Salesforce's travel strategy—which relies on its Chatter
platform as a continuous communication tool for travelers, tightly integrates
mobile apps and has a high threshold for unorthodox travel plans—has its share
of detractors. But if a travel manager for an innovation-minded, newly minted
Fortune 500 tech company can't experiment with managed travel paradigms, who
can? Stonie's aggressive pursuit of a program that is social, mobile and open
has not only changed travel at Salesforce but also served as an innovation
incubator for the industry.
Salesforce was among the first to incorporate sharing
economy providers into its program. Stonie saw the shifting demand but also
recognized the necessity. Hotel inventory compression in the San Francisco area
practically forced him to accept Airbnb, but rather than tightly managing
exposure, Stonie helped Airbnb finesse its platform to form Airbnb for
Business, along with Airbnb's managed travel dashboard. The dashboard
precipitated a spike in corporate adoption, according to expense report
analysis released by Concur last month.
Stonie also has worked with Uber on its corporate offering. "They've
been great partners for us," he said about his sharing economy ties. "There
isn't a week that goes by that we don't do benchmarking or discussions with
another travel manager about how we address this piece and incorporate
nontraditional suppliers."
Stonie has reimagined the role of all suppliers in the
Salesforce program and works closely with them from a loyalty perspective.
Salesforce's Supplier 360 program encourages preferred suppliers to build
relationships directly with travelers via Chatter. Salesforce also extends
travel program benefits to employees' leisure travel, leveraging that volume
for negotiations. Suppliers view it as an opportunity to gain loyalty with
high-value travel consumers. Stonie is looking to test that consumer-style
relationship further in 2017 as he implements a closed-loop supplier-rating
system for Salesforce travelers, which he also will use to inform his sourcing
strategies.
Stonie, whom BTN named the 2016 Travel Manager of the
Year, admits that new ideas don't always work, but his willingness to be a
first mover has shaped the future of managed travel. Agree with his strategy or
not, it has become a bellwether for the industry.