2023 BTN Group Innovator of the Year
Ground transportation platform provider HQ in October was selected by judges as the Innovator of the Year among 13 contestant companies at The BTN Group’s 10th annual Innovate Conference in New York. HQ offers a global platform with connectivity to local ground transportation suppliers with a layer that integrates corporate preferred suppliers. At Innovate, the company demonstrated its new turnkey model, in which users can tap into HQ’s preferred vendors and rates, without technological integration but also without the travel policy layer. Innovate lead judge Norm Rose, also president of Travel Tech Consulting, noting the spiralling costs of ridesharing and chauffeured transport and the need for heightened management, called HQ’s offering “true travel management, bringing everything together in one place,” in awarding the company the top prize.
BTN managing editor Chris Davis a few weeks after Innovate spoke with HQ chief revenue officer Charity Rumery about the company’s new turnkey option, its approach to the market and its future plans. Edited excerpts follow.
What’s your sense of the current state of the corporate travel market and HQ’s place in it?
Charity Rumery: There’s still a little bit of throttling on travel, and it could be a permanent change because we have adapted to a hybrid [workplace] model. While it’s come back significantly, let’s say 75 percent to 80 percent, maybe that is the new state of normal. That’s why I think it’s so important that we are the best at what we do, so that we can focus very tightly on that.
Your presentation at Innovate included a discussion of HQ’s new plug-and-play option. Can you detail how it differs from the HQ enterprise option?
Rumery: The difference is in the deployment options. When you think about what we’re known for, we do everything from booking to the billing and payment. The turnkey deployment option actually allows you to log in and begin to book transportation and to take rides. That means, by its nature, the set of selections that are there for you was defined by us. You’re leveraging our HQ Connect network. You’re paying upfront for the transaction, and then all of the information will be communicated to you. You’ll get your receipt, you’ll get your confirmation, you’ll know when your driver is dispatched. But it by nature has a very defined deployment methodology.
And there’s no particular integration that you need with any system within the corporation.
Rumery: Exactly. In fact, that’s exactly what we’re trying to alleviate, because once you hit the word “integration,” you start to introduce a series of [information security] reviews. What I actually see transpiring is that people, maybe based on their size of business, will choose to always use the turnkey option and never go deeper. But I think it gives large enterprises an entryway, in that they can start and then in parallel can do the infosec process and begin the integration work.
How does the integration process work with the enterprise solution? I know it’s possible to link with SAP Concur Expense.
Rumery: There are several integrations that can really make an enterprise solution for our customers. One is an employee feed, and once you start to get employee information you have to pass infosec, but it’s a really great integration because all the employee information is there for you. On the back end, there are different expense integrations, and you mentioned SAP Concur is a partner of ours. But we can integrate with whatever expense system you have, as well as duty-of-care systems like International SOS.
There are no particular integrations with travel management companies now, correct?
Rumery: The way that we’re doing it now is that we’re allowing [TMCs] to book through our interface. But we are strategically deciding who will partner with us in that integration area. More will come there, for sure.
“We aren’t trying to build the biggest network. We’re trying to build a solid network with vetted suppliers in the right areas where you need them.”
Let’s talk about the network of suppliers HQ has developed throughout the world. There are so many ground suppliers; how do you go about vetting and choosing who will be part of the network?
Rumery: Given how many there are and the thousands of rides that we’ve processed, we basically come to know them through our customers. When we work with large customers, they will say to us, look, we have a partner that we would love you to meet, and we begin working with them. As we build a relationship, if we see that they are very high-quality—they deliver on their service, they keep and maintain the right insurance levels, they make sure their vehicle fleet is well cared for, their drivers are nicely dressed and treat customers well—that’s when we say to them that we have a broader network that potentially we could partner on. A lot of our customers are Fortune 500 companies. We’ve found that they’re not working with poor suppliers; they’re working with good suppliers.
Once you’ve identified a new supplier, how does the vetting process work?
Rumery: We quarterly conduct a vetting for each vendor to make sure they are staying in compliance. We aren’t trying to build the biggest network. We’re trying to build a solid network with vetted suppliers in the right areas where you need them. It’s been key that we can offer you a few options in the city that you travel to that are quality and vetted.
What sort of technology connections do you have with those suppliers?
Rumery: It’s all live API integration. For some small mom-and-pops, it’s probably harder if they don’t have a technology capability, but we have some partners in the industry now that have platforms for small providers, and we can point them in the right direction so that they can also get on the API-based integration.
HQ charges buyers a transaction fee, but do suppliers pay any commission for being part of your network?
Rumery: No, we do not charge suppliers, and that’s one thing that’s different about us. It’s a very transparent model. You’re paying the transaction fee to us, while the supplier is simply signing up and getting the API integration to process the rides. I think that’s a key piece of why we’ve partnered so closely with suppliers, because we’re not charging them.
HQ can layer policy preferences in the enterprise solution. Generally, what policy restrictions do clients look to implement?
Rumery: Generally, they want to vary the options by the job title or the level in the organization. A managing partner may have a very different type of ride from the airport than a business analyst. They also like to vary it by geography. For example, in South America, it could be policy that you have a secured ride, whereas in North America it would not be.
What can we expect to see from HQ next?
Rumery: I definitely want to make a splash with a few strategic partnerships. That’s something that I would love to see us come to market with, where we are able to extend our services in a meaningful way, leveraging the right partners. And there are some key system improvements I would like to see us continue to do. So you’ll see some additional enhancements from us on the product side next year, but also some additional integrations in the area of strategic partnerships.
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