DVI has made promising strides since fall 2017’s Innovate conference, including increasing its customer base by more than 300 percent and adding more bells and whistles to its Vantage Point data analytics platform, according to DVI president and CEO Brian Beard. Among the improved capabilities, DVI now highlights savings opportunities for managers and tightens the data—reconciling vendor names, for example.
Additionally, Vantage Point, which can import and export data and insert visuals into PowerPoint presentations, now can transmit those visuals through email. At the upcoming Global Business Travel Association conference in August, DVI plans to launch the ability for travel managers to create interactive infographics. For example, a travel manager will be able to develop a one-page infographic showing how an individual or group benchmarked against a goal. Or a travel manager could create infographics to make a one-page business case for a new initiative. “Executives want to see a one-page summary, not drill into a 30-page report,” Beard said.
The company is creating different views of Vantage Point data for different viewers, such as executives, travel managers and procurement professionals. “It’s not necessarily doing anything new, but it’s rearranging the charts to make sense for different people,” Beard explained.
While DVI has expanded its natural language processing capabilities for its Priya chatbot, which can process 500 questions, Beard said it’s still not “ready for prime time.” It would need to be able to answer a minimum of 2,000 questions to be ready, and Beard said that could take another year.