There's an old saying that you don't get fired for buying IBM. But
whoever said that obviously never worked at a small or midsize enterprise,
where people are always ready to toss out the status quo,
especially if there's a more modern, more cost-effective solution on the
horizon. While large companies were still relying on outdated collaboration
tools and on-premise marketing customer relationship management platforms, SMEs
started switching to cheaper, nimbler options like Slack and HubSpot
in droves.
So what area of the business world will SMEs transform next?
For my money, it's corporate travel management. The business travel
industry exhibits all the hallmarks of a target that's ripe for disruption: It's
a massive market, expected to reach $1.7
trillion globally by 2022, that represents a
huge pain point for many companies and is dominated by heavy, expensive
solutions that aren't designed for the specific needs of SMEs.
Large companies may be fine with the status quo,
but SMEs are already starting to buckle under the strain.
Lola recently surveyed more than 1,500 people
responsible for managing employee travel at their companies—small, large and
everything in between—and the answers made one thing abundantly clear: SMEs are
ready to rethink corporate travel. Those managing travel at SMEs are 60 percent
more likely than their counterparts at large companies to say they have the
ability to effect change in their travel policies. SMEs are 50 percent more
likely to give travelers flexibility when they book and 22 percent more likely
to increase their investment in corporate travel management tools in the next
two years.
Taken together, these data points suggest that SMEs are ready to
remake corporate travel in their image: more agile, powered by better tech and
with more SME-friendly pricing models. How is this transformation likely to
play out?
Employee-friendly policies. The standard corporate travel policy was made
with one thing in mind: the business. These policies are designed to keep
employee travel consistent by enforcing uniform guidelines and keeping tight
controls on spending and options. This is all well and good, but it minimizes
an important part of the equation: the preferences and productivity needs of
travelers.
Nothing is more important to the success of SMEs than productive, effective employees, so it's no surprise that companies at this stage are
more likely to create travel programs that take employee preferences into account.
Paying a bit more for direct flights or conveniently located hotels might not
always be possible within the travel policies at large companies, but SMEs will
work hard to make those options available to travelers.
But even flexible guidelines aren't enough. SMEs know that they need
to take steps to keep their employees productive while they're on the road, and
increasingly, this means supporting travelers with agile travel management
technology.
More support. Nothing is more important to SMEs than time, and
this laser focus on efficiency doesn't stop at the home office. SME travelers
need to stay productive even, or especially, while they're on the road.
Navigating airline and hotel phone trees trying to reschedule flights is not
high on their priority lists. Of course, this is similarly true for employees
at large companies, but those organizations are more likely to have a different
set of solutions in place for this problem: a dedicated travel manager, say, or
an outsourced corporate travel agent.
Scrappy SMEs, though, need a more lightweight, budget-friendly
solution, and I expect they increasingly will turn to economical software
solutions that incorporate 24/7 text-based support from live agents. Many SMEs
that can't invest in dedicated travel managers find they can get the same level
of support from software that connects them to shared, trained travel
specialists.
But easy access to cost-effective live agents isn't the only thing SMEs
need from the new wave of corporate travel management software. They need
intuitive tech that makes it easy for them to book, manage and expense travel
without hamstringing their productivity.
Better tech. The surest thing to come is travel software that
travelers actually want to use. As consumer travel tech improves, workers have
become accustomed to intuitive, mobile-friendly tools like Kayak, and they're
starting to expect this level of functionality from the software they use in
their workplace. Institutional inertia may delay large enterprises from
switching to the new generation of travel tools, but SMEs feel the pain more
acutely and typically have fewer organizational hurdles to clear on the road to
procuring new tools.
It's these two facts that make me so confident that SMEs will bring
about the corporate travel management revolution. They're maniacally focused on
enabling employees to work more efficiently and they are early adopters in the
world of business technology.
It's impossible to predict exactly how corporate
travel management will look in 10 years, but there's much more certainty about who
will be driving the changes. SMEs don't have the patience—or inertia—to put up
with clunky, inflexible travel solutions, and it's just a matter of time before
they start taking action. Well, they already are.