related to capitalism.

The book ignited a political and economic revolution that later brought communism to several major countries – and many smaller states - and altered the development of capitalism and socialism in many more.

Fast forward 180 years and Microsoft’s so-called Corporate Travel Innovation Manifesto may well ignite a revolution of its own.

Hopefully, its effects won’t take centuries to evolve. But one suspect it will surely take many years.

Paraphrasing the manifesto, corporate travel is encumbered by:

A three-way battle of wills between those who refuse to believe that change is taking place, those who are evolving somewhat reluctantly, and those who want to overturn those who control the market.

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• legacy technology systems, entrenched intermediaries and lack of transparency
• consumer (leisure) travel experience that has outpaced the corporate experience
• inertia in the corporate space that undermines optimizing fundamental objectives of traveler care, data security, employee productivity and savings
• agencies (and intermediaries) that must ultimately adopt value propositions that optimize traveler experience and productivity, supports business objectives, empowers travel program managers, supports travel service suppliers, and absorbs the responsibility for travel disruption management.

Microsoft’s technology process seems sound:

• turn every business traveler into his or her collective data and then cluster travelers with similar behaviors and preferences
• apply machine learning and artificial intelligence techniques to create personas to tailor the travel programs to the needs of travelers.

While the technology process may be sound, accomplishment will be difficult, given the challenges of corporate travel complexity and the interests of current stakeholders.

An uprising or democratic reality?

From as far back that as I can remember (including several efforts by ATPCO in the 1980s in which I participated to create travel standards), bringing greater efficiency to corporate travel management and execution has been the Holy Grail for intermediaries, travelers and companies.

The Manifesto sets out the issues quite well, but I fear that the chances of massive changes occurring quickly are unlikely.

Here are just a few reasons:

1. The same business traveler can have many personas for the same and/or multiple trips and corporate travel rules can apply differently for the same trip (e.g. an incentive travel persona allows the spouse to attend but not for a typical business trip; all senior executives can’t all fly on the same flight, etc.)
2. Event versus normal business travel can have different hotel and transportation options; for example, event travel is complicated by the opportunity to make group versus individual sets of purchases.  Even small group travel for a meeting involves multiple individuals from the same and/or different companies. Personas, timing and location are critical for all the travelers.
3. Travelers themselves may be motivated to hide travel decisions to optimize loyalty rewards or accommodate leisure components of their business travel. So, transparency in persona sharing may not be embraced by all travelers all the time.
4. Best or lowest price for travel services is always an issue. Business travel is typically booked later and subject to more cancellations and changes than leisure travel.  Event travel is booked further in advance but also subject to cancellations and changes. This makes effective revenue management by travel suppliers more difficult.  Therefore, the opportunity cost of cancellations and changes must somehow be incorporated in negotiated prices and conditions. Adding to the complexity is that software bots and apps that search out lower price options after the fact and may not capture suppliers’ opportunity costs embedded in initial negotiated rate conditions.
5. In some cases, large corporations and big-budget travel individuals insist on free sell agreements, where the traveler will "always be given an airline seat or hotel room" - lack of availability or revenue management notwithstanding. This must somehow be backed into the process.
6. Corporate business codified through negotiated agreements particularly with major chains, car rental firms and airlines (and/or TMCs) are a means to assure bases of business across chain, car rental and airline global networks.  Technology that somehow works against that can add inventory certainty risk at a high level.  This creates a counter incentive for a more fluid corporate travel management process.

Perhaps most importantly, as the Manifesto points out, there are a lot of stakeholders - travelers, TMC staff members, corporate travel managers, and suppliers who have something to lose by giving in to improved technology adoption for the sake of efficiency.

Conclusion

The behaviour of these stakeholders, dragging their improved travel management feet to support adoption, could become an art form and an encumbrance to technology and innovation in the corporate travel management space.

Yet there is a revolution taking place in corporate travel.

Thankfully, it is not one that involves nations going to war, such as those that were fought so bitterly over the ideals of Engels and Marx that were first put on paper in 1848.

But there is certainly a three-way battle of wills between those who refuse to believe that change is taking place, those who are evolving somewhat reluctantly, and those who want to overturn those who control the market.

To borrow a well-known phrase: "The proletarians have nothing to lose but their chains. They have a world to win."